A panel of speakers has highlighted the challenges faced by Indigenous businesses in the state, at a Business News event.
A panel of speakers has highlighted the challenges in operating Indigenous businesses in the state, at a Business News event.
Speaking at a Business News’ Sector Briefing: Indigenous Business at Crown this afternoon, a panel of professionals weighed in on the challenges in the sector.
Ngarrindjeri woman and Westpac group Indigenous Banking national general manager Bronwyn Dodd leads the bank’s Indigenous strategies for customers.
“From the start, the challenge that the industry's got is that whilst we perceive to understand what Indigenous business is, we actually truly don't measure it,” she said.
“We don't know how it actually works. It’s the biggest challenge we have.
“I'd love to see through and give you a whole heap of numbers between how much market share I've got or what the lending opportunity is, but you can't do that if you don't who your customer is.”
Ms Dodd estimated couple of hundred of conversations held between Westpac and Indigenous businesses each week but said there were issues with the system.
“How do we know who they are? I just tell you, we don't. It's through understanding whether they're registered or not. It's through networks. It's through people like yourself that connect us,” she said.
“There's probably about $70 million year to date that I'd say we had the opportunity to lend. Have we lent it? Absolutely no, we haven't, which is the disappointing part.
“I hear particularly, there's an enormous amount of investment for the Indigenous Procurement Policy, which is great, but we also know that for us to participate in that you also need to have your own ability to capital and things like that, which is a big barrier.
“We just hear how much money we are in. We hear how much opportunity it is for us.
“But this particular industry needs to have a deep understanding of who we are, so it's the biggest opportunity to have.”
Speaking on the panel, Nhanda Yamaji man and Western Australian Indigenous Tourism Operators Council chief executive Robert Taylor said challenges also plague the tourism sector.
“When you look at the Kimberley region, they only have a very short window for their season, for example,” he said.
“If one little thing goes wrong with that, which is usually around a six-month window to make money through their tourism business, then that can have a real devastating effect on your business.
“The challenge has also been that a lot of them are small owned businesses, so a husband and wife or a family business, that don't have intergenerational wealth, which most Aboriginal people don't.
“So [it] was interesting to hear about the loan side of things, because loans can become quite daunting if they don't have parents’ money, they don't have something as collateral that they can fall back on to get a loan.
“It becomes this whole ….going through grants, which is a big process for them to be able to have to write grants, get support, which can again cost money, and that seems to be that cycle that we need to try and break.”
Family-owned and operated company Moodjar specialises in cultural leadership, training and research.
Moodjar business operations manager Mia Zaknich said the company had to be more savvy in its operation.
“The biggest challenge in establishing … is balancing capacity with cash flow,” she said on the panel.
“We rely on a lot of professionals to support our business delivery, whether it be bookkeepers, accountants or the specialised contractors that we engage to deliver our services and our product – these things all cost without a guarantee.
“There is a lot of commitment financially without any guarantee.
“We've become pretty clever at detecting, and this is not a criticism of the process, but people that are fishing for quotes.”
Panellist and carbon farming business Salubris' executive director Brendon Grylls said WA was unique with 93 per cent of the state classified as non-freehold land.
"[It’s] pastoral leases, Crown land which means Indigenous people are front and centre of every single thing that you want to do in 93 per cent of Western Australia," he said.
"We're looking at pastoral leases and diversification leases under the new government lease model to generate carbon and biodiversity credits, and that puts me in the room with native title holders and claim groups every other day, and it just shows again, the enormous opportunity if you can get that partnership right.
“I'm seeing more and more the very top echelon of business who maybe haven't turned their mind to these opportunities in the past, now turning their mind to these opportunities.
“For Indigenous business and determined and claimed groups, the opportunity to have big business players in Western Australia turn their innovation, and importantly their capital raising ability, to businesses that can partner and generate opportunities for Indigenous businesses is really exciting."
