Mandalay Newsletter May 2022: Read our case study about Wanneroo and a wrap-up from Waste 2022 in Coffs

Hi ,

It’s a busy time coming up to the end of the financial year with everyone trying to get stuff done. We have been busy too with 14 facilities across 5 states scheduled to go live come July 1st. This is a testament to our team’s maturity and the ongoing support of our customers for that success. This in turn leads to us having an increased ability to invest further into our products and improve service and product outcomes for you in the future.

We also had a busy time at the Waste 2022 conference in Coffs Harbour earlier this month. We got a lot out of it, and for more on that, take a look at my full rundown below. Have a great month!

Simon Kalinowski (Mandalay's CEO) shares his thoughts following the recent Waste 2022 Conference:

The attendance at Coffs Harbour this year was one of the largest I’ve seen and I wanted to share some insights following the event, specifically around the elements that relate to data and the challenges facing local governments and the way they service their communities. I personally attended many sessions, particularly those on the circular economy, FOGO and education so my context will be a little slanted towards those areas.

I was pleasantly surprised at the significant increase in what I’d frame data driven presentations i.e. Councils, industry and stakeholders presenting on behaviour change, education and rebate schemes. Plus, there was a much stronger emphasis on using data and technology to drive and measure outcomes.

The biggest thing I took away and what is currently missing:

1/ Participation in programs
There is incredibly low participation in many of these programs. When you look at the actual data there is only 1-2% actual participation in many of these education and circular economy programs. For me, there is a real question around how do you drive greater participation and adoption to really start to impact behaviours?

2/ Which programs do you choose?
Where do you keep all this data? Which programs do you choose to participate in and how do you measure the success of those programs? When you think about the circular economy in its entirety and the emphasis placed on product stewardship schemes in developing a circular economy within a local area, regional area or on a state basis there can be a lot of distraction. With so many choices how do you rationalise what your organisation should focus on? What should you do, what should you support, how do you measure it, how do you prove it’s a worthwhile investment, what should you maintain and should you increase your investment in future years.

3/ Turning a liability into a market
The last thing I saw which is particularly interesting for other states, in NSW basically if a household has a red bin service then that household will have a FOGO bin and there are mandated models around that. This offers a real opportunity for local authorities to get in early and start to think about the end market for that product, how they turn the material into something of value, and then how they engage their community in that process to get the behaviour change they’re looking for to turn a liability into a market.

Overall, these are exciting times from an industry point of view and there are more data and technology-driven solutions than ever before.

Out of all the things you could do, what do you and your team hope to focus on and why is that your priority?

Coming from a technology background and having focused heavily on consumer facing systems and products, Andrew was surprised to learn how complex and interesting the waste industry is after joining Mandalay. Before Mandalay, he worked as an IT business analyst at Virgin Australia for 7 years. He then lived in the United Kingdom for 2 years where he was a consultant across digital business analyst and product owner roles whilst working in the financial services industry. After returning to Australia, he took on a product owner role managing the consumer facing websites for a property group. His diverse career history between technology and product ownership roles across industries has made him the perfect person to head up our Resident Product Suite.

Andrew has joined Mandalay at an exciting time in a role where he handles lots of product management and Council engagement tasks. He has been busy getting up to speed on the products, making sure all our customers have what they need out of the Resident Product Suite, and he has been enjoying speaking to customers about how we can set them up for success with the Resident Product Suite.

He’s excited to delve into more strategic product planning to help ensure Mandalay is designing and developing the right products and functions for Councils to take advantage of in the future. Welcome to the team, Andrew! We’re so glad to have you on board.