Business Consultation Program 2010-14

Contents

Background

Common emerging themes

Knowledge City

Liveability

Ease of doing business in Melbourne

Networking in Melbourne

International connections

Collaboration to solve city problems

Challenges

Changing trends in transport and logistics in Melbourne

Gaps between universities and employers

Opportunities

The city provides a unique experience for shopping and hospitality

Leading by example in our procurement

Attracting conferences and business events

AIDS 2014

Program outcomes

Childcare delivery

Outcome

A safe 24-hour city

Outcome

Retaining expatriate workers in Melbourne

Outcome

Engaging in sustainable business practices

Outcome

Enterprise Melbourne

Outcome

Accessing international markets

Outcome

Connecting business suppliers and service providers with businesses

Outcomes

Music industry at the forefront of the city’s cultural and economic landscape

Outcome

Opening the doors of our scientific research facilities to the public

Outcome

Conclusion

Background

Since 2010, through the Business Consultation Program, Lord Mayor Robert Doyle and former Chief Executive Dr Kathy Alexander have co-hosted a series of roundtable discussions with more than 200 business leaders representing key sectors of the city’s economy. The discussions have provided City of Melbourne with a critical insight into emerging issues and opportunities to support the growth, sustainability and prosperity of Melbourne’s business community.

The consultations have also provided insights into the reasons businesses locate and remain within the municipality, as well as observations about Council’s priorities and the quality of its services. The robust discussions during each consultation touched on a range of topics. Some of the items were able to be quickly addressed by relevant City of Melbourne officers or raised with external organisations. Others were subsequently developed into projects and strategies to address them. The following are some of the key themes, challenges, opportunities and outcomes that generated from the Business Consultation Program. The program has conducted consultations on the following themes:

Melbourne as a centre for financial services
The experience of expatriate business leaders in Melbourne
The perspectives of businesses in Docklands
International business consulting firms in Melbourne
Biotechnology companies in Melbourne
Companies based in Fisherman’s Bend
Opportunities for businesses in India
Opportunities for the resources sector in Melbourne
Opportunities for the music industry in Melbourne
The Melbourne Retail Strategy 2006:2012 and its impact on retail in the city (2 sessions)
Strategies to grow the sustainability sector in Melbourne
Commercial Law in Melbourne
Entrepreneurs in Melbourne
Opportunities for clean technology in Melbourne

Common emerging themes

Business leaders raised common themes such as:

Knowledge City

From the start of the program, the knowledge sector has been identified as a key advantage that sets Melbourne apart from other Australian cities. The perception of Melbourne as a knowledge city and its role in the economy has been raised regularly over the past four years. In the earlier rounds of business consultation this was identified as an opportunity for growth and a priority to include in the ‘Melbourne brand’ as an important sector in our economy - Melbourne: a city of substance. Over the course of the program this notion has evolved to a well- established knowledge economy across the business, research and education sectors. Melbourne has a well-defined network of public and private institutions including universities, scientific research facilities and hospitals as well as a thriving start-up community all located in close geographic proximity to each other.

To guide the activities in this area, the City of Melbourne has recently launched ‘A knowledge city strategy: strengthening Melbourne’s knowledge sector through collaboration 2014-18’. The strategy outlines Council’s contribution to the ongoing development of the municipality’s knowledge capacity, culture and reputation. The City of Melbourne has adopted four principal roles in its engagement with the knowledge sector:

promoter
leader
partner
enabler

More on this strategy can be found at: melbourne.vic.gov.au/knowledge

Liveability

Business leaders consistently highlighted Melbourne's liveability as a significant advantage ranging from public amenities, culture and events, ease of movement and infrastructure to intangibles such as easy access to a skilled workforce and the opportunities the city provides to network in an informal way. Availability of high-quality and affordable commercial real estate has also been raised as an important aspect of our liveability. Businesses mentioned they value diversity in land use to ensure the commercial space remains available in relation to the steady growth of residential development in the municipality.

Participants acknowledged that their location in the municipality is a key advantage to attract and retain their skilled workforce because of its close proximity and easy access to lifestyle activities during lunch and after work hours such as sporting grounds and gyms, quality shopping, hospitality and personal services. This in turn keeps employers within the City of Melbourne. Melbourne was named the world’s most liveable city for the fourth year in a row in 2014 by the Economist Intelligence Unit. The City of Melbourne invests around $365 million per annum in programs and services including $3.5 million for business facilitation and international activity to ensure we continue to be the world’s most liveable city.

