In the past two years, Rehka Kharbanda has led engineering and environmental consultancy firm Tonkin +Taylor’s digital transformation.

The biggest aspect to this transformation has been the implementation of Earth Hub - a cloud-based data platform that enables engineers and scientists to design, interpret and consume highly technical information and develop cutting edge analytics and machine learning outcomes.

Traditionally T+T has operated within a project-by-project business model with digital delivery commissioned on an as-needed basis. But it was imperative, says Kharbanda, for T+T to take on a ‘disrupt or be disrupted’ risk appetite to ensure the future sustainability and resilience of its employee-owned organisation. 

Earth Hub came about as part of extensive lobbying to the Executive Leadership and Board to secure significant up-front investment to build a digitally enabled organisation through an ambitious digital strategy.

Earth Hub, which was designed and delivered to the business in partnership with AWS,  was specially designed to bring in highly variable, highly technical and non-standardised  data sources from analogue and third-party datasets into T+T’s data lake. This, according to Kharbanda, will set the foundation of being an AI enabled business.

The groundwork done in platform design for Earth Hub enabled T+T to quickly deliver an integrated and automated emergency disaster response, damage assessment, insurance settlement and recovery solution during the recent Nelson flooding. 

Dr Sjoerd van Ballegooy, Expertise Director of Geotechnical at T+T says: “More than 30,000 person hours of damage assessment work needed to be undertaken before Christmas, despite an industry that already had no capacity to absorb additional work. Rekha worked closely with myself, pivoting her digital team to accelerate the development and completion of a damage assessment solution in less than three weeks to enable smarter ways of working, with an estimated 50% reduction in person hours. More importantly, she has used this opportunity to ensure we create digital datasets that that can be reused for an effective and informed recovery and rebuild in the future.”

In addition, the solution has: 

•  Improved the quality of data collection in the field, reducing double handling of information and reducing time spent on quality assurance
• Speed up delivery timeframes for client reporting and insights, as well as getting families safely back into their homes quicker
• Built the foundations to make T+T’s tools available in the future to inform policy and planning, land use, regulatory and design standards, and setting design performance requirements for new construction projects, as well as predictive asset maintenance and resilience planning.

Starting slow in a digitally immature business

Kharbanda says while the T+T leadership recognised the importance of investing in a digitally enabled business, its digital immaturity meant it did not have the commercial or operating models to take advantage of the value digital transformation can bring. This maturity needed to be built with a ‘start slow to speed up’ approach to influencing and delivery.

To do this, significant effort was required to educate, influence and inspire both the executive team and board over the past two years. Kharbanda says it was important to focus on the business and market context rather than the technology context. She put time and effort into delivering individual and group meetings, workshops and documentation to:

• Build up the executive and Board’s knowledge around the macro digital and infrastructure environment
• Highlight what digital possibilities were out there for its disciplines and sectors
• Problem-solve how we could practically implement step-changes within the existing business model to set themselves up for successful digital delivery.

“I started my journey with T+T as a strategic digital leader, but through the process of constant communication, education and relationship-building, I built up the trust and understanding at the C-suite and Board level for my role to be promoted to an executive position. This also led to ‘digital approach to bring our expertise to the market’ being endorsed as one of the three primary strategic drivers for the business until at least 2025,” says Kharbanda.

She also looked outside the organisation and brought in expertise and direction of leaders in the digital and technology industries to guide and advise best practice.

This has included setting up a monthly ‘Shark Tank’ style advisory group, bringing four respected external industry professionals to test their thinking, advise the Board and bring a fresh perspective to the industry.

Dr Tim Fisher, Managing Director of T+T Group says: “Rekha is an absolute rocket; setting a vision and launching Tonkin + Taylor into a digital world. She has piloted that vision with passion and has attracted incredible new talent as well as building strategic allies across the business. She has learnt what works best in our very traditional business and industry, adjusting strategic course to navigate new ways of working and opportunities along the way.”