Case studies / Broadspectrum
Ferrovial (Broadspectrum) · Mining services — Chile
Rebuilding contract profitability visibility across 20 mining-service contracts
Broadspectrum’s Chilean mining-services business was losing money across 20 contracts for seven mining clients, and its accounts could not show which contract, or which part of one, produced the loss. The fix had two parts: splitting each contract into four components inside the ERP, and a monthly review routine that changed how the company worked. The month-end close went from three days to one hour.
Headline figures
- Basis
- Across seven mining clients, six of them world-class
- Basis
- Three days to one hour, measured on the accounting close cycle
- Basis
- Solution built internally instead of procured
- Frame
- Avoided replacement cost, not a cash saving.
- Basis
- 2014 to 2016
- Frame
- Company-level outcome delivered by the whole organisation. The management-control workstream supported it.
The starting point
Broadspectrum, formerly Transfield Services, was an Australian infrastructure and industrial services group operating in Australia, the United States, Canada and Chile, with publicly reported revenue of A$3.8 billion and more than 25,000 employees in FY2015. Ferrovial acquired it in 2016. The Chilean business served the mining sector.
By 2014 the Chilean operation was running at a sustained loss. It managed 20 service contracts for seven mining clients, six of them world-class operators. The ERP — the central accounting and operations system — held the accounting record, but the contracts were run from static Excel exports with no live connection, out of date as soon as they were produced.
Contract managers received their results weeks after the period they covered, and only at whole-contract level: enough to show a contract was underperforming, not which part of it. Budgets were set once and not re-forecast during the year.
The culture was defensive. Area heads and contract managers protected themselves against accusations of poor performance, bad results were justified rather than examined, and nobody mediated between departments that each worked from their own figures. Decisions came after the fact and were often aimed at the wrong cost.
Diagnosis
Faster reporting would not have helped: the single figure per contract blended components that behave differently, producing swings nobody could explain.
Each contract blended four components: the base service (the fixed recurring scope — the stable line of revenue and cost), additional services (extraordinary work at variable margin), contract bonuses (client payments to site personnel that pass through both revenue and cost with a near-zero net effect — blended with the base, they artificially flatten the margin) and investments (start-up and close-out costs that load whole periods). The result: losses at the start from mobilisation, inflated profits mid-contract, and thinner margins at the end.
The solution was implemented inside the ERP: each contract was split into cost sub-codes, one per component. Every component got its own revenue, costs and margin, comparable against budget and forecast, with a named owner.
Mandate and scope
- Reporting lineCFO and CEO
- Mandate originThe requirement came from the CFO, who saw that the consolidated picture was “contaminated” — components with different economics blended into one figure. Turning that reading into an architecture, an information model and a working routine was my remit.
- OwnedContract-level financial architecture and the information model behind it; the ERP–SQL–Excel integration; forecasting and budgeting method; the monthly review routine.
- Worked withFinance, Operations, Supply Chain, HR and IT. The redesign only held because the areas adopted a shared set of figures.
- Not ownedCommercial negotiation of the contracts, and operational execution on site.
The operating model
Implementation
Before
- Manual data entry — every change made one record at a time
- Static Excel exports: frozen data, no ERP connection, each change means a new export
- Financial statements assembled by hand, with limited detail below contract level
- No contract-level review meetings; managers had no feedback loop on their own numbers
After
- Validated Excel tables integrated into the ERP database — change and adjustment cycle ≈20× faster
- Direct database query into Excel and Power Pivot — report refresh ≈10× faster
- Every figure traceable to transaction level by contract, with actual, forecast and budget in a single view
- Monthly review cycle: 20 contract managers in two days
I designed simple, standardised templates so every contract manager could build their budget and forecast at the same component-level detail. There was resistance: the closing meetings were initially seen as an inquisition. Backed by the CEO and Finance, we ran hands-on sessions — P&L structure, accruals, why the components must be separated — and control turned into collaboration.
To scale without friction, ERP loading moved to bulk journal entries from Excel templates validated before each load, and macros converted the spreadsheets of the 20-plus contract managers into normalised, model-ready tables. A weekly and monthly closing calendar fixed owners and deadlines.
The visibility exposed costs nobody had seen. One example: expensive equipment was rented days before a project started and nobody was responsible for returning it at the end — a coordination gap between Supply Chain and Operations, fixed by assigning that responsibility. Optimisations were then worked across all areas with Lean and Six Sigma methods, putting the company result above any single area’s.
The environment turned in about six months: from justifying results to reviewing them over the same figures. The change was institutionalised — the company created a new business development and improvement department to sustain continuous improvement — and the way the areas worked together outlasted my time there.
Results
| Measure | Before | After | Basis of measurement | Result |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Month-end close | 3 days | 1 hour | Accounting close cycle across 20 contracts, subject to annual external audit | −99% |
| Report refresh | Manual re-export | Query refresh | Report refresh time, internally measured — database query into Excel / Power Pivot | ≈10× |
| Changes and adjustments | One record at a time | Batch, validated | Adjustment cycle, internally measured — integration of validated tables into the ERP database | ≈20× |
| Contract review cycle | No routine | 20 managers in 2 days | Monthly review with contract managers | 20 / 2d |
| External development | Procurement path | Built internally | Avoided external development and software cost — not a cash saving | ~€100K |
| Company result | Sustained losses | Profitability | Company-level outcome over 2014–2016, delivered by the whole organisation; the management-control workstream supported it | 24 mo. |
“Broadspectrum wishes to recognise your willingness to embrace change, your ability to seek new ways of carrying out tasks, the integrity with which you perform your duties, and your readiness to work as part of a team — which together reflect that you live the values of our organisation in each of your actions.”
The letter is dated May 2016, the period in which the operation returned to profitability and Ferrovial completed its acquisition of Broadspectrum. It wishes him success in his new duties. The document itself is not reproduced here.
“Guillermo demonstrated outstanding performance and command of data analysis and budget control. He did not stop at structuring reports and defining KPIs: he had the critical ability to turn large volumes of data into strategic information for management decision-making. He was able to detect deviations early, which made it possible to optimise the company’s processes. He is analytical, detail-oriented and responsible. I am confident that his professional rigour and strategic vision will be an asset of great value to any organisation.”
What I carry forward
- Cultural change is the hardest part — and the decisive one. Soft skills weigh more than technique: the turn is won by cooperating and training, not punishing.
- Without explicit executive backing there is no turn. The CEO’s and CFO’s mandate signalled to the whole organisation that the project was serious.
- The bridge between business and IT is a role in itself. Whoever requests the change must understand every department’s processes and speak IT’s language; otherwise the solution ends up optimised for whoever builds it, not for the operation.
- The monthly forecast is an improvement framework, not a form. Comparing each month’s expected result under optimal conditions against the actual one is what surfaces better practices and sustains control.
- The system is what enables the change of mindset. Without fast, detailed, easy-to-update results, the new routine would not have survived the initial resistance.
Scope and measurement note
Figures reflect internally measured operational and financial reporting cycles during 2014–2016. The ~€100,000 refers to external development and software cost avoided by building the solution internally; it is not presented as a cash saving. The return to profitability was a company-level outcome delivered by the whole organisation — the management-control workstream described here supported it. Contract identifiers and client names are omitted.
Fundación Educacional Escondida (CEIM) — Industrial and mining technical training — Chile
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