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The Australian Government has dramatically increased its Defence budget to around $500 billion for the next decade. The funding supports Defence’s acquisition, sustainment, and facility upgrading activities. The Government is also promoting the uplift of Australian Industry Capability (AIC) and the building of a Sovereign Industrial Capability (SIC).
The increase in the Defence budget also indicates more opportunities for contractors in the Defence market. However, becoming a supplier to Defence or in the Defence supply chain involves complexities that will take a toll on you and your team for some time (generally takes 2-5 years of solid effort).
Hence, getting some professional support while developing your company in the Defence industry can save a lot of stress, not to mention the time and cost savings for you and your staff. Hiring external specialists with the experience you need can enable you to approach your target market confidently and help you navigate the path without having the unnecessary difficulties you’ll have without the right knowledge upfront.
Expert consultation in your early years pushing into Defence can seriously cut years off your journey, just ask those that have tried without it and then figured it out!
Senior Defence staff regularly tell their audiences that they recommend companies looking to sell into Defence getting some experienced professional support to do so.
The table of contents includes everything you need to know about Defence marketing and sales consulting services.
Companies new to the Australian Defence industry must pick the correct path and forge the right direction to have a successful journey in the Defence market. Having the correct information and solid foundations moving forward will increase your speed of entry and also help you to have more success as you go through.
Developing relationships and connections within the industry is one of the keys to success and also navigate the market better.
Our Defence consultant services help companies that are new or inexperienced in the market to conquer the various channels they’ll face by providing the right information and support to craft a clear path or roadmap to winning work from a senior marketing and sales management perspective.
With the help of expert consultants, a sales team and the right information your company can have more chances of getting recognition and potentially contracts within the industry.
The job of Defence consultants is to simplify the complexities and hurdles companies face and guide them to the right decisions at every step. Defence consultant services help you market and sell your specialities correctly at the right time to the right people ensuring your success in the Defence industry.
There are multiple channels for procurement within the Australian Department of Defence (DoD). The significant acquisitions under Defence are processed through the Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG).
Within Defence contracts there are contractual obligations that must be met, which start in the tendering process with the ASDEFCON suite of contracting templates. All major project procurement activities are run through the ASDEFCON suite of templates so that the contractual terms are covered at all stages of the supply chain. You must have a thorough knowledge of these templates to have a strong hold on the process and adhere to the terms.
The Australian Department of Defence uses a platform called ‘AusTender’ to inform the industry about upcoming procurement activities for assets and services.
AusTender is free of charge and publicly available.
There are other platforms such as the Industry Capability Network (or ICN Gateway) where many Defence supply chain opportunities are published. The majority of these opportunities are released by International Defence Prime contractors who have already won contracts with Defence. ICN is also a place where suppliers can showcase their products and services and gain some much needed exposure to the major project holders.
ICN began as a government project and is now run independently, predominantly by a state office, together making up a vast network of industry consultants to help companies find opportunities across Australia.
A few years ago, the Department of Defence established the Major Service Provider agreement. In this new arrangement, the Major Service Providers (MSPs) are responsible for managing a significant portion of procurement and consulting projects. They work on behalf of the Australian DoD and CASG.
The Capability Acquisition and Sustainment Group (CASG) has replaced the previous model that dealt with many consulting companies and now uses the four appointed MSPs under the MSP arrangement; which has helped them manage the workload of Government procurement with less contractors reporting to CASG directly.
The Sovereign Industrial Capability Priorities (SIC Ps) are a result of a rigorous assessment of the Defence Strategic Policies, Defence’s forecasted needs over the longer term. The focus of the SIC Ps is to ensure industry and Government are working together on building the right capabilities to support the national interests for what we have now and also want and need to build in the future – according to the strategies that have been put in place already.
The Sovereign Industrial Capability Priorities focus on operationally critical areas to the mission of the Australian Defence Force (ADF). These include the priorities of the Integrated Investment Program that go over a three to five-year period and other industrially complex areas that require more extensive monitoring, management, and support.
Priorities focus on technologies rather than products, services, or companies. They are usually described and analysed at the capability level. Thus, priorities must be embedded early into strategic planning for effective implementation.
