Good engagement often starts with a simple but powerful discipline: taking the time to listen well.
NZ Transport Agency Waka Kotahi (NZTA) set up the Supplier Listening Pilot in 2025 to test how purposeful listening can strengthen understanding, build trust and support decision making across a complex delivery environment.
We spoke with National Manager Tammy Henderson and Head of Procurement Jo Carvey about the pilot and becoming an intelligent client.
While regular engagement already happens through project delivery and formal forums, NZTA wanted to explore the value of a more consistent, intentional way to hear feedback outside project-specific and transactional conversations. This reflects a shift in how NZTA approaches its role as a client – in how it engages with suppliers and understands the system in practice to deliver better outcomes.
It was a deliberate step to do things differently and convert lessons into practical action using a simple approach: ‘listen, learn, act’. “In a constantly evolving operating environment, we need to think differently about how we do things. Supplier engagement is no exception,” says Tammy.
Listen: creating space for honest, system-level insight
The Supplier Listening Pilot was guided by curiosity, with a clear focus on listening to understand rather than respond.
NZTA held in-depth, structured conversations with suppliers from across the transport system, with feedback anonymised so people could speak candidly. Suppliers engaged openly, honestly, and constructively.
The conversations explored what suppliers are seeing across the market, what being an intelligent client looks like in practice, as well as what would lift productivity, supply chain performance and long-term outcomes. Tammy says, “To be an intelligent client you need two things — you need intelligence and you need to know your suppliers.”
Learn: turning feedback into usable intelligence
Listening on its own was not the end point. NZTA combined supplier feedback using both AI and human analysis to identify common themes and insights, which helped place what was heard alongside its strategy, delivery experience, and other inputs.
This has enabled NZTA to prioritise practical improvements, confirm work already underway, and strengthen decision‑making using supplier insight. “The real value comes from turning what we hear into action that improves how the system works. That’s where a simple discipline — listen, learn, act — really makes a difference,” says Jo.
Act: practical changes that improve the system for everyone
NZTA is already acting on what was heard. Some changes are happening now, while others will take more time. NZTA will continue listening to suppliers and use that insight to shape how this work develops.
Some of the immediate changes underway:
- Stronger design standards for delivery: Using supplier insight to test thinking and further develop standards to better support delivery.
- Simpler, more proportionate procurement: Improving procurement processes, guidance and templates, so they’re clearer, reduce effort, and better match the scale and risk of the work.
- Reducing repeat tendering for low-risk, repeatable work: Progressing a national supplier directory for physical works to reduce repeat tendering and speed up delivery where it adds value.
- More consistent, useful market engagement: Strengthening early engagement and clarifying expectations, so suppliers know what to expect and can respond with confidence.
- Stronger intelligent client capability: Building supplier profiles, market intelligence, how supplier performance is monitored, and Supplier Relationship Management frameworks to support better decisions and more joined-up engagement.
As this way of working becomes business as usual, NZTA will keep suppliers updated on what has been heard, learned and used.
Why this matters
The Supplier Listening Pilot is a practical example of seeing ACE’s Engagement Principles in action in a complex delivery environment. It complements the engagement that already happens across projects, while creating space to listen more deliberately and encourage open and honest feedback.
This work shows how purposeful engagement can improve understanding of the system and, when acted on, lead to better decisions, stronger relationships and better outcomes.
This approach is already gaining momentum outside NZTA, with interest from industry bodies and peer organisations. It highlights a broader opportunity across the sector to think differently about how supplier insight is used to inform decisions and improve outcomes.
Find out more about ACE’s six engagement principles for consultants and clients
ACE is embarking on a campaign to drive better consultant and client relationships and engagement practices to improve collaboration, efficiencies, and the management of risks, with the goal of improving productivity, time and cost efficiency, outcomes and positive impacts on the economy, society and the environment.
The kaupapa is clear: how can we use our influence to collectively build a more cost-effective and high-performing infrastructure system for Aotearoa?