Digital and human innovation

We have made progress on embedding our digital capabilities throughout our business, enabling us to leverage them externally for client delivery as well as internally to improve efficiency.

Digital products, digital innovation

Arcadis has a diverse portfolio of digital products. Some, such as Enterprise Decision Analytics (EDA) and Arcadis Enterprise Asset Management (EAM) Core, are tools that can be used across a variety of sectors – including by clients in the water, energy, transport and property industries. Others, such as Bridge Health and CurbIQ, are designed for a specific but critical purpose – whether that’s helping infrastructure owners to ensure safe and long-lasting bridges through AI-enhanced predictive maintenance, or helping cities to understand how their curb sides are currently being utilized.

We also have products to support clients in their sustainability journey, such as Net Zero Catalyst, which helps clients prioritize and act on their sustainability goals, and Climate Risk Nexus, which enables long-term resilience planning by modeling climate impacts on infrastructure. Thanks to our digital products and innovations, Fast Company highlighted Arcadis as one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies of 2024.

In several of our major project wins in 2024, the way we embedded our digital products and advisory services as part of our proposal was critical to our success – whether in the Fraser River tunnel bid, or in our multi-year contract with Heineken to facilitate the company’s net zero journey. Overall, we are increasingly able to embed our digital offerings within our go-to-market approach by demonstrating compelling use cases and showcasing how we can tackle clients’ challenges using our digital capabilities. We also began to look at our portfolio more holistically over the course of 2024. This involved considering which products have the most potential, how to capitalize on that potential, and how we can further innovate to meet evolving client needs.

In 2024 we also made the strategic decision to bring our Intelligence GBA closer to our Growth organization, with our Chief Growth Officer (CGO) now taking the role of Global President for Growth, Digital Intelligence and Advisory. This will reinforce our efforts to embed human and digital innovation across the business and in our client offerings, including via our strong portfolio of digital products. Our internal Growth organization and Intelligence GBA is now working even more closely with colleagues in our Mobility, Places and Resilience GBAs to identify opportunities for collaboration.

Using digital tools in asset management

Across all our GBAs, we have increased our focus on supporting clients in managing their assets sustainably, including via deployment of digital solutions. Owners and managers of critical infrastructure – railways, water systems, bridges, power grids, buildings and more – are seeking to improve the user experience, maximize efficiency, and get the most out of assets across their lifecycles. At the same time, they seek to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and negative environmental impacts. By investing in our digital tools such as Bridge Health and Intelligent Asset Insights, we are further expanding our work in asset management and supporting clients with their operational expenditure (OpEx) over the course of multi-year contracts, unlocking sustainable revenue streams for our business.

Leveraging automation and AI

We are constantly considering opportunities to harness digital capabilities in ways that will improve the efficiency of our operations and, directly or indirectly, contribute value to our clients. We have now successfully automated some of our more standardized design tasks: for example, we can create an initial design for a substation through an automated process and then tailor that design to meet local requirements. This new way of working has proven to be cost-effective for us and our clients.

In 2024 a select group of Arcadians began testing our in-house generative AI, ArcadisGPT. We are excited by the potential of AI both to create internal efficiencies and assist with external delivery. We are also looking at streamlining and automating several of the activities our support functions perform. By using bots and other digital tools we are able to be more efficient and enable our people to focus on activities that contribute most value to clients.