The Perth Mint: Managing Big Data And Stakeholder Volume With Confidence
A variety of internal and external stakeholder groups, a multi-disciplined management team, and the complexities of working remotely made for a complex (but very doable) project.
Project highlights
| 195 Key stakeholder groups | Streamlined Data gathering process | Reputation Positive management |
“Simply Stakeholders makes it easier for the team to see what needs actioning. And there’s real power in the analysis and reporting side of it. This combination gives each team member the confidence to dive in — they can see all the stakeholders connected to a particular site. As a result, they can focus more on what they need to do once they’re out there.”
Vanessa Rodgehiero, Community and stakeholder engagement manager at The Perth Mint
Company Background
Gold Corporation, trading as The Perth Mint, refines and manufactures gold, silver, and platinum bullion, coins and bars for domestic Australian organizations and international traders. Alongside this, they manufacture collector coins.
Vanessa Rodeghiero is the Community and Stakeholder Engagement Manager — a role that involves her overseeing stakeholder engagement in relation to a project that aims to transform historical gold processing sites into beneficial projects for Western Australia.
She says, “As part of this work, it’s my role to keep all of the stakeholders informed about how the transformation will work and what’s happening. The projects my team and I work on need to deliver the best outcomes for the town or region.”
The Challenge: Managing and Mapping Stakeholder Volume
The number of stakeholders involved in, or affected by the varied works that need to happen on the sites is considerable. So Vanessa and her team knew they’d be dealing with a high-volume of stakeholders and associated data.
Just one site can involve a variety of stakeholder groups, such as local community members and councils, regulators, government departments, and internal stakeholders. Sometimes all of them. And, as Vanessa points out, “In Western Australia a lot of the sites involve native title rights, so I’m working with the traditional owners in all of those relevant areas as well. And there’s commercial interest, too,” says Vanessa.
Keeping track of each stakeholder group, their relationship with the organization, and their requirements was a difficult task. Made harder as there was no centralized database.
“The original process relied on a number of different people, liaising with different stakeholder groups,” says Vanessa. The result was a bunch of spreadsheets used by different internal stakeholders as each individual tracked their own work with external stakeholder groups. Sharing essential regulatory and approval information was time-consuming, proving that the spreadsheet system couldn’t support the volume of data.
But that wasn’t the only difficulty with the existing system.
“We had records of historical conversations happening with different stakeholders. Some went as far back as the 1980s and were stored in boxes of files and paperwork,” says Vanessa.
Vanessa explains that it “made getting a grip of mapping those stakeholders difficult.” And this was a major issue and challenge for the project. “We want to be leading our project with the community at the heart of it — stakeholder engagement is central to the outcomes, so getting the mapping right was really important.”
An Additional Obstacle
As well as needing a better way to map stakeholder relationships, Vanessa was mindful that some of her team weren’t from a stakeholder management background.
“I work alongside people with a mining engineering background, a geophysicist, and environmental specialists. For me it was important to create a framework and build a stakeholder management system for the team. One that they’d find accessible and actually use.”
An historic state battery. Credit: The Perth Mint.
The Solution: One Place to Centralise Community and Engagement Data
Thanks to her decades of experience in stakeholder management, Vanessa knew during the project’s early stages that stakeholder management software would be imperative.
“There was no way we were going to be able to manage the number and the volume of stakeholders without proper organisational stakeholder mapping and software,” says Vanessa.
When looking for a solution, Vanessa knew the right option would:
- Offer a fast and effective way to centralise the community and engagement data
- Help all team members collect and create important report data in a time-effective manner
- Allow the team to work offline in remote settings where data isn’t always available
- Track stakeholder sentiment.
Simply Stakeholders ticked all those boxes.
Outcomes: Centralized Data Increases Efficiency, Is Convenient, and Instils Confidence
The Perth Mint has been using Simply Stakeholders since mid-2024. Their initial setup was swift, but it took around six months for it to really settle in. (“It took that long for us to reach a point where it really came into its own. But given the volume and different backgrounds of the team, we accounted for this.”)
Now it’s in regular, daily use by the team, bringing increased fluidity, cohesion, and ease to their work.
“Part of choosing Simply Stakeholders has been the training, and training our team how to use the platform so they can understand the power and importance of tracking everything. In doing so, it supports them in all of their engagements,” says Vanessa.
But it’s also helped with:
- Internal reporting: “It’s given us the ability for reporting that’s really critical, and made it simple.”
- Greater work flexibility: “The availability of an app helps during those times when our team members are working remotely.”
- Supporting live reporting: “Creating a live report (with the stakeholder’s permission) is helpful in terms of efficiency as I don’t have to wait to write things up when I’m back at my computer. The voice-to-text is a time-saver.”
Currently, The Perth Mint is using the platform for:
- Stakeholder mapping to identify key/influential/impacted stakeholders in the project
- Task management to assign action items to the right person, and make sure it gets done
- Reporting to keep the executive up to date on key risks, opportunities and engagement metrics
- Customised dashboard for reporting for more flexibility and creating granular dashboards
- Data management to maintain shared records and build institutional knowledge of the history with key stakeholders
- Sentiment and issues analysis to proactively manage key elements of stakeholder relationships.
The Added Bonus: Discovering the Power of Tasks
As well as Simply Stakeholders meeting all of their initial software requirements, it’s also turned up a surprise. “An added bonus, which we didn’t really know about at the very start but is really helping us, is the tasks,” says Vanessa. “It helps us keep on top of everything. And that’s key to stakeholder management.”
After an interaction, an action is needed. The task function allows users to assign the task to the relevant person. “The tasks really made it easier for the team; for them to see what needs actioning,” she said.
The result is greater confidence. “With tasks clearly assigned, the team can dive in and see all of the stakeholders connected to a particular site. On a daily organisational level, this cuts down the amount of preparation time needed before visiting a site. So once they’re out there they can better focus on what they actually need to do.”
The Wrap Up
For The Perth Mint, Simply Stakeholders assists with stakeholder satisfaction. Particularly when navigating sensitive engagements, such as traditional owner engagement.
So, if another company were to ask Vanessa about using Simply Stakeholders, what would she say to them?
“Simply Stakeholders gives everyone an easier way to manage a large amount of data. Even if they don’t come from a strictly stakeholder management background. Or, like me, they don’t consider themselves a technical person. Using this software, you’ll find that everyone in your team is able to produce the reports and evidence they need, with confidence.”
