Nipa Basu
Global Practice Director, Digital Intelligence, GHD Digital
Alison Carden
North American Practice Director, Digital Citizen Experience, GHD Digital
Data is often the key to making smart and effective decisions for projects. But understanding all the data available can be difficult for many organizations. It’s about knowing the right data points to make the most effective decisions.
“Clients need actionable insights from their data. Recent advances in data science and digital technology enable us to draw accurate and relevant conclusions,” says Nipa Basu, Global Practice Director, Digital Intelligence, GHD Digital. “We can collect and digitize data, potentially build or customize an existing platform to optimize resource allocation, track and mitigate cost overruns, and even calculate and predict ROI accurately. It’s about insight-based decision making and benefiting from the correct decisions.”
It’s about insight-based decision making and benefiting from the correct decisions.
Through business and location intelligence, for example, GHD Digital can create city-wide visualizations, conceptualize zoning and land use updates, and assess the impact of new infrastructure projects. Using scenario analyses or predictive cost modelling, budgets can be built with fewer uncertainties. Project teams might also be able to construct their assets digitally using Building Information Modelling (BIM) and other tools to understand specific components. With each data-driven insight, infrastructure cost prediction improves throughout the entire lifecycle.
Finally, communicating with impacted communities is a crucial part of any infrastructure project but is often overlooked. Citizens expect the same level of service they receive from other industries and infrastructure project owners need to find new ways to connect with their communities.
GHD Digital’s Digital Citizen Experience team works with municipalities, police and private sector clients to build digital communication channels and help connect them with their stakeholders, save money, and ultimately be more effective in their operations. GHD Digital recently worked with a large Southeastern Ontario municipality to completely rethink how they make city services available to citizens. Through a customer service portal, they can now offer all their services online while also understanding how citizens engage and interact with municipal-led projects on a completely new scale.
“Adopting a digital-first mindset, leveraging data to provide actionable insights and putting the citizen experience first will make a huge difference to Canada’s infrastructure,” says Ali Carden, North American Practice Director, Digital Citizen Experience, GHD Digital. “We can use digital technologies to completely reinvent how we understand important projects, big or small.”
