Management training grants worth up to $20,000 are to be offered under a joint program launched today by the Federal and State Governments to help Western Australian service companies compete more effectively overseas.
Deputy Premier Ian Taylor said the service sector - including education, health, financial, legal and scientific services - now offered great potential for export expansion.
"What the new management program will do is help these companies develop the strategic planning necessary to achieve their own international breakthrough," Mr Taylor said.
The program, to be known as World Competitive Services (WCS), will be offered under the NIES scheme - the scheme through which Government promotes the professional development of industry.
As with other NIES programs, eligible companies will be expected to meet half the cost of hiring professional management consultants who will provide WCS.
In WA the NIES scheme is run by the Department of State Development.
"The WCS program will largely revolve around a series of three 'management workshops' each designed exclusively for the individual companies taking part," Mr Taylor said.
"The workshops will be conducted by private management consultants and will be set out to enable senior executives to review all company problems, devise new ways to better serve their customers and in the process create the strategy which will beat their competitors," he said.
Mr Taylor said the service sector had become by far Australia's fastest growing industry.
In the past ten years 98 per cent of all new jobs were created by service companies.
"Service companies are our storehouse of expertise," he said.
"Their knowledge can be and is being marketed overseas.
"What the WCS program will do is speed this process by sharpening attitudes and competency and providing companies with the strategic planning needed to tackle such a highly competitive market."
