The 10 most innovative professional services firms

This enables our trained operators to perform checks against the applicable regulatory frameworks, and provide users with an efficient approach to assessments on issues such as determining evidence of service and the quality or relevance of that advice.

Thus, Deloitte Cube allows remediation programs to be executed faster, allowing money to go back into the relevant customers’ pockets quickly. It also allows banks to complete their programs of work, move on and start focusing on building trust as well as better and more suitable products for consumers.

The underlining technology is not a world first, but the way it has been applied to the problem space within the Australian market is.

Winner of Best Overall Innovation, Best Professional Services Innovation and Most Innovative Professional Services Organisation.

2. Veritas Group

Innovation: Veritas Agent app
Number of employees: 32

The Veritas Agent app is an aviation industry first that allows the end-to-end digitisation of the Aviation Security Identification Card (ASIC) application process, making it quick, effortless and cyber-safe.

The mobile technology shifts the requirement of employees to lodge applications offsite. The employer becomes a qualified agent of Veritas and is guided through the lodgement and verification processing using our app to capture ID via the built-in camera, collect signatures via the tablet screen, and taking of a passport photo.

The applicant’s ID never leaves their sight. The data is securely transferred by the app to our cloud-based servers for further processing and submission to the background checking agencies.

The Veritas Agent app complements our agent desktop portal, which provides organisations with a compliance tool to manage and control the status of their ASIC applications and approved cards.

With automated renewal reminders, there’s no need for companies to manually track each staff member’s background check status.

3. Nova Systems

Innovation: Nova Digital Twin
Number of employees: 397

The Nova Digital Twin is a set of computer models that combine to act like a virtual copy of the entire operation. It uses data collected from the real equipment to mimic the behaviour of the actual operation.

By predicting behaviours and outcomes, the Nova Digital Twin can show what is happening in the real world now, in the past, and even in the future.

It makes it possible to change variables to see what could happen, without putting people or equipment at risk. It can flag emerging problems that may not be picked up by existing monitoring equipment and enables testing of solutions without disrupting operations.

4. Aurecon

Innovation: OpenGATE AutoDraw
Number of employees: 7500

We returned engineering time to the infrastructure design process via software automation in the building information modelling (BIM) environment.

By gaining early buy-in from key technical people in project delivery and building on their substantial knowledge and experience, we mapped the process that captured information exchanges and automated it.

Building custom extensions to our BIM tool, Autodesk software, we developed a bespoke system to support drawing automation directly from the database.

Our computational design team created a new code to run/create automated 3D models, then did a similar thing for drawing production. What we created is fit for the immediate purposes of the project but flexible enough to adapt to other BIM-based infrastructure design projects.

Our innovation allows drawings to be created automatically and frees up engineers to do what they do best – design infrastructure.

5. CompliSpace

Innovation: P-LAR framework to deliver policy to culture
Number of employees: 98

We take a comprehensive and best practice compliance program and apply our P-LAR framework to it to ensure that requirements are known, understood, actioned and reportable.

P-LAR includes four essential components:

1. Policy: know what’s required. We provide key policies tailored to a school’s circumstances that cover who, how, when, what and why of each policy.
2. Learning: understand what’s required. We provide associated learning and development to help school staff understand the policies.
3. Assurance: do what’s required. We provide an assurance workflow management tool and content to ensure key elements of an organisation’s policies “come to life”.
4. Reporting: prove (and improve) compliance. The final part of the process is to provide high-quality reporting, for the board, executive and at an operational level. Reporting enables enhanced decision-making and sets the platform for continuous improvement within a school. P-LAR brings policies to life – from words on a page to understanding, action and ownership. We call this transformation “policy to culture.”

6. Allens

Innovation: SmartCompile
Number of employees: 1211

SmartCompile was developed by Allens to extract and summarise publicly available company information and populate that information into the company schedule section of our due diligence reports.

SmartCompile scans and retrieves the information provided to us in PDF from external websites; breaks the data down into a structured format; automatically populates into a schedule in our corporate style and/or is saved into a collaboration site; can produce a number of different outputs to suit the use cases our different practice areas.

SmartCompile reduces the time and cost associated with the preparation of company information, and increases the accuracy of the tables generated. This has allowed our lawyers to focus on higher value tasks on the matter.

7. Resonate Holdings

Innovation: AuralEyes
Number of employees: 40

AuralEyes simulates the audio levels and sound character predicted for a project (either during project construction and post implementation) as anticipated by the engineers.

We use headphones to deliver the various sound characteristics anticipated in conjunction with a visual animation or presentation of the noise- generating activity, in the case of a freeway.

8. Flight Centre Group

Innovation: Savi online booking tool
Number of employees: 1150

Savi is an exclusive online booking tool that has been developed by Flight Centre Travel Group (FCTG) in conjunction with the company’s technology partner, Serko.

It is available exclusively for corporate customers of FCTG and includes rich content, unique user modules and exclusive functionality that can’t be found elsewhere in the market.

Savi’s exclusive functionality includes:

• Savi Credits, a market-leading tickets-on-hold functionality that ensures air tickets on hold are flagged for usage to appropriate users based on past traveller or travel booker behaviour.
• Exclusive persona-driven modules including Savi Select for travel bookers, streamlining travel requests, quotes and interactions between travel bookers and their travellers.
• Savi Voice, a specially designed module that gathers information via a two-way interaction between Savi and the user through a "crowdsourcing" technique.

Savi uses AI and machine learning to dramatically reduce booking times.

9. Accenture

Innovation: Accenture inclusion & diversity virtual reality behaviour change program
Number of employees: 5000

We created an immersive and interactive program that uses virtual reality (VR) technology to understand the breadth of unconscious bias. It simulates scenarios so that individuals can understand and have compassion for others; gain awareness of their bias, especially in professional environments; and embrace the benefits of diverse thinking and people.

Using a VR headset, the participants deep dive into someone’s possible thinking/perspectives during a conversation. Scenarios are based on interviews with Accenture staff.

In one scenario, the first perspective is from a person who identifies as LGBTQI, and the second is from a person who doesn’t identify as LGBTQI. This enables participants to experience both perspectives and see the impact on people’s thoughts and feelings as the scenario plays out.

Participants are able to develop self-awareness about any biases they may hold in a non-judgmental way. Experiencing the perspective of others is designed to help participants reflect on their behaviour and think about how that can be modified to more effectively lead and take part in diverse teams. Participants can then access other resources internally on how to be more inclusive in the workplace.

Winner of Best Professional Services Innovation Program.

10. Gilbert + Tobin

Innovation: G+T Innovate
Number of employees: 750

G+T Innovate helps with the design and execution of process change, capability development, technology implementation, and development and configuration of technology solutions.

Our goal is to empower clients with the latest actionable insights in legal innovation. G+T Innovate integrates proven innovation frameworks (technical and non-technical) with existing internal capabilities (legal service delivery and operations), into a holistic end-to-end service that brings about transformative change focused on the way in which in-house teams work.

Our services integrate and include: corporate legal strategy and change management, legal technology advisory/delivery, legal project management, capability development, and design thinking and process improvements.

The strength of G+T Innovate is its ability to draw on a broad range of practical operational experience, methodologies and technologies across our LSI and legal teams – it is a multi-disciplinary approach that is co-ordinated on a bespoke basis for each client.