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House of Assembly - Fifty-Third Parliament, First Session (53-1)
2014-08-05 Daily Xml
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Business Transformation Voucher Program

The Hon. P. CAICA (Colton) (15:26): My question is to the Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation. Can the minister inform the house about the new Business Transformation Voucher Program?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE (Port Adelaide—Minister for Manufacturing and Innovation, Minister for Automotive Transformation, Minister for the Public Sector) (15:26): I thank the member for his question; I know he is extremely interested in the future of our manufacturing sector, particularly in the face of the closure of Holden, which is a looming tragedy for the northern suburbs in particular.

The South Australian government is committed to supporting South Australian manufacturers to enhance their competitiveness, their productivity and their profitability. The recently launched $4.5 million Business Transformation Voucher Program has been developed to help high-value South Australian manufacturing businesses to identify opportunities to accelerate their growth through innovation.

The Business Transformation Voucher Program is one of the first initiatives to be rolled out as part of the state government's $60 million Our Jobs Plan, a plan which is necessary due to the unfortunate loss of our new car manufacturing industry after the withdrawal of support from the current federal government.

The Business Transformation Voucher Program provides up to $50,000 for manufacturers to gain expert advice and implement recommendations to improve their profitability and competitiveness. Vouchers will be awarded to businesses to engage specialist service providers to assist them with a range of ways in which their businesses can improve. These include:

review and identification of business/manufacturing process improvements;

marketing and brand strategy;

business model development—

Ms Redmond interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: Member for Heysen, that is your second warning.

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: Just in case people did not hear that last bit:

marketing and brand strategy;

business model development and business planning;

management training/mentoring;

export readiness (and we all know how well exports are going in South Australia, and what an important part of our growth that is); and

Members interjecting:

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: I don't think I heard that, did I?

The Hon. S.E. CLOSE: I repeat:

export readiness; and

implementation of review recommendations once those reviews have occurred.

Successful applicants are required to provide dollar for dollar matching funds. It is very important that we are investing in businesses that are capable of also investing in themselves and going through that partnership. To date three local companies have been approved for a total of $150,000 to transform their business.

Wire By Click Group, which is an exciting Lonsdale firm, has received funding to investigate the feasibility of manufacturing locally with an optimised process, and will work with another local success story, SAGE Automation, to achieve this outcome.

The second company is the northern suburbs-based engineering plastics manufacturer RMAX, which will conduct a detailed energy analysis and productivity review of its facility to identify opportunities for key efficiency gains in energy and raw materials. Williams Metal Fabrication will review its manufacturing processes and costing system to develop an integrated financial management system to efficiently analyse and track manufacturing costs.

These vouchers will also serve to position South Australian manufacturers to compete strongly for competitive federal grant programs. Yesterday, the federal government announced a $20 million fund, and I encourage local businesses to engage in that. It is competitive across all of Australia, despite the fact that we have the disproportionate effect of the car closure in this state, so I encourage our businesses to apply for those.

They are great companies and, if they apply, they will succeed, but businesses have to put in, and I urge them to go to the relevant website for that. I encourage all South Australian manufacturers who look to transform their business and to capture new opportunities to visit the Department of State Development website, or the www.grantassist.sa.gov.au website, which contains the full range of grants that are available at present.

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