CR advantage the magazine for Church Resources Members issue six june 2013
in this edition: •Meet our CEO •Our video conferencing solution in action • Our new solutions • A Day Made Better with OfficeMax • And much more....
In partnership with:
CR advantage
June 2013
In this edition Contents > 4 Profile: Church Resources’ CEO, Luke Kenny > 7 Livvi’s Place Ryde opens, with a little help from CR > 8 Succesful Lutheran Church Synod > 9 If you see us at a conference, come and say hello! > 10 Our new Solutions Guide > 11 CR on social media > 12 A foodservice Solution for Mary’s Grange > 13 The Return On Investment from happy employees
Download the white paper
> 14 A video conferencing solution for not-for-profit organisations Church Resources Members can
> 16 A day made better with OfficeMax learn more about the HR world
that’s right around the corner with free access to NorthgateArinso’s full white paper on “The Consumerisation of HR”. Visit www.churchresources.com.au/NGA to download the white paper.
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Welcome to Issue Six! Dear Member, Welcome to the sixth issue of CR Advantage - your update on everything CR is doing to benefit our Members. Recently, I spoke to CEO Magazine about my role at Church Resources, and we’ve included that interview in full (with kind permission from CEO Magazine. I hope you find it interesting. Also in this issue, we bring you details of the latest edition of our Solutions Guide, and how you can get your hands on a copy - and we’ve got lots of examples of how our Preferred Partners can save you time and money on many of the challenges you face everyday, from video conferencing to foodsservice to maintaining a happy workforce. If you’d like to know more about anything you read in this edition, please get in touch - we’d love to help you. With best wishes
Luke Kenny CEO, Church Resources
Share your thoughts At CR, we always want to hear what our Members think of CR Advantage and how we can help you. Send your thoughts to cradvantage@cr.org.au.
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CR advantage
June 2013
Profile: Church Resources’ CEO, Luke Kenny Church Resources’ CEO Luke Kenny was interviewed for the May edition of CEO Magazine, describing what it is that makes Church Resources so special. CEO Magazine have kindly allowed us to reproduce the article: Church Resources harnesses the buying power of more than 9,100 active Members across the Australian not-for-profit sector to deliver competitive pricing on a vast array of procurement solutions and categories. Following a significant and successful three-year change management program, CEO of Church Resources Luke Kenny is now looking to the future. With a wide range of experience across the New South Wales Government, including the Department of Commerce and NSW procurement, Luke sat down with The CEO Magazine to discuss how he changed the face and structure of Church Resources. The CEO Magazine: Do you think your experience across the New South Wales government sector was the perfect preparation for your role at Church Resources? Luke: Yes, it was. You get that benefit if you have people who believe in your capability and want to genuinely see you perform and grow. I’m very thankful to people, particularly in government, who
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gave me such great opportunities. Even though I was young, I was given a lot of responsibility early, and it meant that I was able to learn quickly. It was a good grounding. The Church Resources board had a lot of courage to put someone like me in the role of CEO. At that time, the mandate for this position was a dramatic shift for this business. It was a comprehensive change program in terms of what they wanted for this company, ensuring Church Resources was around for another 15 years. Since I arrived in 2009, we have been focused on making sure the business is viable and delivering better value to our Members, that it can deliver even greater savings, and to keep doing the good work we do in the not-forprofit sector. What initiatives have you put in place to meet that change mandate? I focused on designing and implementing a strategic planning framework that addressed a range of areas needing to be changed. The theme of the change was gover-
nance. Our business didn’t have some of the practices, processes and protocols in place that were necessary to remain viable for the next 15 years. It was built on the back of an amazing entrepreneur and our founder, Father Michael Kelly, a Jesuit priest who started the business in 1997. To deliver on the board’s mandate, we effectively took on a series recommendations from a business review that the board commissioned in 2008. There were 33 different recommendations that we needed to implement. When I arrived, none had commenced so my commitment to the board was taking those recommendations and starting to make them happen, the bulk of which came via our first-ever three-year strategic plan, supported by annual business plans. That made sure that our Members, our staff, the board, our suppliers, and I were focused on the business we knew we needed to be. It ensured we were focused operationally on only doing things that contributed to the direction we set for the company.
