Page 50 - Australian Defence Magazine April 2019
P. 50

FROM THE SOURCE
KATHERINE ZIESING | CANBERRA
Australian Defence industry sees a lot of prime contractors with overseas parents, but Beca is a tad different with their home market of NZ. ADM Managing Editor Katherine Ziesing spoke to Australian MD Craig Lee about the establishment and expansion of the business across the ditch and into Asia.
Craig Lee
Managing Director Beca Australia
Managing Director – Beca Australia
General Manager Defence and Advisory – Beca Australia
Manager Defence – Beca Australia
General Manager – Relegen Pty Ltd
Account Manager Maritime – Jacobs
Commanding Officer –
Fleet Intermediate Maintenance Activity -Sydney
Marine Engineer Officer – HMAS Stuart
ADM: For those of us not familiar with the Beca business, can you give us an overview of what you’re up to in Australia and NZ?
LEE: We’re 100 years old in 2020 after beginning in 1920 in NZ and we’re going through our respective anniversaries; here in Australia we’re 50 years this year and Sin- gapore, 40 years.
Across the five major divisions of our busi- ness, transport and infrastructure, an advi- sory business, in which defence sits, build- ings, an industrial business and a utilities business, we go where the market needs us.
We’re looking to make sure that we’re across all the opportunities for our clients as they navigate their way through a fast paced world. We’re looking at things like the way culture impacts our people, clients and communities - through human factors like diversity and inclusion.
Helping our clients get ahead of disrup- tion across all our markets is so important – so AI, data, and technology are key at the moment as well as big challenges like cyber- crime and climate change. It’s important for us to have an ethical yet profitable and successful business, so that’s what all our Second Century strategy planning, and our purpose, ‘make everyday better’, is about.
In Australia, we’re a slightly different business to NZ, in that we’re a smaller business in a far bigger area but NZ is a big
business in a far smaller area. So for us it’s a good, strong local presence with enough resources at hand to ramp up quickly to deliver joined up thinking from across our business groups.
It’s all about making sure that we’re posi- tioning well, building our traditional engi- neering services but making sure that we’re taking into account those macro changes that can impact us so that we do leave a leg- acy for the next 100 years in our business.
ADM: With NZ being your home mar- ket, how do the defence businesses differ between the two markets in the Beca ex- perience?
LEE: We have a bigger footprint in a smaller market in NZ; a broader, deeper footprint. We work across all three Services and we’re a strategic partner with Defence NZ. We’re seen as probably one of the more impactful players in providing services helping the NZ Defence Force and the MOD position and execute their strategic vision for the fu- ture. We’ve been a lot more targeted in Aus- tralia. We’ve been in the defence space here for about the last seven years and we focus more on capability, acquisition and sustain- ment. For example, helping Navy with vari- ous parts of their program assurance work. It took some time to prove our worth, even though we had strong pedigree from NZ.
I think defence is probably one of our strongest areas in Australia now. We cer- tainly have developed a good working re- lationship with the Navy and our track re- cord is growing in CASG.
Both sides of the business, Australia and NZ, are looking more and more at the na- tional security market, as a natural progres- sion from our Defence footprint. When I first started working in the defence space for Beca in Australia there weren’t too many people in our defence business here and I re- lied on the NZ team to help me get the po- sitioning needed to build market capability.
It was amazing how alike the Australian and NZ Defence Forces are. I think the Ki- wis are very good at developing innovative approaches, becoming effective quickly and delivering efficiency gains. As an Australian I feel we can learn from this approach. So I found this helpful and it was a bit of a differ- entiator for us in the early days as well.
ADM: What was the evolution of the sea worthiness board work you did with Navy?
Continued on page 47
2017 2014 2011 2009 2006 2005
2003
CRAIG LEE
PROFILE |
50 | April 2019 | www.australiandefence.com.au


































































































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