The health and social services sectors in Australia have long been committed to the concept of patient-focused or wraparound services, where the individual is at the centre of a comprehensive care team working collaboratively to achieve the best outcomes possible.
Since the term was first coined in the 1980s, ‘wraparound’ has been defined in a variety of ways. Essentially though, it is a process which aims to achieve positive results by providing a structured, creative and personalised plan of care.
While the model of wraparound service provision has traditionally been used as a system of care employed by the community and human services sector to help people with complex needs, perhaps it is time to ask ourselves whether the thinking behind this methodology could be just as applicable in assisting business, especially small business, to improve performance in a complex market.
Business Dinner with Bruce Billson MP
Date: Wednesday, 9 September 2015
Time: 7:30 PM
Event Type: Business Events
Location: The Boathouse By the Lake, Grevillea Park, Menindee Drive, Barton
Description: Canberra Business Chamber invites you to join us for a Business Dinner with Bruce Billson, Minister for Small Business
Canberra is fortunate to have a strong and expanding small business sector. In the ACT there are over 26,000 businesses and over 97 per cent of these are small businesses employing less than 20 people. In fact, there are about 17,000 businesses in the ACT not employing anyone but the business owner.
So how do we take the wraparound concept and apply it to help businesses succeed. It is about providing local businesses with access to coordinated support, at the right time, on the issues essential to them.
A recent illustration is the growing number of shared work spaces. These are often seen as business and entrepreneurial incubators as they not only provide people with a professional space in which to work, but a place where people can connect, share ideas and jointly develop solutions.
Another example is the CBR Innovation Network whose Foundation Members are ANU, University of Canberra, NICTA, CSIRO and UNSW Canberra. This is an open collaboration of innovators dedicated to developing a thriving and diverse innovation ecosystem specifically to support the startup phase of business in the ACT.
By providing the right support at the right time in a coordinated way it might be possible to help our SMEs succeed and expand. Just think, if only 30 per cent of small or micro-businesses employed one more person that would create another 10,000 jobs in the ACT.
What I am talking about is continuing to improve access to education and training; legal and financial advice; and marketing and export assistance. Having a system of coordinated support that businesses can dip in and out of as they need it.
The Canberra Business Chamber is currently embracing this philosophy and developing a broad range of offerings designed to respond to and meet the needs of micro-businesses and SMEs. These services can be tapped into by individual businesses at the right time for them.
Due to its size and the existing collegiate business environment in the ACT, local businesses are well placed to learn from each other and get the help
they need, when they need it, in order to increase the likelihood of them achieving their goals.
While we might not yet use the term wraparound services in the business sector, it is definitely something we are already utilising and should continue to explore. Is it time to wrap our heads around wraparound services?
Contact the Canberra BusinessPoint Team
Phone: 1300 648 641
Email: [email protected]
Web: www.canberrabusiness.com
Robyn Hendry, CEO
Canberra Business Chamber
www.canberrabusiness.com
