March 2017

36 APAC / March 2017 , business that recognises talent and rewards excellent.” “An important focus for TRILITY is that internal staff are first offered the opportunity to progress into a new role before seeking external recruitment. This can mean a change of skills or perhaps a move to a different geographic region, but our staff do appreciate the opportunity to express interest in either current vacancies or potential new roles created in new projects.” A brief overview of the Australian water market notes that water service delivery (and hence TRILITY’s customer base) varies significantly across Australia and New Zealand. In general: • In Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania and the Northern Territory, state-owned companies are responsible for water supply and distribution on an almost state or territory wide basis; • In Victoria, New South Wales, South East Queensland and Auckland there are separate municipal retail service providers that cover the major municipal centres and regional Victoria and; • Local governments provide water services in most parts of Queensland, New South Wales and much of New Zealand. • State and Local Government owned entities are generally responsible for the ultimate delivery of water, but private sector operators are increasingly involved, working in partnership with government owned utilities. • There is significant outsourcing of capital project delivery and maintenance services to the private sector; • Discrete water and wastewater treatment assets and associated services are increasingly provided by private sector operators (e.g. water treatment, wastewater treatment, desalination, filtration and recycling) and; • The growth in outsourcing is expected to continue as governments seek to improve operating efficiency and control the overall cost of service to customers. While there are a number of key issues a recent Deloitte/ Australian Water Association State of the Water Sector Survey identified five of the most significant for the sector: • The price of water and water regulation; • Water sector professionals’ perceptions of customers’ beliefs; • Sources of water; • Digital technology and; • Asset management and operational efficiency through asset management, process improvement and works management and systems improvement. Gouws states: “The industry we work in is very fragmented across different geographies in Australia and New Zealand. This creates a range of unique challenges requiring a specific approach in each geographical location, including: staff spread over significant geographic distances and small teams working in physical isolation; significantly varied climatic conditions and hence safety hazards and technical challenges; and unique regulatory environment and client corporate structures.” TRILITY’s core business has been focussed on developing long term relationships with utility clients, predominantly focussed on the provision of water and wastewater treatment solutions. This has included financing, constructing and operating and maintaining as well as providing bespoke equipment solutions. This provides the Company with an excellent core business with long term contracts and a significant geographic footprint. Gouws tells us more about the Company’s future. “A focus area for us at the moment is how we can use this base to add a “fifth service offering” to provide additional services, predominantly to existing clients. There are a number of areas we see potential for this offering, based on growth in our clients’ businesses.” “Our clients continue to adapt to meet their end customer needs and expectations and of late this includes a significant focus on embracing new digital technologies. These technologies are helping our clients meet their customer needs.” “At TRILITY we are placing an emphasis on understanding current digital technology trends and how they impact on our core business (for example in improving treatment plant performance) and also how they will offer new business opportunities for us in the areas above or other emerging areas.” The success of the business has in large part been due to its continued focus on providing water and wastewater solutions. It has avoided the temptation to spread its focus too widely and has instead remained dedicated to the water sector. “We see that this will still be the absolute core of our business in five years’ time as helping our clients to provide this essential service provides a very strong cultural and values base for our business. The water sector will continue to grow with population and economic development but will need to increase its resilience to cope with important factors such as climate change and other disruptive factors, so we see a range of new opportunities for our business.” “Whilst continuing a core focus on the water sector we envisage working in new geographies and providing different service offerings within the sector.” “TRILITY’s shareholders will change during the next year and this is something that the management team and staff have embraced to ensure the same level of service continues to be delivered to our customers and the communities we serve.”