Bellajack have successful history of delivering programs to businesses, on behalf of governments.

All Australian governments want to help businesses operating in their jurisdictions to succeed. As a result politicians and public servants are very pro-active in commissioning programs that are intended to tackle key issues faced by these businesses by;

• removing the challenges,
• enhancing opportunities and
• improving efficiencies.

In our experience the most effective government programs are those that;

1. take time in the design phase to make sure they are targeting the areas of greatest need  for businesses – typically consulting with the business community to fully understand what those needs are,
2. engage dedicated staff or contractors to deliver the business facing and analytical aspects of the program
3. utilise departmental staff to oversee the project and co-ordinate resource delivery in response to opportunities identified.

The ones that struggle to deliver what they are hoping to are typically those where already stretched public servants are asked to build, manage and implement the whole thing. A well run business wouldn’t have their best sales person working two days a week on the factory floor and also managing the office team.

Two of the best examples of government programs we’ve helped to deliver were;

Victoria’s Business Engagement Program

This program, run by the Department of Economic Development, Jobs, Transport and Resources  had a target of interviewing 5,000 small to medium sized (SMEs) Victorian businesses each year (of which Bellajack team members interviewed approximately one third). The goal of the program was to gain valuable business intelligence in order to enable the state government to make better policy decisions with respect to creating an economic environment for businesses to allow them to thrive. The programexceeded its KPIs by uncovering opportunities to grow new jobs, investment and exports for Victorian businesses. Most excitingly it showed that, with real ‘coal-face’ understanding of business issues most of these opportunities could be facilitated by the state government providing practical assistance, not cash handouts. Its also meant that, with a better understanding of the key themes in the economy better policy decisions could be made that would impact key industries and the economy as a whole. These things together meant far more bang for the government’s policy buck – by spending money only where it was actually needed and where it would have the biggest impact.

South Australia’s Northern Economic Plan 

“Look North” With the announcement that Holden, the largest single employer in the North of Adelaide was to close its doors in late 2017, the SA government started work on its response to minimise the impacts of this, the Northern Economic Plan (NEP). An understanding of how this would impact other businesses and other sectors of the economy who operated in the northern suburbs was seen as critical to any response. South Australia had seen the results of the Victorian Business Engagement Program and the Department of State Development approached Bellajack to assist business research and analysis aspect of the NEP. Working closely with the full time departmental staff Bellajack designed and then implement a program to meet with councils, industry leaders and businesses operating in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, gathering key information and uncovering latent growth opportunities that could be created.

The program uncovered over 2,500 new jobs, more than $945 million in investment and better than $650 million in exports that was either planned or could be created with practical intervention/assistance from the state government and/or councils.