Ease of doing business in Melbourne

Access to skilled workers and business support services along with availability of quality office space at low-cost supported by a good infrastructure and reliable transport networks have been mentioned regularly as some of the elements that make it easy to do businesses in Melbourne. A clear process and support available in setting up abusiness along with well-defined roles and easy access to three levels of government position Melbourne ahead of other capital cities in Australia. The Australian Institute of Company Directors report 'Impact of Legislation on Directors' identified Victoria as the best place to be a company director in Australia. The City of Melbourne works closely with both State and Federal Government departments in key economic areas to leverage benefits for ourbusinesses.

The City of Melbourne is the only capital city in Australia that offers direct financial support to businesses through the Small Business Grants program. During nearly 20 years, the program has assisted over 300 businesses with more than $7 million to start-up, expand or export. 'Melbourne doing business globally' is the strategy that will guide the future direction for the Council’s international activities to ensure the delivery of opportunities for Melbourne’s businesses and seek to achieve a favourable return on Council’s financial, personnel and program investment.

Networking in Melbourne

The Melbourne business community can be characterised by its willingness to build relationships that go beyond commercial transactions. Many of the program participants mentioned that in Melbourne, they find it easier to establish connections with the right people than in any other capital cities in Australia. They see the city as a good place to build partnerships, where people want to work together to tackle problems. Melbourne’s busy sports and events calendar provides excellent opportunities to network. The city also offers a diverse program of business events and networks across industries to facilitate these interactions.

International connections

The importance of the Melbourne brand as a business city in an international context was often raised by participants. Businesses in Melbourne often need to access international markets in order to reach their customers or achieve critical mass. In some countries government is intrinsically linked with business andthe government to government connection is often a way of opening doors to business in those locations.Melbourne opens doors to the world.

The City of Melbourne has been working with businesses across sectors including biotechnology, life sciences and clean technology by providing trade advice and assistance in accessing international markets through our programs. One of the business consultation events had a specific focus on the opportunities for Melbourne businesses in India to inform Council’s strategy in assisting businesses seeking to tap into that market.

Collaboration to solve city problems

Participants suggested there are opportunities to use the collaboration model to solve common problems through joint research projects adopted by hospitals and universities. An enduring partnership of almost 150 years existsbetween The Royal Melbourne Hospital Clinical School and The University of Melbourne that fosters a culture of excellence and innovation and helps drive improved patient outcomes. The City of Melbourne has valuable open data that can be made available to solve city problems in a collaborative way with industry and universities.

The City Of Melbourne developed the award-winning CoMMaps, an interactive map that unlocked a vast amount of easy-to-access information about the municipality’s services and items of interest that can be accessed at any time by residents, businesses and visitors. The Census of Land Use and Employment (CLUE) is a valuable research tool that provides comprehensive information about land use, employment and economic activity across the entire City of Melbourne. Partnerships with the private sector are key to deliver programs and services. The Docklands Library is a result of collaboration between Places Victoria, Lend Lease and City of Melbourne.

Challenges

The Business Consultation Program assists City of Melbourne in identifying the challenges facing the business community and provides us with valuable feedback to improve our services.

Changing trends in transport and logistics in Melbourne

The supply chain in retail is moving to more frequent and smaller deliveries and as a result, Council needs to plan for those impacts in the main retail areas of the municipality. This issue has already been taken into consideration for the new City of Melbourne retail and transport strategies. Businesses in Fisherman’s Bend raised concerns about increased traffic in the vicinity as a result of residential development and urban renewal projects as well as more lightweight industry moving into the area. Almost 800,000 people pass through our city daily and this is likely to rise to one million by 2030. The City of Melbourne Transport Strategy 2012-2030 promotes an integrated approach, linking all modes of transport and coordinating this with city development and urban renewal.

The vision for Melbourne as a connected city means a place for people, a city with great streets linked by a well-designed transport system. The transport strategy provides an important foundation for Melbourne’s future. More information on the transport strategy can be found here: melbourne.vic.gov.au/transport

Gaps between universities and employers

Business leaders from various sectors described the challenge of finding university graduates with work-ready skills relevant to their business. Conversely, representatives of the tertiary education sector have indicated challenges for graduates finding jobs in skilled and knowledge sectors. This highlights a gap in the current pathway from tertiary education into the workforce and a resulting trend for graduates to look for jobs overseas.

To address these issues, the City of Melbourne has been working with program participants to facilitate a conversation in early 2015 between universities and employers in the life sciences and technology, creative services and knowledge fields.

Opportunities

The program discussions provide Council with critical insight into the opportunities for key sectors in the city's economy.

The city provides a unique experience for shopping and hospitality

The evolving retail conditions have challenged the traditional business model due to factors such as online shopping and slow economic climate, but retailers told us they are taking care of their business. When visitors come to Melbourne they are surrounded by arts and culture, events and food and shopping. They have a glimpse into the Melbourne lifestyle. This is valued by retail traders, who acknowledge the city’s offer brings customers to their business. Retailers saw in the Melbourne Retail Strategy 2006:2012 a valuable strategy that has generatedbenefits to their business and to the retail mix in the city. Retailers also see value in Council supporting their sector by offering a good platform to do business by:

making it easy to do business in Melbourne,
promoting the good news stories, and
attracting visitors with marketing campaigns.

