Jacobs gearing up for ‘Total Place’ contracts spanning a range of public services

Jon Judah, director, Jacobs Consultancy, told LTT: “We see the Total Place initiative as an opportunity. Our traditional market in supplying services is diminishing, so we have to go up the food chain to provide strategic planning and management.”

Judah said he is part of a “think-tank” within Jacobs considering how the firm can grow in the future. The company currently provides technical consultancy and project management.

He views the Total Place initiative, which incorporates the Total Capital approach to investment, as the way the public sector can do “more for less”.

“We want to position ourselves as a company that can provide a Total Place offer, making some strategic acquisitions so we can not only provide or manage services, but can facilitate a public sector governance function.”

Judah says that currently the Total Place project entails having partnerships where police authorities, health authorities, local authorities and others have to reach agreement on aligning or pooling funding. “We need a combined governance for an area covering all these different sectors, or we’ll have different structures competing with each other.”

He acknowledges, however, that it would require enabling legislation to allow structural change.

For the public sector, it would mean “big wins” through integrated management of assets such as fleets and buildings, through a common IT system, and sharing back office functions. Judah will take a business plan and project plan to the board of Jacobs in order to seek approval for the changes.

Jacobs would need to acquire experience in providing shared services to augment its existing capabilities.

Judah acknowledges that there would be a risk in the move. But the potential prize, he says, is that Jacobs could become “one of the most successful companies in the sector, alongside the Sercos, the Capitas”.