At the end of the day the Government needs to provide the ADF with high-quality and cutting-edge capability, while trying to maximise Australian industry involvement and an everlasting ability to sustain the assets no matter what happens in the world around us (as a nation).
For more information on the SIC Ps, please join one of our workshops or programs, where we go into more depth and also provide worksheets and coaching on how to maximise your opportunities gaining work more specifically with one focus on one of the many SIC priorities of the Government.
To claim your stake in the Australian Defence market, you must understand its complexities and be prepared with a well-planned strategy. Most companies usually don't directly deal with the Department of Defence (DoD).
A newcomer to the industry can face many challenges, including not understanding:
To be able to gain traction in the fastest possible way and make the best use of your company’s resources you need to obtain a solid grounding in all things ‘Defence’, commonly known as ‘the Defence landscape and language’.
The best place to start your journey is getting involved. This will help you develop some of the essential things that you need, which take time – like relationships and helping you to find out who holds the opportunities for your company.
That’s why we’ve developed our hybrid consulting and training courses… to lower the barrier to entry; helping you understand ‘Defence’ and plan out your strategy after gaining enough information to start well, selling into the Defence industry in Australia.
First, the outcome is important to understand.
Your company and message needs to be seen by the right people at the right time and understood as the right fit for them… to be useful in your plans of selling to whomever it is that you should be selling to in the Australian Defence market.
How do you get that to happen?
It’s not easy and takes a fair amount of time (just like selling in long sales cycles). However, a clear plan put together with research and experience is the start of great things and will definitely give you a better footing for your journey into Defence.
There are various advantages of developing a strategic plan for marketing. A good strategy:
Strategising provides a clear direction for your company. An effective strategy ensures minimal distractions within your workflow.
If you want to break into the Defence market and leave a positive impression with your products and services, start with a solid business plan. This will help you set specific goals, KPIs and strategies for every department and campaign going forward.
It is almost impossible to analyse the benefit of various decisions without knowing the primary purpose or idea. Part of strategising is to highlight acceptable, better and wrong decision pathways in the process of working your way from purpose to ultimate outcome.
Strategising will also help streamline the implementation process, helping you to measure and achieve incremental milestones as you work towards the major outcomes.
Organisations that don’t have a business plan or strategy usually don’t analyse their competition, and therefore don’t understand what makes them ‘better’ or at least different in the market.
A good strategic business plan can help you identify and start creating an exceptional difference, making you stand out from those that you compete with, in a much more meaningful way.
Developing a competitive advantage or solutions that make your business a market leader is the ultimate way to enhance your market value and ensure you are selling into the Defence market in the best and fastest possible manner.
A solid business strategy should clarify what the outcomes of your actions will look like before they are implemented. You must clearly understand what is an achievable outcome and how to get there, so that you can be the most successful you can be with your business ventures.
By setting specific targets and measurement activities, you can quantify your accomplishments and achievements as you go. Comparing the results with your KPI goals and milestones (and against your competition) is a sure way to help you determine whether the outcomes are being hit and are still acceptable or need to be adjusted.
Monitoring the progress is important and helps determine the viability of the activities purposed for Defence sales and growth. Understanding if you are on target and if your business is growing while you progress is important and whether or not that also needs to be fine tuned with regard to profitability.
A clear and open business strategy can also serve a purpose to keep employees engaged and boost their morale, as they can see how they are individually having an impact on achieving company and departmental goals.
Defining a set of goals for specific departments and teams can definitely boost employee satisfaction. People love to be a part of something larger than themselves. Aligning that larger company vision taking into account the individuals or teams within your business helps the people to align with and appreciate the overall business strategy. This can greatly help your company realise its objectives and reach the goals in a much more timely fashion.
A SWOT analysis is one of the best ways to start, helping you to analyse what is good, bad and needs to change in the design of your strategy and overall business direction. The SWOT system helps analyse your company’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats; and can help you simplify how you look at what you need to do to implement change for the better. It’s really a tool to help you make better decisions before you start developing the strategy.
By analysing and assessing the strengths and weaknesses of your company, you can gain an advantage over your competitors, by understanding the gaps in the market and how to position your business now (with your strengths) and what you need to work on as time goes by (your weaknesses).
