Strategy and insight roads at night; Strategy and insight roads at night;
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Strategy and insights

We help your organisation understand its markets, develop new strategies and navigate change.

Josef Hargrave

Josef Hargrave

Global Foresight Leader
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We help your organisation understand its markets, develop new strategies and navigate change.

Strategy and insights
On this page
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Modern organisations face complex questions. Are we investing in the right talent and assets? Are we capturing the opportunities brought about by technological change? How can we become more resilient and sustainable? Pandemics, climate change and global interdependencies are adding to the inherent challenges of running and growing successful organisations, and to maintaining successful infrastructure and economies. Our Advisory Services team works with you to bring new clarity to your situation, co-creating a strategy that will allow you to travel along a sure path.

Our work gives you the space to breathe, take a step back and make decisions that will take your organisation, your asset, or your economy forward.

How we work with you

We offer three levels of insight and expertise.

1. Foresight

Foresight offers a chance to explore the trends already reshaping your market and to use research to identify what lies ahead. Our Foresight team is a think tank for the built environment sector, able to thread multiple factors together to plot out complex future scenarios that can inform your immediate actions.

Find out more about our Foresight service

Latest Foresight publications

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2. Client specific strategy

We deepen our understanding of your organisation and its context, before co-creating unique programmes of actions, investments, organisational or cultural change that will advance your position. We specialise in engagements that revolutionise the built and natural environment, from crafting pathways to net zero carbon to formulating inclusive economic development strategies, from quantifying the green jobs uplift of policies to developing technology roadmaps.

3. Implementation

We can bring insights to a project’s implementation, tightening the premise and supporting evidence for a given project, go-to-market strategy or investment/financing activity. As every organisation recalibrates in response to dominant global trends like digital transformation or climate change, we help translate these high-level pressures into a robust and credible plan of action, for C-suite leaders, investors, partners and regulators. In essence: we develop insights that will justify your investment in change.

Strategies in action

The best way to understand the breadth and value of our service, is to see how widely it can be applied:

Nationwide R&D strategy
Energy transition
Entering new markets
Logistics strategy
Redefine strategic plans

Define a nationwide research and development strategy

We’ve been helping the government of Singapore to define its 2020-25 research masterplan, coordinating a strategy across multiple ministries, addressing priorities like water, transport, buildings, climate risk and mitigation, and the ‘live-ability’ of the city-state. Our research masterplan will guide $25bn of investment toward shaping a greener, more prosperous future for the country.

Making an energy transition

In many parts of the world, energy transition is intimately connected to other economic development outcomes. We have helped the island nation of Tonga make the switch away from a predominantly diesel-based energy network. Given the country’s isolation and how much of its economy and society is dependent on its one energy source, this challenge required a thoughtful strategy.

Find out more about our work

Strategy for entering a new market

We worked with major European utility Vattenfall, advising its leaders on how they might enter the UK independent electricity connections market. Arup worked closely with the client on all aspects of becoming an ‘iDNO’ (independent Distribution Network Operator), including identifying their market, developing the business and financial model, and advising on how they will run their operations. Our integrated offering of technical, commercial and regulatory advisory is helping them to enter an unfamiliar market.

Rethink your logistics strategy

Logistics is one of the most innovation and performance-driven sectors of the world economy, one that must respond nimbly to rapidly changing consumer and client demands. We’ve been delivering a programme of research and workshops for Hongkong Post, helping them to explore the future of mail and parcel logistics, including their airmail centre at Hong Kong International Airport.

Redefining DC Water's strategic plan

Arup is currently working with DC Water, the utility servicing the nation’s capital, to redefine their five-year strategic plan. Working with leaders and staff throughout the whole organisation, Arup has facilitated a series of virtual workshops to explore conduct horizon scanning, to better understand their value chain and future strategic direction. We’ve also benchmarked their operations against models such as our own City Water Resilience Index and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. The new strategy will equip DC Water with a vision for the future and a renewed focus on equity, sustainability and resilience.

Discover the City Resilience Index

Nationwide R&D strategy

Define a nationwide research and development strategy

We’ve been helping the government of Singapore to define its 2020-25 research masterplan, coordinating a strategy across multiple ministries, addressing priorities like water, transport, buildings, climate risk and mitigation, and the ‘live-ability’ of the city-state. Our research masterplan will guide $25bn of investment toward shaping a greener, more prosperous future for the country.

Energy transition

Making an energy transition

In many parts of the world, energy transition is intimately connected to other economic development outcomes. We have helped the island nation of Tonga make the switch away from a predominantly diesel-based energy network. Given the country’s isolation and how much of its economy and society is dependent on its one energy source, this challenge required a thoughtful strategy.

Find out more about our work

Entering new markets

Strategy for entering a new market

We worked with major European utility Vattenfall, advising its leaders on how they might enter the UK independent electricity connections market. Arup worked closely with the client on all aspects of becoming an ‘iDNO’ (independent Distribution Network Operator), including identifying their market, developing the business and financial model, and advising on how they will run their operations. Our integrated offering of technical, commercial and regulatory advisory is helping them to enter an unfamiliar market.

Logistics strategy

Rethink your logistics strategy

Logistics is one of the most innovation and performance-driven sectors of the world economy, one that must respond nimbly to rapidly changing consumer and client demands. We’ve been delivering a programme of research and workshops for Hongkong Post, helping them to explore the future of mail and parcel logistics, including their airmail centre at Hong Kong International Airport.

Redefine strategic plans

Redefining DC Water's strategic plan

Arup is currently working with DC Water, the utility servicing the nation’s capital, to redefine their five-year strategic plan. Working with leaders and staff throughout the whole organisation, Arup has facilitated a series of virtual workshops to explore conduct horizon scanning, to better understand their value chain and future strategic direction. We’ve also benchmarked their operations against models such as our own City Water Resilience Index and the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals. The new strategy will equip DC Water with a vision for the future and a renewed focus on equity, sustainability and resilience.

Discover the City Resilience Index

Making business sustainable

The sustainable development agenda is a growing factor for all organisations, whether it’s understanding how to move to more sustainable use of resources, gaining value from waste through circular economy practices, decarbonising operations and embedding other climate change mitigations or many other related priorities. We can help you, combining business strategy with the deep technical knowledge required to model and define your response to sustainable development risks and opportunities.

Learn more about our Sustainable Development Advisory services

Discover how our team can help

You can access our Advisory Services through regional consultants around the world. Wherever you’re based, we can help you look beyond your sector to explore new sources of inspiration and identify opportunities for growth.

Josef Hargrave
Brice Richard
Brendan Tangney
Filippo Gaddo
New York at night New York at night

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