The discussions with the sector informed the development of the Melbourne Retail and Hospitality Strategy 2013-17. The strategy, supported by the Melbourne Retail and Hospitality Advisory Board, will continue to inform City of Melbourne’s actions to ensure Melbourne remains a vibrant city, renowned for its shopping and dining experiences.

Leading by example in our procurement

Businesses recognised the importance of City of Melbourne’s purchasing decisions; leading by example to demonstrate that sustainable procurement makes good business sense and generates business opportunities.

The City of Melbourne has reviewed its procurement policy to ensure sustainability is a key element of contracts and procurement. There have been some wins already such as the results from the introduction of the Green Fleet, but there is more work to be done. The organisation also worked with industry to introduce social enterprises to its procurement panel. The Small Business Grants program was also reviewed to include the category of Social Enterprise and Micro Business Grants categories.

Attracting conferences and business events

Businesses highlighted the economic contribution of conferences and business events in Melbourne. They recognise the importance of City of Melbourne’s involvement in attracting conferences and they also value the role of organisations like the Melbourne Convention Bureau and our strong relationship with them. For certain industry sectors, such as biotechnology, it is a way to position their business in Australia and internationally. For the accommodation, retail and hospitality sectors, these events bring money to their business. The City of Melbourne will continue to be involved in business events and working with partners in this sector to position Melbourne’s reputation internationally as a great place to connect and do business.

AIDS 2014

City of Melbourne in partnership with Melbourne Convention Bureau, Department of Health and Australian Society for HIV Medicine, secured the XX International AIDS Conference (AIDS 2014) to be held in Melbourne. This is the largest medical conference ever to be held in Australia. It generated approximately US$80 million for the Victorian state economy, with more than 13,000 delegates from 170 countries in attendance.

Program outcomes

These are some of the outcomes that originated from the discussions over the last four years.

Childcare delivery

Leaders from the financial services sector indicated that the lack of childcare services available is a limiting factor for employees to remain in, and / or return to, the workforce. Participants suggested that the City of Melbourne could provide a childcare solution to enable workers to return to full-time work. As a result, the City of Melbourne engaged KPMG to review the childcare situation in the municipality.

Outcome

As part of the consultancy, KPMG developed an information resource to assist organisations to better understand the needs of their workforce and identify solutions they could offer to attract and retain workers who have children.

A safe 24-hour city

As the fund managers and banks provide 24 hour support to their customers, the call centres based in the city have workers who use the city during night time. This requires the organisations to consider the safety implications for workers arriving to their job late at night or leaving work in the early hours of the morning. These workers also require access to healthy snacks and places to visit during their breaks.

Outcome

The Community Safety and Wellbeing branch did a survey of call centres to hear from workers what their concerns are and to share safety tips. This was part of Council’s KSA 2 – City Safety for 2011–-12. The branch is also working on a larger project, part of the 24 Hour City strategy, to increase the retail and hospitality offer at night time, aimed at this particular group.

Retaining expatriate workers in Melbourne

According to research, one in three executive expatriate assignments in Australia fail within the first 12 months. The financial costs associated with the relocation of executives and their families can be well over $1million in the first year. However, these are not the only costs that companies face. The loss of business objectives and damage to relationships with clients can have a long lasting impact for an organisation. Poor perception of the host city also involves the risk of a negative reputation of Melbourne internationally.

Outcome

This feedback resulted in a collaborative project with our City Research branch to benchmark Melbourne’s affordability with Sydney and other cities internationally. This internal working paper is titled ‘Cost of Living for Expatriate Workers in Melbourne’. The Business and International Branch also met with relocation consultants, expatriate executives and the State Manager of the Victorian Division for the Australian Institute of Company Directors to ascertain what the key issues for expatriate executives in Melbourne may be and to identify opportunities for Council to improve their experience during the assignment. The result was a framework for providing support to this particular group that has been made available through industry partners.

Engaging in sustainable business practices

Some businesses indicated that they find it difficult to engage in sustainable practices. They find there is too much information, too many levels of government and no clarity as to what the ‘right solution’ is for them.

Outcome

The content of the Enterprise Melbourne website was updated to become a ‘one-stop shop’ for businesses to identify environmental sustainable practices and programs that suit them. Council also partnered with VECCI to deliver a sustainability workshop for businesses. The City of Melbourne has a strong program offer for businesses to engage in sustainable practices. Whether you are a tenant or a building owner there are programs available to green your business.