Introducing Strategy to Street

It’s time to understand the implications of targeted attacks against critical utilities and infrastructure and take action. Boards and senior leaders are responsible for protecting New Zealand communities and must act intentionally to safeguard our places, spaces and people. For leaders unsure of their cyber risks and vulnerabilities, now is the time to ask questions.

The next five years will see New Zealand’s water industry fundamentally change in the way it operates. The growing regulatory focus on large infrastructure is set to drive the next wave of cybersecurity changes. With Australia leading the way in operation technology cybersecurity, strengthened guidelines or legislation updates are likely on New Zealand’s periphery.

If we consider the Australian journey as an example, the four-year gap between the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act 2018 and the Security Legislation Amendment (Critical Infrastructure Protection) Act 2022 gave Australian organisations time to step-up. And today, the risk management practices of critical infrastructure providers in Australia have never been stricter. The time is now for New Zealand to prepare for the equivalent and review risks before it becomes a mandated requirement.

While this white paper takes a global lens, it remains relevant to New Zealand’s evolving cyber landscape. We anticipate radical shifts, including regulations and heightened public scrutiny, which demands new approaches and solutions. Among the myriad of risks is the shift of SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems to virtualised web-based platforms, introducing the inherent risk of technology change.

Although New Zealand has made progress in its cyber maturity, work remains and must happen soon. Leaders must put the risks and vulnerabilities under a microscope and cybersecurity must be holistically integrated into operation strategy and company ethos.

Our clients have told us they struggle to connect high-level policy and strategic vision with the reality of network planning and project delivery. Together, we have explored this challenge and identified four key barriers: 

• The delay, cancellation or watering down of projects resulting in a misalignment with overall strategic direction. 

• A loss of community and key stakeholders trust in project delivery, causing resistance to change and decision-making inertia. 

• Competition between transport modes and infrastructure requirements for road space allocation.

• Internal agency structures that do not support an integrated approach with land use planning and economic growth.

In response, we are developing a strategic planning approach that will inform everyday decision-making and seamlessly integrate with operational activity. We call this approach ‘Strategy to Street’. Strategy to Street embeds network planning into the wider infrastructure planning, funding and delivery process. 

This strategic networked approach enhances stakeholder collaboration, community understanding and guides decision-making, helping to prioritise network investment and establish a clear path forward.  By creating a transparent, strategically aligned view of urban land use and multi-modal transport aspirations, we can better meet community expectations and navigate challenges – such as unplanned growth and competing or conflicting projects – while realising development opportunities. Ultimately, our Strategy to Street approach enable our clients to realise a true ‘strategy to street’ outcome.

Strategy to Street is scalable and nimble enough to allow for the unique needs of every community. Inherently flexible, it is designed to enable collaboration between disciplines and remain agile to changing inputs, assumptions and scenarios. It can also be applied at different scales and in different locales around the globe – from smaller networks and precincts to large cities. In this way, Strategy to Street disrupts traditional methodologies and seeks to evolve how we evaluate network performance. We call this ‘big city planning for small-city budgets’. It’s our way of helping clients deliver optimal value to the community by minimising planning expenditure.

Through meaningful collaboration with our clients and their stakeholders, Strategy to Street can be leveraged to establish a common network vision. In doing so, our approach helps clients better evaluate trade-offs; ease the transition of projects and programs from strategy through to delivery; bring together different disciplines and perspectives early on; and establish relationships built on trust. This in turn bolsters decision making uncertainty, creating pathways to tackle the big challenges our communities face. Ultimately, Strategy to Street supports our clients to deliver urban transformation and thriving transport networks for better connected communities.