In hindsight, we’ve had great discipline in the implementation of that three-year strategic plan, and that’s why we’ve gone from strength. We’ve actually delivered a dramatic change program for Church resources, whilst continuing to grow the organisation.
We’ve turned the business upside down and implemented improvements; we’ve navigated the obstacles that were already there; we’ve got over the obstacles we created for ourselves as part of that change; we’re still growing and our Members are still here.
Our Members have probably added 70 to 80 million dollars worth of spend under our contracts in that period, and we’ve increased revenue. In 2009, we estimated our contracts were managing approximately $180 million per annum in aggregated spend. In the last financial year, we calculated $254 million in spend under management.
Today we are very proud to be supporting over 9,000 Members, big or small, in their mission across our communities through the use of our contracts and solutions. With the advent of the Australian Charities and Not-forprofits Commission, or ACNC, we timed it well. We have just finished implementing the governance they are now talking about.
You mentioned your Membership growth. Why do you think church groups and Members have joined Church Resources? Our Members like our breadth of choice. We have a lot of categories that we provide which specifically support the day-to-day running of a not-for-profit organisation. For example, telecommunications, stationery, food, energy in terms of electricity and gas, motor vehicles, travel, and IT. Over the past three years, we’ve made conscious decisions about
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CR advantage
June 2013
CathNews takes its readers to the Holy Land which categories we want to represent. They need to be specific to what our Members need to deliver on their mission and run their business. Church Resources has to be able to influence those categories to a suitable level, as well as ensuring we deliver value. If our Members can see value and benefit, they say ‘yes’ then we push on with that. If the Members have said there is no value, then we’ve listened and made the changes. Those changes have been to remove categories if they’re no longer relevant; or if the category is right but the supplier is not, then we have changed our supplier. We have to make sure that anyone from Church Resources can look our Members in the eye and say, “we are delivering the best-value proposition across relevant categories with the best-possible provider on a national scale”. Another reason why our Members join is to gain serious value from heavily negotiated price discounts. With total aggregated spend under management f more than $250 million, our sector has lots of small to medium enterprises. On their own, they just can’t buy at the rates we can. With stationery, our contract with OfficeMax is worth $42 million in annual spend. That means our Members can buy stationery from OfficeMax at rates of a $42 million account, not the $10,000 they would spend per annum.
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We’re close to nine to 10 years into our relationship with OfficeMax. They reach more Members than anybody on our behalf with their sales force and account managers. They are great supporters of our education Members and they run a unique, well-supported back-toschool program for the education sector in Australia. These price discounts are a huge benefit for our members. They don’t get a lot of money. Some not-for-profits rely on government grants, so the government wants to make sure every dollar is spent responsibly. By using Church Resources, Members understand their money is going to a supplier that is reputable, and that their expenditure will be support both during and after the sale. How do you ensure consistent, clear communication with suppliers and Members? We take a very structured approach to all of our communications, whether it is between ourselves and our partners or ourselves and our members. Each year, we produce around 20 different publications, so there’s a series of publications that go out for a particular category to keep people informed. We’ve grouped our different offers into solutions, and we send close to 60,000 electronic direct mail messages a month across the member base to continue communicating opportunities for best value.
We also have a new website where our members can see the latest offers. We’re also moving into social media. We’ve launched our Facebook page, and we’ve got a Twitter account running, which allows us to communicate with members in a different fashion. As a leader, what is your vision for Church Resources? We’ve just finished a three-year strategic plan. We want to be able to say that between now and 2016, we’ve managed over a billion dollars in not-for-profit spend through our contracts. If we do that, it will mean we have saved our members in the not-for-profit sector over $250 million either through price discounts, better purchasing efficiency or cost avoidance.
