Industry issues management

Background:

The context in which the Australian dairy industry operates is subject to change. There will be opportunities; however some changes will represent challenges that have the potential to cause a negative impact to the industry’s reputation. Practices that may be acceptable today may not be appropriate in the future. The industry needs to be able to identify trends and emerging issues in advance and attempt to avoid or mitigate factors that may be harmful to the overall image of milk and dairy products. DA has been tasked with the role of co-ordinating and leading the industry's risk management approach to ensure an effective approach to issues management.

Project objective:

To assist the industry to proactively manage potential risks and respond to emerging issues by maintaining and implementing an industry issues management framework

Project scope:

This project aims to ensure that the dairy industry has a robust and credible Issues Management Framework (IMF) in place and that DA performs against its obligations to proactively manage risks that have the potential to negatively impact the reputation of the industry. The key activities of the project are the:

• Ongoing system maintenance and continual renewal of the IMF
• An engaged Key Contacts group within DA and the dairy industry
• Environmental scanning to identify and monitor potential issues.

Outcomes/benefits:

Proactive risk management requires robust processes and pre-prepared information to be in place and ready to be activated should the need arise. The focus of this project is ensuring DA is prepared to respond by: Maintaining the IMF; Communicating with key stakeholders regarding the IMF and potential issues; and Developing issues management skills across DA and the wider industry to enable an effective and efficient response, should it be required. The project aims to deliver a range of benefits including that: Industry risk management processes are efficient and effective; The industry has access to an active and well informed group of people who are aware of the importance of managing risks; There is a high level of awareness of DA’s issues management framework and its role in managing industry risk; Key stakeholders have easy access to important information and are informed and engaged; and Issues management skills are continually developed and tested across the industry.

More information:

or more information, please contact Julie Iommi, Dairy Australia Issues Management Manager.