The Conserve Story: How did we get here?
Conserve is gearing up for a new chapter in 2024, with the launch of a new digital platform set to change how the industry approaches contractor compliance and risk management.
In looking forward, it's also been a time of reflection here at Conserve — thinking back to where we began, how we got to where we are today and the future we're working towards: one where every person who shows up on a worksite is protected and safe at work, and where organisations are mitigating their risk by ensuring all contractors are compliant. And so we thought it was high time we took a trip down memory lane and shared the Conserve story.
Our founder Brian Govindasamy is a seasoned expert in quality management, environmental systems, and safety protocols. After spending much of his career in the maritime industry building deep expertise in systems and risk management, in 2000, Brian set out to establish BNG Consulting with a clear vision: to help organisations better manage risks and develop robust methods for worker safety.
Consulting for large national and multinational enterprises to audit and manage their risk, it became clear that the problems within organisations were systemic. There was a fundamental disconnect between what the documented processes say an organisation does and what was happening on the ground.
"A safety process must ensure that the person who pushes a button and pulls a lever doesn't lose a finger or an arm," says Brian. "Often, a manager will tell us they've got a great process in place – but when we do an audit, we find that critical systems don’t necessarily work at the coal face. Safety processes must protect workers in the real world, not only on paper."
Further, these same corporations had a discrepancy in how they trained their workers. They would often properly train their employees, while contractors were overlooked. There was an underlying attitude of, "They're not my employees, so it's not my responsibility", putting contractors at a much higher risk of workplace incidents. It was clear to Brian that something had to change. How could he strengthen these systems within organisations and design safety processes that work? How could he get buy-in from leadership to implement change?
Once businesses were aware of the problems poor safety processes and induction procedures posed, they could see they needed to be solved. But creating meaningful inroads was challenging — contractor documentation and training were incredibly resource intensive, and organisations simply didn't have the capacity.
That's when Brian came up with an idea: what if he designed a streamlined platform that does it all for you — screens the contractors, verifies their qualifications and abilities, collects essential safety-related data for workers, and ensures everyone on site is inducted and ready to go?
And thus, in 2008, the very first version of the Conserve platform was born — a simple, cloud-based (revolutionary for the time!) platform to help organisations manage their contractor compliance. Bolstered by Conserve’s skilled client services and customer support teams, the platform struck a particular chord with Councils around New South Wales, and Conserve continued to grow rapidly alongside the evolving technology landscape.
Then, in 2011, a significant update to legislation under the WHS Act was enacted, enforcing that organisations that hire contractors are as liable for those workers' safety as their own employees.
The introduction of safety as a mandatory component of procurement and government processes emphasised the rigour and complexity involved in engaging contractors. This new legislation highlighted the value of the Conserve platform and our team’s role in helping organisations mitigate their risk, ensuring that only competent and qualified contractors get hired.
"80% of the risk is mitigated just by checking the validating data."
In 2017, Aaron Govindasamy was ready to take up the helm of leadership in the business alongside Brian. With Aaron's fresh perspective, the time was right for the company to evolve, integrating emerging technologies, SaaS trends, mobile accessibility and more to help organisations efficiently hire and manage compliant contractors.
Moving from under BNG Consulting, the Conserve platform became a part of the new Conserve business, with a critical focus on a managed service offering alongside a software solution that takes care of the end-to-end journey of contractor management and compliance across organisations. Our people, our platform, and our process are the formula that helps us deliver exceptional results for our clients and set us apart from our competitors.
Fast forward to today, and we're ready for our next chapter, with the Conserve platform being redesigned and redeveloped from the ground up. This new system, paired with the guidance and expertise of our support team, will make it easier than ever to onboard and manage contractors, ensure streamlined processes and support organisations around Australia to lead with safety in every project. And this is just the beginning, with a roadmap set to encompass big data, leverage AI capabilities, device agnostic mobility, and so much more.
We can't wait to share more with you over the weeks and months ahead.
Thank you for being on the ride with us — at 15 years young, we're just getting started!
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