Client profile

The Australian Government Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) is the national meteorological authority for Australia, providing weather forecasts, warnings and observations for all states and territories of Australia. 

Project context

Although BOM is government-funded, several of their divisions were coming under financial pressure. Their Digital Data Delivery arm, dealing with applications and websites and other technology and client-facing aspects of the organisation, was in need of new channels to generate a surplus. The head of the division was eager to explore new business models to address financial pressures. 

Solution

Spark engaged in a series of workshops with the division as well as a deep dive value analysis. This was a matter of understanding the different market segments that BOM was providing to and what the value was for each of them. Following a detailed value analysis, Spark recognised outside entities were not only using BOM’s data but also producing profit from it. Through a substantial amount of research into international weather models, and deriving expertise from different industries, Spark produced 16 different commercial models. The models would add more value to the BOM offering and pave the way to financial autonomy. In what is a normally stagnate, unimaginative environment where business models aren’t possible, Spark was able to find resourceful ways to create new models for financial sustainability and also save the division significant costs so it could continue to deliver public good.