PBC - Economic Strategy - Meekatharra

Client: Yugunga-Nya PBC

Year: 2026

Project Overview

Yugunga-Nya PBC engaged Wander Consulting to facilitate the development of its five-year Economic Development Strategy.

Following the completion of a Strategic Opportunities Assessment, Wander facilitated a two-day strategic planning workshop in Perth with the Board and Chief Executive Officer, combining in-person participation with Microsoft Teams to enable full Board involvement. Together, we developed an Economic Strategy and Enterprise Framework that identified the organisation's future enterprise model and the pathway to achieving long-term economic sustainability.

The Challenge

Yugunga-Nya had identified a wide range of potential economic opportunities across different industries. The challenge wasn't generating ideas, it was determining which opportunities would deliver the greatest long-term benefit for members while remaining achievable for a growing PBC.

Like many developing organisations, Yugunga-Nya had finite funding, workforce capacity and organisational resources. The Board needed to balance ambitious long-term aspirations with the practical realities of implementation.

Rather than pursuing numerous standalone enterprises, the strategy needed to identify where the organisation could create the greatest return by leveraging existing assets, cultural authority, partnerships, land, people and the Ranger Program. It also needed to establish an enterprise model that could evolve over time as organisational capability and investment grows.

Wander's Approach

Rather than relying on a traditional one day workshop format, Wander designed a structured planning process that allowed directors time to explore ideas, reflect on opportunities and test emerging concepts before making strategic decisions.

Day One focused on understanding the organisation's current position, exploring the findings of the Strategic Opportunities Assessment and identifying the opportunities that aligned most strongly with the Board's aspirations, organisational capability and long-term vision.

Between sessions, Wander refined the emerging strategic direction, translating workshop discussions into a draft Economic Development Strategy and Enterprise Framework.

On Day Two, the draft framework was presented back to the Board for discussion, refinement and testing. This iterative process allowed directors to challenge assumptions, explore alternative approaches, confirm priorities and collectively endorse the strategic direction.

Using Wander's Integrated Strategy Framework, the Board moved beyond considering individual business opportunities to designing an interconnected enterprise model. Rather than operating as standalone businesses, the selected enterprise drivers were intentionally designed to reinforce one another through shared people, assets, governance, partnerships and commercial opportunities.

The Outcome

The project delivered a bespoke Economic Development Strategy supported by an integrated Enterprise Framework that reflected Yugunga-Nya's aspirations, current capability and long-term direction.

The strategy established a practical enterprise model built around complementary business drivers, shared organisational enablers and a clear implementation mechanism, providing the Board with a framework that could evolve as opportunities, partnerships and organisational capacity continue to grow.

Wander also developed a separate Opportunity Assessment as an addendum to the Economic Development Strategy. This document tested the three priority enterprise businesses identified through the strategy process: Advisory Services, the Meekatharra Tourism Hub and the Horticulture Hub.

The addendum assessed the evidence, assumptions, risks, success conditions, strategic connections and further testing requirements associated with each business. It provided the Board with a clearer basis for progressing feasibility, sequencing and implementation decisions without overstating what was already proven.

The project demonstrates Wander's ability to design and facilitate strategic planning processes that move from broad opportunity identification through to a clear economic direction, integrated enterprise model and more detailed assessment of priority businesses.