With the analysis of threats to your company and the potential opportunities, it is much easier to accurately allocate resources; taking advantage of your strengths for faster growth in taking on the market in the best way possible for your company.
Organisations, departments and people who have a vested interest in the decision making process and can be affected by it are known as stakeholders.
Stakeholders can be the company’s shareholders, important customers, employees, suppliers, and even the local community. The customer buying journey needs to be mapped and all stakeholders taken into account before the correct stakeholders for a purchasing decision can be mapped; that is what you really need to know – to be able to sell well.
Businesses who want to sell in the best way must be able to identify the stakeholders in their customers’ businesses and recognise their decision making power level in the organisation’s decision-making process.
Project stakeholders are a part of a very complex and large organisation’s purchasing decisions. Defence supply chain companies will come across these types of stakeholders regularly, hence they are mentioned in this article. There are various advantages to projects that have these types of stakeholders however, they also have various disadvantages as the procurement officers tend to be another step removed from the application… making it more complex when in a tendering environment.
It is very important to determine the correct decision-making process for an organisation early on as a lot of time can be wasted chasing the wrong stakeholders; or not finding the correct stakeholders prior to a purchasing decision being made.
Stakeholders have significant importance within an organisation’s functions.
Their respective roles help with:
Stakeholders help create and maintain valuable relationships and connections.
Stakeholders highlight issues and urge organisations to foster important but not necessarily essential strategies which help make businesses into great corporate entities.
Examples of this are focusing on class leading team culture, work place health and safety, digital transformation, equal opportunity and advocating for social responsibility… amongst many other great and admirable activities and policies.
Engaging influential groups, making allies and attracting supporters can help you create a more prominent presence for your company in the market. Many ‘stakeholders’ conduct their lives in such a way that these things happen as a normal part of their lives.
Decision making stakeholders play the major parts in choosing the right offer for their business. These are usually the people that help to manage the business and will be the people that you need to build long-term relationships with for the benefit of your business.
Alongside Business Consulting is set up to support you and your business to succeed, with marketing, sales and ultimately business growth.
We’ve helped many companies understand the Defence landscape and develop strategies that help them find their way into the Defence market with confidence.
We help companies develop strategies that identify and build a competitive advantage in order for your organisation to be much more successful.
Our expert consultants conduct workshops to understand your organisation’s needs, strengths and understand how to make your business run more successfully in the Defence and Space markets.
Market and Sales are our specialties and with the many years of experience we have dealing with Defence and selling into the industry… we have the edge over our competition to help you cut through.
We help you understand the industry and give you support with our network of partners, filling the gaps you have in your business.
Providing a clear and supported path we help you gain traction faster in the Defence and Space industries by starting with an effective marketing strategy.
Alongside Business Consulting is your one-stop consulting destination if you seek guidance to enter the industry and save time and money breaking into Defence or Space.
Ans – The commercial industry that is involved in the research and development of military procedures, material, equipment, sustainment activities and facilities are known as the Defence industry. For more information we run Cracking the Defence Sales Code training programs to explain how it all works and what is involved in a lot more depth.
Ans – The Defence industry provides many benefits to the economy, including opportunities and scope for growth. The possibilities include innovation and an increase in employment, and businesses to generate scale and increase productivity by adopting the latest technologies to meet international standards.
It is also the Government mechanism setup to protect the nation of Australia and defend the country’s borders; as well as those of our neighbours and allies.
Ans – Due to the rapid changes in the strategic environment globally, the Australian Government has promised to invest over $500 billion in the Australian Defence industry over the next decade (2022-2032). This pool of funding was majorly increased through the 2020 Defence Strategic Update and Force Structure Plans.
Ans – The Defence Industrial Base Sector is a worldwide industrial sector and is it’s own complex environment; supported by other highly skilled and advanced technology sectors. This sector enables research and development of military equipment.
Ans – Yes, there are a number of companies within Australia that manufacture military weapons including a wide range of ammunition, explosive ordnances and machinery to ‘shoot them’.
Some larger examples of these types of companies are NIOA and Thales Australia. Thales is the largest supplier of munitions to the Australian Defence Forces and have partnered with a number of local businesses along the way.
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