Page 28 - Australian Defence Magazine June 2021

28 DEFENCE BUSINESS PARTNERING
JUNE 2021 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
PROBLEM 2:
PARTNERING IS EXTREMELY COMPLEX
Any business facing the challenge of accessing Defence for the first time, or the challenge of growing one or two existing capabilities into a bigger program of delivery to Defence, faces very high levels of complexity.
Complexity includes the who’s who in the Defence and Defence industry ecosystem, the compliance requirements for meeting Defence and aerospace quality standards, be- ing able to work with the Defence commercial frameworks, understanding what the 2020 Force Structure Plan really is, what it means to a business and how the business pitches to deliver Defence related work.
Add to this all of the day-to-day challenges of running any business in Australia, such as managing cashflow, project or material delivery, innovation, training, payroll, staff, and so on. It’s no wonder most businesses don’t even attempt to have a go.
The internal Defence stakeholder faces serious com- plexity in mobilising latent industrial capability too. Mul- tiple internal Defence and external government stake- holders need to be satisfied with procurement outcomes and capabilities delivered. Add to this, budgeting and procurement cycles, limitations and restrictions applied due to Defence and whole-of-government policy settings,
and the procurement risk profile for the department. It’s no wonder it’s all just too hard.
PROBLEM 3: BOTH SIDES ARE A CLOSED SHOP
From the outside looking in, Defence truly is a closed shop. The networks are tight, and have formed over de- cades. Defence has a complex ecosystem of different pro- curement divisions, global prime contractors, a research and development agenda, and long-term industry partner- ships, so understanding who will drive the demand for the business’s products and services is challenging at best.
Does the business need to be speaking to:
• Army, Navy, Air Force, or all?
• the end user/warfighter?
• the program sponsor (aka. the stakeholder who holds
the purse-strings)?
• the procurement specialist? • the prime contractor?
• a SME critical partner?
Likewise, the networks and capability of the broader Aus- tralian industry sector are difficult to see by Defence, espe- cially as there is often a prime contractor interface or integra- tor between the Department and the industry base. Defence finds it challenging to see through the ‘front door’ of a poten- tial Defence business – until it is assessing a tender or an
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