NSW Ports engaged Prominence to undertake a comprehensive assessment of the economic impact of its operations and investments at Port Botany and Port Kembla. This included the need to accurately model the impact on the local, state and national economy and direct and indirect employment. The engagement also had a requirement to model the economic impact of a range of potential disruption scenarios at Port Botany and Port Kembla.
Prominence employed several strategies to meet its objectives, one of which being a Computational General Equilibrium (CGE) modelling to gauge the extensive economic impact caused by NSW Ports’ activities (presenting a more holistic and accurate economic picture). Key stakeholders, including members of NSW Ports’ leadership team, were engaged in interviews to provide essential contextual insights into the organisation’s operations. Additionally, a survey involving NSW Port’s tenants yielded valuable insights into their activities and economic contributions. Collaboration was maintained through regular check-in meetings with the client project team, including a pivotal verification meeting with the CEO and Project Sponsor. The project also included extensive desktop research to identify effective measures for communicating findings to a diverse range of stakeholders, such as government officials, employees, tenants, and the broader community.
Several key strengths characterised the project’s execution – effective communication strategies ensured complex economic concepts were made accessible to a broad audience; a collaborative approach involving NSW Ports and Prominence, with regular check-ins and verification meetings, ensured alignment and progress; disciplined project management and reporting practices were crucial in achieving project objectives; and high-quality report and analytical data, offering valuable insights into the economic impact of NSW Ports’ operations.
The project yielded valuable deliverables, including an intricate economic model that transparently detailed underlying assumptions and demonstrated how these assumptions led to the final economic impact outputs. The comprehensive report articulated the direct, indirect, and induced contributions of NSW Ports’ assets to the NSW economy. Additionally, a tenant survey report summarised key findings, shedding light on the tenant base’s economic influence.
The project harnessed a diverse skill set, including economic analyses and modelling, stakeholder engagement, disciplined project management, survey design, research, report development, and interviewing. These skills collectively contributed to the project’s successful execution and the delivery of its objectives.
