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Exciting times for BRS!
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We hope that you are settling into 2016 and that the year has started well. Our team here at BRS have all had a very enjoyable and relaxing holiday, recharged and are out and about delivering great outcomes to our clients.
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In January our team got together in Adelaide to plan out our next 90 days and we have some really exciting new initiatives in the pipeline and people joining our team. Please read on to hear about some of them, but there are a few more that we will announce over the coming months, so stay tuned!
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BRS Small Business
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South Australia is such a wonderful place to live and many of our BRS team members reside here. However despite all the positives, our state continues to receive a lot of negative press and coverage about the state of our economy. We are very passionate about changing this perception, creating jobs, economic growth and want to help other small business owners fulfil their potential.
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This is why we are very excited to announce that we are launching a new service exclusively for small business… BRS Small Business!
Nicole Williams one of the owners and founders of BRS, knows what it takes to build a successful, sustainable small business, through her involvement in building BRS. Nicole has also been behind the development of our easyconsult and easygovernment online coaching programs, so she is very familiar with all areas of building a small business. Nicole will be providing practical, hands on business coaching and mentoring specifically for small business owners in South Australia who are wanting to build successful small businesses that are scalable for growth. If this is something you, or someone you know may be interested in, please contact us to find out more.
Please note that as this coaching is one on one, places are limited.
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Jason Gray joins our team based in Perth
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Jason has recently joined BRS as our Associate in Perth. Jason has over 20 years’ experience in the infrastructure consultancy industry in Australia and Asia. Jason joins us from Jacobs (and SKM) where he held executive roles, most recently Vice President of Operations for Western Australia, South Australia and the Northern Territory. His expertise lies in the areas of developing and managing diverse cross-disciplinary teams, as well as commercial, operational and project management. Jason has strong commercial acumen, with a track record of leading “reshape and recovery” processes for commercially challenged operations with a return to positive business contributions.
Jason is passionate about shared successes with clients, believing that when our clients win, we all win and celebrate together. Jason has a track record of successful project management of large infrastructure, environmental, mining projects and feasibility studies. Jason is passionate about the sharing of knowledge, mentoring and coaching of teams and individuals.
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Jason has an enormous love of the outdoors and is a keen surfer, triathlete, and adventure racer. And yes, this is Jason riding this wave off a reef called Bankvaults, in the Mentawai Islands off the coast of Sumatra!
Jason has been a friend and colleague of a number of our BRS team members for a long time and we are very excited to see him working closely with our clients both in WA and across Australia and New Zealand.
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Vanessa Jones joins our team in Adelaide
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Two weeks ago Vanessa Jones joined our team as a Project Coordinator, providing assistance and support to our consulting team. Vanessa has a lot of experience in contracts administration, business support and executive assistant type roles and has a Bachelor of Business (Commercial Law) and a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management. We are confident she will be a great addition to our team.
Outside of work Vanessa has a busy social life, where she is actively involved in both social and club netball.
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Vanessa is currently spending her weekends house hunting to buy that near perfect first home and her passions involve travelling and spending time with family and friends.Vanessa is hoping to undertake some volunteer work in the future instead of another standard holiday! As you can tell from her photo, taken at one of the villages she visited in the Pacific Islands, she loves taking time out from her holidays to interact with the local children.
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Why embedding Commercial Acumen skills in Government can have a big impact on driving value for money outcomes
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BRS has recently run a number or courses for New Zealand and South Australian Government on Commercial Acumen for government leaders. You would think that attending a commercial acumen course would be like pulling teeth right?
These courses are some of the most engaging and sought after programs we run and people are highly motivated during the sessions. Why? The reason being is that learning commercial acumen skills is very empowering. It empowers government leaders to understand how service providers bid for work and how to work with them to maximise outcomes that are win/win. It lifts the veil of complexity and simplifies the process of managing contracts and making good commercial decisions.
You get a couple of sceptics in these courses who just think the business community is out to rip off government and that profit is the only motivator of what drives people. But 90 % of people genuinely want to do the right thing on both sides of the fence, and most people will buy into the message that working together in a collaborative and commercial manner builds trust, it creates better outcomes for the community, generates value for money outcomes for the taxpayer, and provides confidence and certainty in government decision making for the business community.
Please contact the team at BRS if you would like to learn more about our Commercial Acumen workshops. We have developed a range of courses from basic commercial acumen training to advanced, Board and Management Team commercial acumen training, evaluation team training and commercial negotiation training. It is very popular and demand continues to grow as government organisations see commercial acumen as a must have skill for government leaders.
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Case Study: Commercial Acumen Training with the Office of the Industry Advocate
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BRS recently worked with the Office of the Industry Advocate to deliver a 1 ½ day Commercial Acumen Training Program for middle to executive level government employees. The training focused on re-framing how participants think about commercial decision making and procurement by looking through the lens of business owners, consultants and constructors. The training built capabilities in the areas of: Value for money versus least cost; Scoping and delivering on project outcomes; Procurement planning and practices; Business models and commercial practices of contractors and consultants; Risk mitigation and allocation; Project management and governance (including managing variations); and Building constructive relationships with contractors. Participant feedback was extremely positive and demonstrates a strong desire within the South Australian government to shift the focus to more
value and outcomes focused commercial practices.
http://www.industryadvocate.sa.gov.au/news/2015-end-of-year-message#understandsmallbusiness
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BRS Breakfast – The Difference between Culture and High Performance
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Is the culture of your organisation your competitive advantage? If you are based in either Melbourne or Auckland and want it to be, then we would like to invite you to our next breakfast!
Our topic this month is The Difference between Culture and High Performance and it will be presented by Heath Colebatch.
Heath will explain how you can work towards developing a high performing culture within your organisation and what the advantages are for organisations who achieve this. Within this breakfast Heath will also take you through:
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How high performance is different to culture
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Why high performance needs to be one of your top business pillars
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The importance of a high performance mindset
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Key high performance areas you need to embed for yourself and your team
Our breakfasts commence at 7.30am on the following dates:
Auckland – Thursday 18th February 2016
Melbourne – Wednesday 24th February 2016
Tickets are selling fast, and our Auckland breakfast is almost at capacity. So please register soon if you would like to join us.
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“Don’t join an easy crowd; you won’t grow. Go where the expectations and the demands to perform are high.” – Jim Rohn
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Design costs should not be the focus when managing infrastructure project costs
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I have the pleasure of working on large infrastructure projects. I enjoy the work and very much appreciate the challenge of getting a large infrastructure project team up and running and working towards being a high performing team. It requires designers, constructors, sub-contractors, clients and other parties to come together [...]
Continue reading →
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Re-thinking how governments make investment decisions
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Governments have huge budgets and an ongoing challenge is to ensure that the greatest possible value from spend is being created for tax payers and the community more generally. [...]
Continue reading →
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Organisational Behaviour vs Organisational Design
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I have often written about the importance of leadership in building an externally focused high performing organisation or team. It is by far the most important factor in performance.
However in working with a range of my clients over the past 7 years I have noticed a tendency in many [...]
Continue reading →
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Reflecting on your year – are you getting your satisfaction?
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One of the questions as we approach the end of the year is where did it go? The year has … Continue reading →
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Events
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BRS Breakfasts
Auckland
Thursday 18th February 2016
Melbourne
Wednesday 24th February 2016
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Contact Us
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