Development of Southern BusinessEDGE® Course

Summary

​The BusinessEDGE product was born out of producer demand for improved business skills and financial literacy. Since its inception in northern Australia it has been attended by over 500 participants across more than 40 courses and is identified as the most successful of the EDGE products.

The learnings from delivering the initial material across northern Australia, the findings of the Northern Beef Report and the need to extend coverage beyond beef only producers necessitated the updating of the northern course material, and resulted in a request from MLA to develop an equivalent course for southern Australia. This request came from a course participant feedback analysis by MLA showing that the BusinessEDGE course had been the most successful of all the EDGE courses.

The southern Australian course has drawn on the strengths and timeless principles of the northern material, and has been made relevant by the inclusion of case studies that represent southern Australian grazing businesses. As well, it has introduced new sessions that are relevant to Southern grazing businesses, but not so for the North. The material has been piloted and refined and is now ready for delivery on a commercial basis.

The key strength of the BusinessEDGE material in this course is that it uses principles, concepts and terminology that are taught in business courses and used in boardrooms across the business world, and applies them to grazing businesses, large or small.

The southern BusinessEDGE provides the means to improve the business skills and financial literacy of managers of Southern grazing businesses, for which there is a recognised need.