Read more from The CEO Magazine: www.theceomagazine.com.au/
Liv vi’s Place Ryde opens, with a little help from CR In November 2006, John and Justine Perkins tragically lost their baby daughter Olivia, at just 8 months old, to a rare illness. Their life, as they knew it, came crashing down with the immense sadness. This most devastating time of John and Justine’s life, however, brought with it new meaning. A gift, if you like, with a message - a message to positively enhance the lives of children and their families in a significant way. A vision that the world be a place for healthier, happier kids.
The foundation works with local councils, communities and corporations to upgrade or build playgrounds to an “all abilities” standard, giving children regardless of ability the opportunity to play together, side by side. These playgrounds are known as “Livvi’s Place”. In 2011, a number of CR staff ran in the Sydney Run4Fun event to raise money the latest “Livvi’s Place” playground, and we’d delighted to report that the playground has opened in North Ryde, Sydney, and is proving to be hugely popular with the local community.
Founding the Touched by Olivia Foundation was a To read more about the park, and the Touched By step towards realising the dream that will become Olivia Foundation, visit: www.touchedbyolivia. Olivia’s legacy. In her short life, Olivia touched com.au/inclusiveplayspaces/livvisplaceryde/ many hearts. It is John and Justine’s hope that Olivia will continue to touch many more lives through the work undertaken by the Foundation.
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CR advantage
June 2013
CR at the Lutheran Church Synod Church Resources was pleased to partner with the Lutheran Church of Australia (LCA) for a very successful event in South Australia. It was their 17th General Convention of Synod that took place over three days from 21-24 April 2013. CR has a strong working relationship with the Lutheran Church and supports their mission of, ‘Where Love Comes to Life’. This Synod determined some critical decisions for the LCA establishing their future objectives and celebrating 175 years of Lutherans in Australia. CR showcased Solutions that help Lutheran delegates to provide support for the LCA Synod. CR was joined by our Preferred Partners in Adelaide to personally explore procurement options. We highlighted our travel Partner, FCm who pleased delegates with the knowledge they can personally take advantage of discounted flights and car hire. Our Preferred stationery and technology Partner, Officemax, personally discussed their easy delivery and the benefits they can offer the LCA. Maxxia, providing salary packaging and vehicle consultation, was very popular with their give-away toy cars and jelly beans. Medibank directly accessed their health insurance system to provide advice on health insurance and check the delegates were currently on the best option for them. One of the highlights was the impressive Telephone and Video Conferencing system that delegates could see in action! We could see pedestrians walking in London’s Piccadilly Circus, in real time, through the Aria screens. This was through our Preferred Partner, Aria Technology, who offers a full range of Telephone and Video Conferencing Solutions for every budget. Thank you to everyone at the LCA Synod that came over to say hello and enjoy a Barista coffee with us. We always strive to meet our Members face-to-face and events such as the Lutheran Church Synod provides valuable opportunities for a chat and explore areas CR can offer beneficial support.
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If you see us at a conference, come and say hello! Church Resources and CathNews will appear at a number of conferences for the Church and not-for-profit sector over the next few months. It’s a great way for us to meet our Members, in order to better understand the challenges you are facing. We can answer questions, and tell you about how our range of procurement solutions can help your organisation. Catholic Health Australia National Conference (August) Catholic Commission for Employment Relations (September)
Our Barista coffee became somewhat of a phenomenon at the Synod with much joy over being able to have a proper coffee! The appreciation for the coffee was clearly communicated through the generous donations collected at the coffee counter. The Lutherans really do like their coffee and we raised $1800 over three days for the Australian Lutheran World Service. We also had two lucky winners, Margaret Beare from Australian Lutheran College as our first prize winner of an iPad and Mark Hansen, a Pastor from Loxton Lutheran Church, as our second prize winner of $500 travel.
