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Helping businesses, people and communities to grow and prosper...
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Welcome to the Kleinhardt Bulletin
 Welcome to the third edition of the Kleinhardt Bulletin. This month we look at Sustainability, Winning Market Share, Export Development Grants and more....
All of these services we offer through our business consultancy. So if you would like more information on these specific topics, or on other corporate advice or economic development issues - please do not hesitate to contact us. We look forward to hearing from you soon.
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I'm from the Government and I'm here to help !!??!
By Graham Poon
Senior Consultant
Could this statement be true? I'm sure we've all had the experience where we have chased someone from the Government for various types of assistance and the response has been either lukewarm or not helpful at all. Heavens above, we pay our taxes and what do we get?
Well it's great to stumble on a terrific little gem that is actually very useful and it's called the Export Market Development Grant or affectionately known as the EMDG. Where would we be without acronyms, right?
Now what is the EMDG? It's a programme run by Austrade, the Federal Government's agency that helps out exporters. And exporting is not just about sending boxes of goods or mangoes overseas. Australia is more and more a nation of exporters of services and the earning of foreign exchange can include the export of such services as education, consulting in such areas as engineering, accounting, architectural and law services, project management and of course, the big one for the Cairns and the Nth Qld area, tourism.
What will EMDG give you? In general, how does 50% of your promotional expenditure over $15,000 given back to you in folding cash sound? For example, let's say you are involved in tourism. To market your tour in one year, you might attend a trade show in Tokyo and one in Berlin. You pay for the booth hire, airfares for yourself and marketing manager, hotel accommodation, printing of brochures etc etc. It mounts up quickly doesn't it? In this example, the total costs add up to $32,000. Austrade being the generous people that they are (!), does their calculation by deducting the first $15,000 which gives a figure of $17,000. They then give a grant of 50% of that figure so in this case, you get $8,500. You don't even have to pay it back. Better than a sharp stick in the proverbial eye, right?
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The Quiet Performer: The Creative Industry Sector
By Jim Bitomsky
Director
 In the search to diversify the Tropical North Queensland economy, there is one quiet performer that has been developing almost unnoticed. This is the creative industry sector, encompassing design, arts, music, performance in all its forms and multi-media.
Over the past ten years it has built from almost nothing to being worth some $300 million to the regional economy. It is now up there with fishing, tropical fruits and sugar. It has always been important to the well-being and desirability of the North as a place to live, but it now needs attention as a major industry diversification opportunity. Tropical North Queensland is a life-style region. It attracts creative people and is enhanced by the cultural output of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. It is a strength we can leverage, as other life-style regions around the world have done. Globally the industry is estimated as worth some US$381 billion. The regional industry is already acknowledged as the largest in regional Australia - what could it do with adequate supporting infrastructure? The importance of this industry has been driven home to me as immediate past chairperson of Arts Nexus.
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To Start Up or To Franchise?
 If you are looking to start a business, you may have a difficult time deciding between starting your own business from scratch and buying a franchise. How do you know which would be best for you? The answer depends on what you are looking for and your personality. To begin with, if freedom and independence are important to you, then you probably need to be a solo entrepreneur. But if predictability and security are more important, then being a franchisee likely makes more sense.
Here is why: An entrepreneur who starts a business from nothing runs the show. It is the entrepreneur's strategies and plans that count and the entrepreneur's ideas that will be implemented. That is precisely what some people want and why they start a business. On the other hand, a franchisee has far less autonomy in the day-to-day operations of the business. Franchisees must follow the system created by the franchisor; in fact, doing so is part of the franchise agreement.
Another important factor to consider is your potential for success. The great thing about a franchise is that franchisors have made mistakes along the way, mistakes you will not have to repeat. They know what works and what doesn't. When you are the sole entrepreneur on the other hand, there is no one ahead of you who has already blazed the trail. As such, franchising is usually a safer, more tried-and-true route to entrepreneurial success.
READ MORE.
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Winning Market Share
By Cam Charlton
Director
 We're in business and we want to grow. The question is how can we create demand for our products and services?
It's a simple enough question but the answer is reasonably surprising. Our ability to actually create "new" demand is reasonably limited. "New" demand, in the main, is only generated from "new products," either by the emergence of new technologies or from the advent of new inventions.
What this means of course is that a vast number of businesses don't actually create new demand; they simply share the existing demand between themselves. There is surprisingly little unmet demand out there. Existing demand is being pretty well catered for in one form or another, with or without us.
This introduces a new dynamic to the equation; if we want to increase our share of the market we have to steal some of somebody else's share; the other side of the coin of course is that there are a whole lot of people out there trying to do the same thing by attempting to steal some of our share.
How then do we go about protecting and increasing our share?
Achieving this requires a thorough understanding of both our customer base and that of rival businesses.
Having the answers to the following simple questions will help us build a comprehensive picture of our market and our competitors and put us in a stronger position to win a bigger market share.
- Who are our existing customers and what segments within these markets can we identify? Are there any other groups that may require our product or service that we haven't targeted before? Can our product or service be used for other purposes that we had not previously thought of that could make it appealing to a wider market?
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 Featured Book Summary : Learning for Sustainability By Peter Senge, Joe Laur, Sara Schley and Brian Smith.
The Society for Organizational Learning (SoL), Inc.(2006)
The Sustainability Agenda
The last 20 years have seen growing concerns about economic systems and business models that foster economic disparity and environmental imbalances, despite technological advances and improved standards of living. These concerns have inspired intense discussions about sustainability.
The sustainability discourse encompasses two objectives. One, to reduce un- sustainability by improving dangerous and wasteful practices; and two, to promote generative sustainability that will create a world where human and natural systems can thrive together.
The first aim translates into efforts toward reducing toxic emissions, improving eco-efficiency, and giving aid to less-developed countries. While the second aim, aspires to create economic systems that are in harmony with natural principles and which generate zero waste, a sun-based energy system, and an ethic of interdependency among all peoples.
Sustainability Defined
Sustainability, as used in modern economics and business, refers to the ability of systems and organizations to continue indefinitely without depletion or diminished profits. This definition of sustainability, however, does not encompass strategies and perspectives of economic development that reduce societal strife and stress, as well as the adverse effects of commerce on the environment.
The U.N. World Commission on Environment and Development, in a book entitled Our Common Future (1987), articulated a broader meaning of sustainability. It defined sustainability as the ability of the present generation to meet its needs without compromising the needs of future generations. In addition, other definitions of sustainability give emphasis to efforts toward regeneration and the harmonious co-existence of all forms of life.
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We hope you have enjoyed our third edition of the Kleinhardt Bulletin and we look forward to touching base with you again same time next month. All the best.
Cheers
Cam
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| Quote of the day...
"In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative original thinker unless you can also sell what you create. Management cannot be expected to recognise a good idea unless it is presented to them by a good salesman. "
David Ogilvy
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