New Businesses and Joint Ventures

Education

• Learning about establishing businesses, including joint ventures – potential benefits, risks and possible difficulties 

• Understanding ownership structures – shareholders, directors and governance

• Recognising the importance of Indigenous ownership and involvement to satisfy government and customers’ Indigenous procurement requirements

• Exploring the business life cycle – set up > operation > capability building > profitability > independent operation

Assessing opportunities

• Analysing and understanding business and joint venture opportunities

• Deciding if an opportunity will be a profitable business and provide other benefits to Indigenous people – training, employment, culturally safe, pride in ownership 

• Determining if an opportunity is worth following through with

• Sketching out pathways from opportunity to an operating business

Roles, responsibilities and Indigenous involvement in the business

• Understanding what roles and responsibilities the Indigenous shareholders and directors will have in a business

• Identifying current skills and training needed to meet requirements for roles and responsibilities

• Sketching out pathways to build skills required, if needed

Documentation that recognises and protects the Indigenous shareholder

• Understanding how Indigenous interests are protected through clauses in constitutions, shareholders’ agreements and joint venture agreements

• For joint ventures, identifying what services each shareholder will be providing to the joint venture and documenting these services and how any costs will be charged to the business

• Reviewing current documents and recommending inclusions that recognise and protect the interest of the shareholders and meet government requirements

• Assistance with application processes to register businesses for inclusion in national and state Indigenous business databases

Identifying results the Indigenous shareholder is aiming for

• Exploring and documenting what the Indigenous owners want their business to achieve – skills development, employment, community benefits, profits

• Identifying what data needs to be collected to measure achievements

• Implementing data collection and reporting to watch if the business is meeting goals the Indigenous owners want to achieve

Land Use and Other Agreements

• Investigating and understanding what commercial opportunities for Traditional Owners that individual agreements include

• Developing strategies and priorities around how opportunities can be realised

• Formulating business plans for selected opportunities, including identifying and engaging with potential capability partners

• Negotiating with parties to agreements and advocating for Traditional Owners businesses to achieve successful outcome for commercial opportunities

Review and Evaluation of Initiatives and Programs

• Methodologies tailored to ensure information is gathered to answer the right questions, that may include:

o   Environmental stocktake survey and literature search

o   Analysis of relevant data and gathering of project specific data

o   Interviews with key informants and surveys of wider informant groups

·         Culturally respectful approach specifically formulated for each project

·         Evaluation teams assembled to match each project’s requirements

·         Inclusion of realistic, justifiable and implementable recommendations

·         Reporting and presentation of findings to maximise value for stakeholders