The ability to make AI relevant within Boskalis’ 

Many know Boskalis as one of the world's leading dredging, maritime, and civil contractors, operating on every continent with a fleet of vessels and a team of over 10,000 talented people. The company is renowned for its assets, solutions, and expertise. Yet what many don't realise is that Boskalis is fundamentally a data-driven organisation - and with AI, the company saw an opportunity to become best-in-class in AI adoption across the industry. 

To translate this ambition into reality, Deloitte was selected for its ability to make AI relevant within Boskalis' strategic context and to act as end-to-end partner: from strategy development to implementation, including ownership and development of prioritised use cases.   

Over a roughly 12-week engagement, the Deloitte team worked with the Executive Board to activate and mobilise senior leadership around a practical plan to create and capture value with AI. We gathered insights from the Deloitte professionals who led this transformation to understand what made it work. 

From day one

From the beginning, the approach was fundamentally different from how most organisations tackle AI. “We didn’t see AI as technology. We linked it directly to the Boskalis strategy,” Bouke Nguyen, Senior Manager Strategy – SRTA at Deloitte, explains. “Companies typically don’t do that. We asked ourselves every day: How can AI help Boskalis outperform the competitors in the market? That strategic lens shaped everything we did.” 

This wasn’t just about creating a strategy document. The team helped accelerate the delivery of use cases, ensuring that some of the most important ones launched quickly. “It wasn’t just about creating a strategy; it was about delivering real impact quickly.” 

Another big reasons that make this project unique 

Additionally, the entire Boskalis executive board was involved. “Not just the CIO or CFO, but the full leadership team. “That’s rare,” Bouke notes. “It signaled to the wider organisation that AI was a key strategic priority, not a side project.” 

And Deloitte brought the full spectrum of expertise. “From big-picture strategy to hands-on implementation. We worked with Boskalis in a joint strategy and analytics team from the beginning to the end. That integration was crucial,” explains Bouke.  

The biggest challenge Deloitte faced at the start 

One of the first challenges was navigating the existing landscape. Boskalis already had AI initiatives underway, but they were scattered and lacked coherence. “We needed to create order from that,” Vincent Bolwerk, Senior Manager AI & Data - T&T at Deloitte, explains. 

The solution was to work closely with the executive board to create a North Star which is a clear strategic narrative on where to focus AI. “That really helped in the discussions we had with operational teams. Suddenly, everyone understood the ‘why’ behind our priorities.” 

AI workshops that brought key stakeholders into the conversation 

The team ran a series of AI workshops that brought key stakeholders into the conversation. “We involved key stakeholders through a number of AI workshops. This helped us mobilise the right people in the right places, but it also gave us confidence that we were working on an AI portfolio that would lead to competitive advantage,” Vincent reflects. “The workshops weren’t just about information sharing. They were about building buy-in and ensuring that the strategy made sense at every level of the organisation.” 

From the client side

From the client side, what stood out was the genuine partnership. “It really felt like a joint journey,” Nieke Sterkman, Program Manager AI Strategy at Boskalis, reflects. “We started the strategy phase with a small team. Within Boskalis, we also had the luxury of having colleagues working full-time on the AI programme together with the Deloitte consultants. That really made the difference. We were walking the journey together.” 

The partnership worked because Deloitte brought both external perspective and deep understanding of how to engage leadership. “They brought the outside-in perspective and helped us bring our board of management on board. They spoke the language of our board of management really well. Those are for me the key success factors.” 

From Deloitte’s perspective 

To add on what Nieke said: “What made the engagement particularly rewarding was the ability to bring together different expertise. “From a Deloitte perspective, the fact we were able to bring both the strategy expertise and the AI and data team to this project really helped make it a success,” reflects Vincent. “And we were involved from the very first AI ambition, drafting all the way through to use case delivery together with Boskalis. This made it a nice journey to be on. You don’t often get to see a transformation from conception to execution. That end-to-end involvement is what makes this work special.” 

The Impact 

The Deloitte partnership created substantial value by: 

✓ Establishing strategic clarity and executive alignment around a single AI North Star that set clear expectations and defined where to focus—and where not to 

✓ Operationalising focus through a balanced, organisation-backed AI use-case portfolio 

✓ Building foundations by putting in place the necessary technology, data foundations, and organisational structure to deliver the portfolio 

✓ Enabling competitive advantage that allowed the client to increase competitiveness and outperform competitors in the market 

✓ Accelerating delivery by speeding up the timeliness of use cases and launching the most important ones quickly