Individually, organisations and practitioners in any field find it difficult, slow and often overwhelming to make sustained industry change. The problem is that there is either one lone voice for change or that individuals and organisations cannot find enough time and resources to coordinate action. Peak bodies are in a unique position to influence change in an industry, on behalf of their members.  Yet, peak bodies can be trapped by responding primarily to day-to-day issues, or, by dealing with reactive advocacy and lobbying, rather than delivering strategic change. The challenge is for them to identify a limited, focused agenda that delivers real change. By identifying and selecting the two or three change levers, then creating a tight agenda based on these levers, sustained change is possible.

The challenge is also to find the right timeframe and resource mix to be able to scan and interpret the environment for disruptive change from other industries. Traditionally, industry groups have shaped legislation by engaging with government at all levels. Now communities must also be engaged to build social licenses to operate, whether environmental, community or single issues of concern.

With the concept of membership in decline, whether union, peak body or sporting club, peak bodies and associations need to find new ways of generating value and revenue. These positive operational levers are essential for relevance and longevity.

Examples of Results

Peak Body – Mining

We worked with the executive team to identify the game changing issues for the industry and to better structure themselves for delivery of value to members.  As well as maintaining a comprehensive service offer, the organisation continues to work with its members to influence favourable investment conditions in Australia, including identifying and driving initiatives to create a competitive labour supply pool. These two key success factors are inextricably tied to volatile commodity prices and a strategic balance needs to be sustained for the overall industry to be viable and competitive.

Peak Bodies – Medical

We have worked at both the state and federal level with some of Australias’ brightest minds to balance organisation passion and strong commitment to public health issues with the internal needs and continuing development of the profession.  Like many industries, the next generation of health professionals has very different expectations of how they train and what they expect in terms of culture and working conditions and the peak body needs a robust plan to remain relevant and attractive.

Industry body – Transport

With this executive team, we worked to identify strategies for overcoming critical skills shortages and embracing new commercial models for training, development and industry growth.  These strategies will form the basis of campaigns that highlight the technical sophistication and professionalism of the industry, and reasons for people to consider it as an exciting career choice.  This highly price-competitive industry has seen many small, family owned businesses disappear or morph into high tech, competitive international firms with complex systems and new capability sets.

Industry Body – Dairy

This agriculture-based industry continues to support its farmers to deal with highly competitive markets as many make the huge step from manual, family business to consolidated, high-tech, agricultural enterprises. We worked with a cross section of industry representatives to identify the critical data, information and support required to make robust decisions around feed and nutrition modeling, DNA and breeding technologies, animal and natural resource management, carbon footprint management, welfare issues for international export and balancing farm and animal lifecycle productivity.