Judy Terry - Finance Administrator, Wellington
2010 Gerry Cardno Services Scholarship

What topic did your submission have to address?
“How can Cardno increase cross selling opportunities between Business Units and Divisions, thereby delivering increased revenue and profitability?”

What were the key ideas or initiatives of your winning submission?

Setting up an available resource bank linked off Knowledge Bank where business units who have spare resources can ‘advertise’ their availability based on core skill or discipline.
A centralised project facilitator whose role is to bring teams together matching skill sets and availability across business units.
Costs for the above initiatives would be covered by significant savings in chargeable BUM/PM time searching for these resources themselves either internally or externally with all the additional costs in recruiting, training or expensive outside consultants.
Treat internal business units as a key client and adhere to agreed Terms of Engagement. It is imperative that the ‘delivery’ business unit builds trust in the relationship by providing the staff promised, delivering as agreed, and charging the anticipated costs as all agreed at the time of commissioning the work. This will require regular updates on work/costs etc so that the end result meets the expectations of the commissioning business units client in terms of timeframe, deliverable and cost.

What did winning the Scholarship mean for you?
It is a huge acknowledgment of the work I am doing and that I am learning to understand the business. I hope to use the scholarship funds to learn new skill sets that will develop my role as well as enable me to learn more about the Cardno business.

What did you receive?
Professional Development to the value of $7,000 AUD. I hope to use the funds to do some Short Courses that will round out my Excel, Business and Accounting knowledge to better enable me to support the Cardno NZ Region.

How have you benefited professionally from receiving this accolade?
Just to be nominated was a huge confidence boost knowing that I had the support of key staff in the NZ Business. This has enabled me to feel more confident in my role and has given me the opportunity to build stronger relationships with staff both here in NZ and in Australia.