How One of Australia’s Largest Construction Materials Providers Uses Shibumi to Create Sustainable Transformation
In the face of economic uncertainty, this company saved $100M in recurring costs
Company Name:
Construction Materials Company
Industry:
Construction Materials
Location:
Australia
Company Size:
$2.7B in annual revenue
Use Cases:
- Strategic Portfolio Management
Business Impact:
- Millions in savings
- Access to real-time data
- More initiatives launched
Customer Overview
This progressive building and construction materials supplier is one of the largest in Australia, with 9,000 employees and contractors overseeing more than 350 different distribution sites. A market leader in quarries, cement, concrete, and asphalt, the company is pursuing a decarbonization strategy and transitioning to 100% renewable electricity.
Goal
Cut Recurring Costs in the Face of Economic Headwinds
A leading construction materials company knew it was facing headwinds in 2021 due to supply chain issues and inflationary pressures. Exacerbated by the pandemic, its margins were getting squeezed and its costs were unsustainably high.
The company’s leadership decided to engage LEK Consulting to help it design and execute a wide-ranging Transformation program, with the goal of zeroing in on savings from recurring costs like real estate, technologies, business processes, and human resources. They also knew they would need a robust and flexible platform for tracking and managing Transformation initiatives—and that disparate tools and documents such as spreadsheets wouldn’t be up to the task.
Solution
Implement a Transformation Program Underpinned by Shibumi
At the start of the engagement in July 2021, the LEK and Shibumi teams implemented the LEK Catalyst application it had previously built on the Shibumi platform, quickly tailoring it to meet the specific needs of the construction materials company’s business.
The company’s employees are now using Shibumi to execute, track and manage 1,990 initiatives across their end-to-end lifecycle to support the broader Transformation program. This ranges from individual contributors, who own specific projects and initiatives and collaborate cross-functionally to update tasks, activities, and milestones, all the way up to C-level executives, who consume automated dashboards, reports and presentations with live data piped in from across the Shibumi platform. Shibumi ultimately enables all employees to collaborate around a single source of truth for managing the execution of the Transformation program and tracking its results.
Now that LEK’s engagement has wrapped up, the company is continuing to use Shibumi and has further tailored the application for its unique requirements. Specifically, Shibumi workflows were configured to match the company’s internal business processes, and all the now-automated reporting and analytics were tailored to meet the bespoke needs of the company’s management and executive team.
“Without Shibumi, we wouldn’t have the Transformation results we’ve had this year in a very tough market.”
THE COMPANY’S TRANSFORMATION EXECUTIVE
This has made Shibumi increasingly indispensable—to the point that executives at board meetings and CXO SteerCo meetings now directly leverage the dashboards and presentations hosted in Shibumi instead of external reports and PowerPoint presentations. Shibumi provides report stakeholders with valid and up-to-date reports and analytics.
“If it’s not in Shibumi, you can’t be sure that it’s real,” the company’s Transformation executive said.
Results
$100M in Recurring Cost Savings Across ~2K Initiatives
A year into running its Transformation program on Shibumi, the construction materials company has driven $100 million in gross in-year recurring benefits across 1,990 initiatives and 200 corporate users.
“Through project- and portfolio-level tracking and improving transparency and governance with data and insights, Shibumi helped us meet our objectives,” the company’s Transformation executive said. “Without Shibumi, we wouldn’t have the Transformation results we’ve had this year in a very tough market.”