Australasian Religious Press Association (September) Australian Catholic Press Association (September) Association of School Business Administrators Biennial Conference (September) Australian Conference on Lutheran Education (October)
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CR advantage
June 2013
Our new Solutions Guide
The CR Solutions Guide provides you with an overview of how CR offers our not-for-profit Members solutions to the challenges their organisations face. It’s through these Solutions that we saved our Members over $45M last year, money which can now be spent those organisations’ core mission. We work with more than 75 Preferred Partners and hundreds of brands, all grouped together in twelve solutions. The latest edition of our Solutions Guide is out now. 10
What’s new? We now have four new solutions to better help our Members.
Information Communications: Our Member spend last year was over $254M and the most utilised CR Solution was Information Communication. We see Technology and Communications as vital to our Members and it’s an area of great opportunity for CR to use our group purchasing power to get better prices and procurement outcomes for the not-for-profit sector. We are looking to build even further on the benefits for our Members and introduce the Communications Solution and Technology Solution.
The Communications Solution The Communications Solution brings you the best in telecommunications, internet access, video conferencing and related technology, at prices normally only enjoyed by Australia’s largest corporate organisations.
Our Facebook community continues to grow CR celebrated a small milestone recently when our Facebook community amassed more than 150 likes, and it continues to grow rapidly! Join us on Facebook, or on Twitter or LinkedIn to keep up to speed with our latest news and offers, and read lots of great content from all over the not-for-profit community www.facebook.com/yourfirstresource www.twitter.com/CEO_CR http://www.linkedin.com/company/470258
The Technology Solution The Technology Solution gives you access to a wide variety of leading-edge technology. This Solution includes desktop, notebook and tablet computers, as well as software, printers and more, at special not-forprofit prices.
The Motor Vehicles Solution Having already sourced and supported our Members in the purchase of motor vehicles, we are pleased to launch our new Motor Vehicle Solution.
Employee Benefits The CR Employee Benefits solution allows you to acknowledge and reward your volunteers and staff with access to savings, specials and rewards. Through this solution you can improve your employer brand regardless of your organisation’s size or budget.
You’ve got mail Would you like to receive a brochure in the post? Please click here to go to the contact us page and simply provide your address so we can send it to you. Alternatively, email info@cr.org.au
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CR advantage
June 2013
A Foodservice Solution for Mary’s Grange CR’s Foodservice Solution can bring significant cost reductions and process improvements. This is how we helped Mary’s Grange, in Tasmania: The foodservice market in Tasmania has undergone a major shift over the last two years, with an opportunity emerging to revisit many established supply arrangements due to an expansion strategy now completed by CR’s Preferred Partner, Bidvest. Mary’s Grange belongs to the Catholic Archdiocese of Hobart and has provided care to the elderly since 1957. Through a meeting between Damian Jardine, CR’s Business Development Manager for Victoria and Tasmania, and Mary’s Grange CEO, Richard Tyberek, the discussion centred around how the 115 bed aged care facility could rationalise their supplier base in the category of food. Richard was looking for a single provider to manage all their foodservice sourcing requirements as opposed to a panel contract arrangement. The anticipated benefits from this approach were to have deeper supply lines (avoiding instances of no stock), simpler administration and stronger supplier relationship management, as well as cost savings through tighter aggregation. In facilitating this initiative, CR were able to collect and analyse a set of spend data relating to historical food purchasing activity. Concurrently, CR arranged for Bidvest to conduct a site tour of Mary’s Grange, and for key Mary’s Grange staff to tour the new
purpose-built Bidvest site located in Cambridge. The exchange was deeply informative by providing an intimate understanding of how each organisation prefers to operate, and what their expectations were with regard to doing business. This engagement meant Mary’s Grange were able to realise cost reductions in the food category, operate with certainty with the on-time supply of all ordered goods, and deal with a single distributor in Bidvest. Whilst all of these benefits were anticipated, as CEO, Richard explains that there were some pleasantly unforeseen benefits: “What we found by using Bidvest’s findfoodfast online ordering system was we could reduce wastage by using the reporting data to monitor usage and adjust ordering volumes down to acceptable levels.” Other benefits explained by Richard included leveraging the negotiating power Church Resources has when working with private sector suppliers, enjoying a seamless cut over to the new arrangement under Church Resources’ supervision, enjoy the efficiency of online ordering, as well as the satisfaction of working with a fellow Church and Catholic organisation knowing its’ motivations are true, and organisational values are shared. To find out more about CR’s foodservice solution, click here to complete a contact form.
