An Introduction to the Defence Readiness Seminar Series by Alan Rankins, CEO of Goal Group
Listen to the podcast, explaining the background to why the Seminar Series, the benefits of participating, the seminar topics and who will be presenting… as well as the new virtual format.
A full transcript of the interview is below.
Podcast Interview
Alan – Thank you Grant it’s a fantastic honour for me to introduce this Defence Ready Seminar Series. I cannot introduce the Series without providing some background to the journey I, and others have taken to get here. I have been involved in Defence and the Defence Industry for 48 years on the 03rd of July 2020. 21 of those years was in uniform. The rest is a continuous stream of Defence Industry involvement including Australian Prime, International Prime and Small to Medium Enterprises (defined by our government to be less than 200 employees in an Australian registered company). I supplemented that experience with now 14 years of SME ownership and continuously “giving back” to my industry from over 20 years of involvement with the Australian Industry and Defence Network (AIDN) – and other Industry Associations, at the highest level of involvement and commitment.
In the first part of that industry journey I saw first-hand the struggle Australia’s industry had against an Australian Industry Involvement policy that was very unsupportive and almost destroyed our manufacturing and shipbuilding capability across several governments. In 2016, the federal government significantly changed that policy into support for Australian Industry Involvement. They coupled that with the largest Defence Spend in Australian history…significant opportunity
But after years of neglect, our SMEs struggled to be what has come to be known as “Defence Ready”. The Defence Ready Framework was devised by me in response to what I saw as the significant challenge to SMEs in Australia and the opportunity. For the last 5 or so years we have refined and developed this approach.
Grant – it has taken a long time to get to here Alan. What was the catalyst?
Alan – I discussed our vision with Tim Owen the leader of the Hunter Defence Task Force and Anna Murray the President of AIDN NSW. Both saw and supported its considerable promise. Tim specifically became a champion. We gained the full support of Hunter Defence and the AIDN NSW Committee and the Goal Group team was incentivised to produce the Level Zero Seminar Series under this Defence Ready Framework. That took about 12-24 months. I can acknowledge that, in particular, without Tim Owen’s enthusiasm and doggedness we would have struggled more.
I would like to acknowledge the NSW Government and particularly Minister Ayres for their backing for 2 additional modules. I will talk about that later.
Grant – What makes this Series unique Alan?
Alan – An important thing to remember Grant is that this Series is not training. It is mentoring, coaching and providing the benefit of the decades of industry expertise of our SME deliverers. Training comes later in the Framework. The core 11 Seminars of the Series is produced by a team of Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) in their particular field ALL of whom are Small to Medium Enterprise Owners in their own right. My family and I formed the Goal Group early in the 14 years of Goal’s existence and a number of the Seminar Facilitators have been with us for the entire journey. The level of SME experience is quite simply enormous. I have used my Australia wide SME connections to gather these experts and implant the Vision of Defence Ready. For most of our topics there is Defence on-line or other introductory courses with a focus of how Defence wants its industry to work with them. These are vitally important, and we ask all delegates to undertake those government offerings. Our Seminar Series is unashamedly focused on what the SME needs to do, our challenges and approaches, and our considerations, when looking at these readiness elements. It is about gaining the understanding of the Australian SME Defence Market, how we as SMEs are challenged and how we can respond and get help. So – it is SMEs assisting SMEs. The SMEs are regional, and city based, come from all areas of Defence Industry and have in common a passion for our industry. The Seminars are peppered with SME Case Study and experience (not all of which is success but illustrates lessons learned) which is “gold”.
Grant – So tell me about the Structure of the Series Alan?
The Series is at what we call Level Zero. We have 2 more levels in the framework, but they won’t be launched for a while yet. Level Zero looks at an Explorer/Exponent and Expert mix that addresses the:
- Introduction to the Defence Market
- Business Development from an Australian SME perspective
- Tendering to Primes or Government as an SME
- Collaboration – the Goal Group is a shining example of such collaboration of SMEs
- Defence Industrial Security Program or DISP – a fabulous program run by very helpful people in Defence, but this is from an SME perspective
- Export Control and ITAR from an Australian SME perspective
- Cyber Security – a very topical subject with an SME focus
- Custodial Information Management – linked to cyber security
- Introduction to Defence ISO standards – our world guru on ISO gives SMEs insight into what Defence finds important and why
- Advanced ISO – as a nod to Defence’s need for very high standard delivery we look to provide essential information to our SMEs in niche areas or struggling to understand how to meet Defence’s or a Prime’s needs.
- Defence Legal Considerations – SMEs are often deterred from joining Defence opportunity due to confusion how certain Defence legal requirements impact them and what they can do as an SME. Our Defence legal expert takes the delegates through that.