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Philosophy and Professional Practise
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- Who are we?
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- What do we do?
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- Why do we do it?
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- How do we work?
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- Ownership of Process and Outcomes
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- Establishing a Partnership Approach
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- Ensuring Quality Outcomes
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Who are we?
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Strategic Economic Solutions is an economic consulting company that undertakes a broad range of economic analytical projects around Australia with a special focus on small business development and the labour market.
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| Strategic Economic Solutions' core staff comprises
Kim Houghton and
Rob Passey. |
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What do we do?
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Our primary business is to develop and manage projects to provide up-to-date, targeted, quality information which can support our clients in making strategic decisions in their drive for sustainable regional economic solutions. Our motivation for being in this business is a desire to help support the development of economically viable and vibrant communities.
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We like to work with groups and organisations which have a local or regional development focus such as community groups; councils; Area Consultative Committees; regional development bodies; and state, territory and federal business and economic development program users.
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Why do we do it?
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We are in this business because we want to make a difference. We want to support communities in making important decisions about their economic development. We want to help communities understand the tools of economic research, understand the jargon and what lies behind it, and use the tools for their own ends.
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We want to use our experience and skills to provide accurate and timely information, in a practical, clear and understandable manner, to effectively support the decision making process.
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Our experiences repeatedly show that regional action can and does make a big difference - active communities are helping themselves, without waiting for government to fix things for them. Active communities use whatever resources they can get their hands on, and we are here to help them build their arguments and shape their needs to get the resources they want. We want to help communities to use the tools of applied economics to strengthen their arguments and their bargaining power.
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How do we work?
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We like to build good working relationships with our clients, and we place communication, evaluation and learning at the centre of our activity. We believe that using consultants should be an empowering experience and we place great emphasis on the importance of clients feeling that they own both the process and the outcomes.
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We have a stringent set of quality standards which we apply to our work to ensure that our clients can have complete confidence in our work.
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We are aware that our clients need to feel confident that we fully understand their context. Having accurately determined their needs, we like to develop and manage projects creatively and responsively. We understand that needs will sometimes change as the project progresses and that ultimately our clients want outcomes which are practical and meaningful to them: they want outcomes they can use.
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We are committed to developing strong, effective and dynamic working relationships with our clients which enable us to better understand and meet their needs. This document outlines our professional philosophy and the approaches we use to ensure the quality of our work.
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Ownership of Process and Outcomes
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At the core of our approach is a belief that meaningful results can only really be achieved where the project is owned and driven by those individuals or groups which have a primary interest in it. This will usually be the client but may extend to include the individuals or group on whose behalf the client acts.
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By placing control of both the process and the outcomes into the hands of the client and client's community we can multiply the value of the consulting process and empower the client or community in their decision making process. In this approach we as consultants play a facilitating role, seeking to use our knowledge and expertise to guide and support the client through the process, rather than managing the process on their behalf.
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Establishing a Partnership Approach
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To truly achieve ownership of outcomes by the client or client's community we much prefer to adopt an approach which encourages a mutual understanding of roles and responsibilities. We spend a lot of time listening to our clients. We form strong partnerships with the groups and individuals involved and place great emphasis on establishing effective ways in which to communicate. This allows us to better understand the context and to help our clients to accurate identify and articulate their own needs.
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We discuss options and approaches at length with our clients and tailor the process specifically to the unique needs of the project concerned. We are always keen to allow the process to grow out of the context concerned, drawing on our experience and judgement to ensure that the process and outcomes are credible and meaningful.
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We see each project as a learning opportunity for both the client and ourselves and place evaluation at the heart of our activity, as a way of assessing where to begin, where to go next and how the process can continue to progress after the project's conclusion.
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We maintain a high level of person contact with the client throughout each project and on into implementation, and where ever possible we seek to establish networks or structures which will continue beyond the life span of the project.
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We are committed to ensuring that the outcomes of the project are provided in a range of formats and accessible to a wide range of interested people.
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Ensuring Quality Outcomes
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We have great pride in the quality of the work we produce and feel that it is important that our clients are confident in that. The quality of our work is promoted by our commitment to work within a set of guidelines which we have developed through our consulting experiences and professional training.
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Data Handling Guidelines
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In managing the collection and analysis of primary data we are committed to being:
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Thorough by ensuring that all relevant data is efficiently collected and analysed so that our clients receive as complete a picture as possible.
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Accurate by ensuring that error and bias are as far as possible eliminated from our work so that our clients can have confidence in making decisions on the basis of the information derived from the data
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Reliable by ensuring that our sampling techniques provide as representative a range of responses as possible to allow our clients to apply the information to their broader community.
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Transparent so that our methods are clearly understood and available for scrutiny.
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Defensible so that our conclusions can be traced to the source data and proven to be reasonable.
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These guidelines are applied to both our quantitative and qualitative work and ensure that our clients can have faith in the recommendations which stem from them. Thorough, accurate, reliable, transparent and defensible data handling ties the decision making process into the real context from which the data has been drawn and consequently promotes effective decision making.
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Confidentiality Handling Guidelines
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The collection and use of primary data must incur some discussion of the responsibilities of the researcher and the ethics of data collection and use. We are very aware of the delicate nature of some of the data we handle and seek to protect confidentiality by:
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Ethical handling of data sources - We feel that information provided to us is owned by the respondent and given to the researcher in confidence for the specific uses defined at the time of collection. Consequently we expect to protect the individual identity of the people who provide us with data and use that data with integrity.
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Recognising ownership of project outputs - We are mindful that the outcomes of the project are owned by the client and consequently work closely with the client to define the appropriate distribution of the information.
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