Exco Partners is a leading Australian consulting and digital services firm, recognised for its expertise in delivering transformative change across government and enterprise. With a reputation for disciplined delivery, human-centred design, and engineering innovation, Exco Partners helps organisations navigate complex digital transformations with confidence and impact.

In partnership with the Fair Work Commission (FWC), Exco Partners successfully led the design and delivery of the Modern Awards and Rates System (MARS). This groundbreaking digital platform reimagines how Australia’s workplace conditions are interpreted, maintained, and communicated.

The Fair Work Commission is Australia’s national workplace relations tribunal, responsible for maintaining workplace standards and ensuring fair employment conditions. A cornerstone of its role is the review and maintenance of 155 Modern Awards, which collectively contain over 70,000 individual pay rates. These awards underpin employment conditions for millions of workers and employers nationwide.

Historically, the Modern Award Review process relied on fragmented systems, labour-intensive workflows, and paper-based documentation. While not entirely manual, the process involved significant manual handling and coordination, leading to inefficiencies, version control challenges, and limited transparency. This placed a substantial administrative burden on legal and policy teams, while also restricting public access to accurate award information and undermining trust and engagement.

Recognising the need for a modern, secure, and scalable solution, the FWC partnered with Exco Partners to deliver MARS a platform that digitises complex award structures, enables structured workflows, and provides real-time visibility into review progress. Built on Microsoft Power Platform and Dynamics 365, MARS integrates AI-powered classification, secure document management, and a public-facing portal for award access.

The initiative was delivered using Exco Partners’ proprietary CoreMethods framework, which combines agile software delivery, human-centred design, and ISO 9001-certified governance. The multidisciplinary team included Exco consultants, FWC staff, and Microsoft specialists, ensuring legal accuracy, user needs, and technical feasibility were considered equally.

MARS has transformed the way the FWC operates. It empowers business users to manage pay rates independently, reduces reliance on IT support, and improves classification accuracy. The platform was successfully used for the FY25 Annual Wage Review, delivering identical results to the previous process—with significantly reduced effort and faster turnaround—demonstrating the platform’s accuracy and efficiency.

The initiative has strengthened the Commission’s operational resilience, improved transparency, and laid the foundation for future innovations such as AI-assisted drafting and predictive analytics. MARS is now a central tool for classification decisions and a model for digital transformation across other regulatory bodies.

By modernising one of Australia’s most complex and critical workplace functions, MARS strengthens the integrity of the nation’s industrial relations system and sets a new benchmark for digital transformation in public service.

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