“What we found by using Bidvest’s findfoodfast online ordering system was we could reduce wastage by using the reporting data to monitor usage and adjust ordering volumes down to acceptable levels.”
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The Return On Investment from happy employees How do you quantify the success of an EAP? Request your FREE report on Wellbeing and Employee Assistance Programs and measuring the return. Past research has shown when an individual is facing life challenges it can have an impact an entire organisation. Lower productivity and lost earnings from increased absenteeism are just two examples. Employee Assistance Programs (EAP) can lead to marked improvements for an organisation. Early intervention greatly reduces the impact on the individual and the organisation. The question is: how do you measure this impact? How do you measure the ROI on your EAP contract?
Normal practice in Australian EAPs is to evaluate service delivery through engaging clients to voluntarily complete feedback forms. These forms assess satisfaction with service, and while this does provide useful quality-related information, it does not provide objective data about the successful resolution of presenting symptoms. Assure Programs have published an EAP & Wellbeing Study, which takes a more objective approach to measuring ROI on EAPs. Since November 2009, over 300 employees have consented to take part in this study. Click here to request your FREE copy of the report. Alternatively, email info@cr.org.au.
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CR advantage
June 2013
A video conferencing solution for not-for-profit organisations Church Resources partners with Lifesize (previously branded as Voca) to deliver video conferencing solutions to our Members. Here’s how they helped one of our Members: FerosCare.
The Challenge: An organisation of regional and home workers In early 2012 Feros Care embarked upon an ambitious communications project. After nearly two years of contemplation and planning, the organisation decided to proceed with a video conferencing deployment that would link all its regional facilities and remote or home working staff. Glenn Payne, IT and Communications Manager explains, “We wanted to bridge the gap between the geographical locations that we cover. Our facilities extend 1,000 kilometres up and down the eastern seaboard so we wanted to link offices for better communications and remove the need for frequent travel. Our care managers frequently work from home offices and we wanted to provide a way for them to engage in face-to-face communications with other team members.” An added attraction was the possibility of using video conferencing to provide telehealth services for clients.
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Payne kicked off the project by preparing a tender stating all the expected outcomes of a video conferencing system. A key requirement was that it should help to bring community workers and their teams together by providing a more personal approach than could be achieved through simple telephone calls. Secondly, it had to enable Feros Care to substitute certain in-person meetings with video conferences, thus saving money by reducing travel, venue hire and accommodation costs. He also noted the variety of ways the system would be used, from telehealth for residential and day care clients to staff interviews; from delivery of presentations and document sharing to training. It would be a true tool for collaboration and communication. Next, Payne outlined the “must have” technical functionalities. The solution would need to cater for multi-site conferences, peer-
to-desktop communications and be capable of supporting 15 or more people in boardroom style meetings. It also had to be suitable for use on the 300 or more smart phones carried by Feros Care workers. Because the system would be used for health related matters, security was essential. Compliance was also important if the units were to connect to external video conferencing systems. In addition, the system had to be easy to use with an intuitive central management console. Ideally, it would also enable calendar bookings through a simple Microsoft Outlook interface. There was one other critical requirement. “Being in regional areas, our sites don’t have the capability of high speed Internet so any solution had to have reasonable-to-high definition while working over ADSL2,” Payne says.
