The CEO Magazine Australia — November 2017

theceomagazine.com | 111

DID YOU KNOW?

Goldenfields Water is the first water utility in

New South Wales to provide customers with

the MyH20 portal, allowing them to monitor

their water consumption and costs anytime,

anywhere. Customers can also choose their

own water consumption targets and set

up alerts to warn if targets are likely to be

exceeded. MyH20 can be used for multiple

properties and can be accessed by both

tenants and real estate agents.

“I don’t know where I would be

without undertaking both those programs,”

Phillip admits. “While the MBA gave me

a really good understanding of business

and general management away from the

very technical engineering role, I got even

more out of the leadership program. It

provided day-to-day processes for how

to work with staff, support them and

empower them to make decisions.”

Phillip secured the role as director

of infrastructure at Goldenfields Water

in 2015. However, the appointment was

short-lived, when only four days into the

job the council’s general manager took

him to one side. “He told me he was

going on leave. He never came back,”

Phillip says. “A couple of months later, the

role was advertised and I was successful in

securing the general manager position.”

Goldenfields Water, which celebrated

its twentieth anniversary in July, supplies

drinking water to 46,000 customers across

an area of 22,526 square kilometres in the

South West Slopes and Riverina districts

of New South Wales. Following the

council mergers last year, it consists of

seven local government areas: Bland,

Coolamon, Cootamundra–Gundagai,

Hilltops, Junee, Temora, and Narrandera.

“Over the past 20 years, we have spent

something in the region of A$124 million

on new infrastructure. We increased our

storage by 14 per cent and treated enough

water to fill 77,000 Olympic-sized

swimming pools,” Phillip says. “We are

a unique organisation in that we have

the largest water pipeline network in the

state, but very low customer density.

“We could have a major storm in one

borough and drought in another, where

we’ll proactively work with our customers

to reduce their usage. I don’t know many

other businesses that would advertise to

reduce or not buy their product. But

because we are a small organisation, it

allows us to be quite nimble, to be able

to adapt to the changes as required, while

at the same time having that mass in order

to deliver our large projects.”

Goldenfields Water has implemented

a four-year cycle strategy to ensure it

keeps up with the demand to not only

continue to provide customers with

high-quality drinking water but also to

engage the community.

“In the past, utilities haven’t been

seen; they just existed in the background,”

Phillip explains. “We need to be working

with our customers, making sure we

deliver the services they want, how they

want. For too long utilities have had

the attitude that if the customer doesn’t

like it, they can just go away. But I’m

a firm believer in being in touch

with our customers – it’s the only way

we can improve.”

“Civica is proud to partner with Goldenfields Water

on its digital transformation journey. We believe it has

truly achieved more with Authority 7. This includes

streamlined financial reporting, replaced legacy systems

and the new MyH2O portal, which displays water usage

in real time.” – Matthew Montgomery, Sales Director,

Civica Local Government Solutions

Changing Landscapes:

Digital transformation

What do local councils need

in the digital age?

Data

security

97%

Mobile

compatibility

74%

Third-party

Integration

65%

Web-enabled

service

61%

Process

Automation

61%

Business

intelligence

56%

For the full report

visit civica.com

civica.com [email protected] @CivicaPty linkedin.com/civica-pty-limited

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