Alumni in profile
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Marnie Ireland
Master of Business Administration 2005
For Master of Business Administration graduate, Marnie Ireland, the opportunity to be her own boss is one of the great benefits of managing her own business.
"Without doubt the best part of being the Director of my own company, Quandong, is being my own boss and having the freedom to put my ideas into action and feeling like the work I am doing is really making a difference in indigenous communities.'
Founded in 2006, Marnie's company Quandong (named after the native Australian fruit) focuses on three primary areas of operation including; providing sustainable business solutions, project brokering and the production and sale of Australian bush produce all based on the ideals of sustainable economic development and corporate social responsibility.
The operational section of Quandong produces gift hampers assembled from and containing products featuring indigenous produce. The hampers themselves are woven baskets, coolamons, boxes made from handmade papers or hand printed bags. These contain a continually rotating selection of high quality items such as bush foods: quandong jams, bush tomato relishes, myrtle seed flavoured chocolate, quandongs, macadamia nuts and Kakadu plum puddings for our Christmas hampers. Also included are also cosmetics featuring indigenous ingredients, hand-made paper writing products, bush incense and other interesting indigenous items depending on availability.
"Quandong doesn't put pressure on communities to supply a set number of items, rather we are flexible with including what is available. This is dependent on seasonal variations associated with wild harvesting and community resources."
The baskets and Coolamon together with the raw produce and final product are sourced from remote communities or via indigenous business networks. Quandong Bush Baskets provides centralised distribution and marketing of these items, promotion of indigenous culture, and autonomous income into remote communities and aboriginal business networks. A percentage of profits from this part of the business are also reinvested back into the development of suppliers and the business.
The other elements of Quandong include offering consulting and brokering services associated with doing business sustainability and in a socially responsible manner. Quandong differentiates itself from other sustainability consultants by having the operational element of Quandong Bush Baskets to draw upon in demonstrating how this can be done, rather than providing nebulous advice and strategies. These consultancy services include; sustainable project brokering to benefit remote communities, project management, strategic planning advice, formulation of sustainable development concept plans and water/energy balances, stakeholder engagement program planning and delivery and providing strategic review services for clients including Edge Synergy, ARRIS, IBA and ASIRC.
Marnie said that developing her own business required the ability to be able to multi-task in a developing environment.
"As this business is in its developmental phase, my work encompasses all facets from strategic planning, to marketing, to provision of technical advice, to supply chain management to hamper assembly and administrative tasks. As income improves I am steadily increasing the amount of outsourcing of administrative tasks and strategically employing the skills of others as required to support the businesses development while balancing overheads and costs," she said.
Crediting Deakin's off campus MBA program for giving her the basic tools needed to establish Quandong; Marnie believes that the residential subjects of the course were invaluable in helping her to develop the confidence to achieve her goals.
"I needed a university that supported distance education to continue my MBA studies when I moved to Alice Springs from Melbourne to work in the water recycling industry. I found the support and assistance provided by Deakin to be excellent."
"The week-long residential subjects were the most enjoyable part of my MBA studies. The opportunity to immerse yourself with fellow students and really focus on and explore the subject really added to the learning experience."
"Deakin makes distance education easy as there are heaps of support networks and assistance. I also thought the library services were excellent for conducting research. The course certainly gave me greater confidence in my own skills and a great foundation of knowledge to underpin my business decisions."
In the immediate future, Marnie plans to keep developing the business and market the Quandong sustainable business model as the way of the future. She also wants to develop additional business elements of Quandong to better facilitate for sustainable freight services to and from remote communities and the wholesale distribution of bush produce.
For more information about Quandong phone 0407 806 778 or visit the Quandong website .
