Over the last couple of months I have been working to put together a Strategic Alliance between my client, ACES,

and the AMCRC.

Putting together an alliance between two bodies that are funding substantially the government, and therefore taxpayer funds, is not an easy thing. Well, not if you want to do it properly, that is. And the properly part is to get them out of what they may do in the future, and to focus on execution.

There are plenty of reasons to get people into execution mode. In my view the main one is that once people start to do things they are forced to talk to each other about the reality of the problems that they face, rather than talking about what they are going to do when they get started.

In the case of this alliance there are issues to contend with that make things complicated – particularly the fact that both are involved in rebids. However, we got past all that and we have an execution path….

The other thing that is always difficult is to get the participants in the deal to focus on what their Strategic Objective is. A lot of the time they fall back into focusing on what they want rather than what they need to achieve in order for what they want to crystallize. In the case of the AMCRC-ACES alliance the strategic objective has to be that which will get the attention of the politicians in Canberra, and convince them that these two bodies working together are going to help them solve problems.

One of the key objectives, therefore, is to be able to present the media story about how, by working together, one of the leading groups of scientific researchers in the country, working together with a group that represents some of the leading manufacturers in the country are going to be able to deliver new proprietory synthetic materials that will be of use in Manufacturing. But more importantly, to offer the promise of spin out companies in manufacturing. Manufacturing drives more jobs that any other sector in the economy. And according to the US Department of Labour new companies deliver net job growth to an economy, whereas legacy businesses are flat lining.

So the key task of the alliance has to be to drive entrepreneurial activity that leads to company formation. That drives high tech jobs, private sector investment, and helps invigorate manufacturing: all key factors for the economy, and in an election year, this is going to be a major issue on both sides of politics.

So on Monday just gone, we got the alliance signed and now the respective organizations can get started. There is much more, but I can’t go into it all for obvious reasons.