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Firms such as BlackCard can receive support that they “never thought was possible” to achieve growth.
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Indigenous businesses to access PwC expertise
10 October 2022
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“I don’t think I would be in business if I didn’t have that support,” said Mundanara Bayles, co-founder of training firm BlackCard. “When COVID hit Tom Seymour rang me and said, ‘How can we help you? We want to back you and we want to see you succeed.’”
Ms Bayles said the PwC chief would ring at all hours to make sure the Queensland outfit was thriving.
“He would ring me on Saturdays, he would ring me after hours and touch base with me and ask what else they could do, what other support we needed, how they could improve, which was just awesome,” Ms Bayles said.
BlackCard was the 2019 winner of PwC’s MURRA Boost Initiative that each year donates $30,000 worth of advice from the firm’s specialists to an Indigenous business seeking to grow.
Ms Bayles said that winning the initiative and having a chief executive who cared helped save her business by enabling it to change tack during the pandemic.
“Having a CEO like Tom driving that organisation, his passion about closing the gap, reconciliation and the Uluru statement from the heart as well as the initiative is commendable,” she said.
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Tom Seymour said that he was proud of the partnership PwC had with MURRA and the impact it has had.
“We’re proud to continue our support of the Indigenous business sector through the PwC MURRA Boost Initiative,” he said.
“We recognise that the growth and success of First Nations businesses has an important impact on communities, nation building and fostering further economic development and wealth creation for First Nations peoples.”
BlackCard provides training for all Australians through cultural competency courses and teaches people how to engage with different cultures while also strengthening ethical behaviour.
“Prior to COVID BlackCard delivered face-to-face training with a national footprint however when the pandemic hit we had to retrain to facilitate the program on a virtual platform which PwC enabled us to do,” said Ms Bayles.
“If we didn’t have that PwC support I wouldn’t have known what was possible, so to engage with some of the best business people in the country adds value to anyone’s business and supported us in thinking outside of the box.
“I could not imagine what we would be doing now.”
Ms Bayles said that it was through the conversations and support from PwC specialists that BlackCard was able to survive and grow.
“We don’t know what we don’t know. I didn’t know that my business could go online, and I could actually generate triple the revenue by delivering on Zoom or Microsoft Teams or Google Hangouts and now Amazon wants us to deliver on Chimes,” she said.
“Having the resources, the consultants from PwC was something I never thought was possible, so to win the award and have PwC support us through, what I would say the most testing times of 10 years being in business was unbelievable.
“When COVID hit we had the support of PwC and were able to upskill our staff to be able to facilitate on a virtual platform.”
As BlackCard looked to diversify and find a footing through virtual training Ms Bayles tapped into PwC’s expertise to assist in launching a podcast that was based on the primary ideas of BlackCard.
“I got support from PwC with some of the money we had left to look at developing and launching a podcast, which I now have partnerships on and it’s making money with over 100 episodes and 100,000 downloads,” she said.
“(It’s called) Black Magic Woman and it was born out of a global pandemic because BlackCard was still trying to figure itself out and in the meantime we started looking at other ways we could bring in other revenue.
“We now have 21 people on the books and we probably had about 14 before COVID.”
Ms Bayles said that the additional support for an Indigenous business like BlackCard was necessary because Indigenous-run firms can often be their own greatest adversaries.
“Indigenous people, in business especially, sometimes limit ourselves because we don’t have the support, financial backing or resources and are sometimes our own worst enemy,” said Ms Bayles.
“But the people I was engaged with at PwC showed me, I didn’t have to spend extra money, I didn’t have to bring new people in, I just had to adapt with my existing staff.”
To be eligible for the PwC MURRA Boost Initiative and receive the $30,000 of specialist support the company must be a majority-owned Indigenous business seeking to strengthen and build its practices or capacity.
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