The Solution: Affordable High Definition It was mid-year by the time Feros Care finished evaluating tender responses and decided on the LifeSize range of high definition video communications systems. “We liked their ease of use and the standardised way of using all the different models. Obviously, the decision also came down to cost. We’re a community based organisation so we can’t be seen to be wasting money. Two of the other systems that we considered came in at extraordinary amounts of money. When we compared what they were offering to the LifeSize system, we couldn’t see the difference that would account for an extra $100,000,” Payne notes. With the guidance of LifeSize partner, Church Resources, Feros Care deployed seven LifeSize Express 220 room-based systems and one LifeSize Passport device.. “Passport gave us the capability of having Skype,”
Payne explains. “LifeSize were the only ones that could interact with Skype straight into a room-based system.” At the same time, 100 ClearSea High Definition VC licenses were issued to remote-working Feros Care staff. This enabled them to use their laptops to dial in to the room-based units. As the LifeSize equipment came on line, the IT team provided training to encourage staff to explore the video conferencing capabilities. To support the need for behavior change, they also stipulated that travel costs would no longer be reimbursed for targeted meetings. The approach ensured staff were exposed to the new technology and helped them to quickly get over any initial concerns about engaging in a video conference. To find out more about CR’s video conferencing solution, click here to complete a form, or email info@cr.org.au
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CR advantage
June 2013
A day made bet ter with OfficeMax CR’s Preferred Partner, OfficeMax, have long been big supporters of not-for-profit schools, providing CR Members with a 5% discount across their entire range. Their ‘A Day Made Better campaign is their way of going one step further, to recognise and thank Australia’s most exceptional primary school teachers. OfficeMax has embarked on its 2013 A Day Made Better program to recognise and thank Australia’s most exceptional primary school teachers. Teachers can be nominated up until June 14, and the process is simple: visit adaymadebetter.com.au and follow the prompts. Originating in the US in 2007, A Day Made Better was developed to give something back to teachers who demonstrated exceptional creativity, passion and enthusiasm for fostering a love of learning. The program has been tailored to the Australian education system and seeks to find and thank ten of Australia’s best. Each winner will receive a surprise award ceremony at their school, $1,000 worth of art, craft, stationery and office supplies for the classroom, and an Apple iPad.
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Key dates to remember > Nominations close June 14.
> Judging takes place between June 15 and July 5.
> Award surprises are held in the first few weeks of August.
How you can help Please help us spread the word, whether this is through your internal communications, social media or notice boards.
Tweet or Facebook: OfficeMax is on the hunt for Australia’s exceptional teachers. Nominate a primary school teacher at adaymadebetter.com.au and win some great prizes for your classroom.
Nominate a teacher. It’s simple and nominations are open until June 14. Visit www.adaymadebetter.com.au
To find out more about the many ways OfficeMax can help your organisation, click here to complete a contact form, or email info@cr.org.au.
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CR advantage
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Make us your first resource If you would like to know more about Church Resources and how we can help your organisation, we would be happy to assist you.
Email info@cr.org.au Web www.cr.org.au Phone 1300 CHURCH (1300 248 724) or 02 9439 2622
Fax
02 9439 2802
Mail PO Box 1522, Crows Nest NSW 1585 Australia
www.cr.org.au
Catholic Resources Trust – operating as Church Resources – is a charitable trust, the trustee company being Catholic Resources Limited. The directors of Catholic Resources Limited are the members of the Central Commission of the Australian Catholic Bishops Conference. The Trust operates in cooperation with the leaders of Australia’s religious orders (ACLRI). The Beneficiaries of the Trust are the institutions and members of the Catholic Church, other churches and not-for-profit organizations in Australia. Head Office: 4th Floor, 504 Pacific Highway St Leonards NSW 2065 Registered Company: Catholic Resources Limited ACN: 080 995 044 Registered Business Name: Church Resources