Report On Sydney Water Company: Functions, Advantages, And Limitations

Establish history of Sydney Water Company

Write a report on Sydney Water Company.

Water is the essential part of everyone’s life. Without water, not a single living thing can survive in this world (Singh 2014). Sydney Water Company is a statutory corporation, which is meant to provide regulated water service to the Australian citizens (Marques, Cruz and Pires 2015).  The government owned water supplier are consist of both the legal and enforcing agencies that aids the Sydney water company to regulate the water supply throughout the country. This report of Sydney Water Company is meant to analyze the function of this government owned statutory body and its need for the Australian citizens. The report has checked various advantages and limitation of the Sydney water company and its competition with its rival organisations. To conclude it has provided some notable points that the firm can use to improve their organisational structure, service quality and water supply in the various states of the Australia.

According to the Economic Water Scarcity, Australia may face serious threat in coming days if it fails to investment in its infrastructure (Qureshi, Hanjra and Ward 2013). It would be hard for the Australia to draw water from aquifers, rivers and other ground or surface water sources due to lack of water treatment plants and technologies. Back in 1888, Board of Water Supply and Sewage was formed in the Sydney (Sydneywater.com.au, 2017). Since then, the name of the organisation has been changed many times, and with the sixth time change in name the Sydney water company, present name came into existence back in 1999 (Hamilton and Penny 2015). Previously it was a corporation, which was a state owned limited company; however, back in 2001 the ‘limited’ part has been dropped making it a statutory body for regulating water supply in the Australia.

Sydney Water Company is Australia's biggest water and wastewater specialist organization, and their clients are at the heart of all that they do. They give protected, invigorating drinking water to five million clients crosswise over Sydney, Illawarra and the Blue Mountains (Sydneywater.com.au, 2017). They likewise take care of wastewater, Water recyling, some storm water administrations to guarantee that country’s waterways are solid, and shorelines are perfect. Sydney Water Company is an association cantered around the future, and they work with their partners and controllers to settle on brilliant business choices that guarantee they are doing their part to upgrade our city's maintainability and way of life, now and for quite a long time to come. Principle objectives of the Sydney Water Company are as follows (Chong 2014):

• Protecting public health
• Protection to the environment
• Making the business of Sydney Water Company more profitable

Purpose of Sydney Water Company

Sydney Water Supply is one of the largest companies in Australia that provides potable drinking water, storm water and performs water management. It has been operational since 1985 and until now, it has done various activities to bring down the water scarcity in Australia. Some of the recent activities that make the Sydney Water Company best among all are mentioned below (Annual report 2016-2017, 2017):

• It serves more than 12,700 sq. Kilometres landscape of Australia
• Now it can produce 551,406 million litres of fresh water for the Australian citizens in a year.
• More than 4,944,000 Australian people are having benefits of the Sydney Water Supply system.
• In October 2016, Sydney Water Supply reported a $2.2 billion speculation to construct new foundation and redesign existing resources, with Western Sydney.

SWOT is the tool that explains the strength, weakness, opportunity and the threat of an organisation (Verboncu and Condurache 2016). Using this external analysis mechanism, advantages, disadvantages, competition and opportunities to grow of Sydney Water Company can easily be discussed.

Sydney Water Company is one of the best organisations among various other water service providers in Australia. It not only provides potable drinking water but also provides wastewater, storm water and water management service on behalf of the South Wales Government. According to the SWOT analysis of the Sydney Water Company, various advantages of this organisation can be found, which are as follow (Grafton, Chu and Kompas 2015):

• Sydney Water Company enjoys monopoly in water supplying all around the Sydney since its introduction
• Sydney Water Company has lot of potential to become the largest supplier of the renewable energy in Australia
• Produces generous measure of vitality needs from sustainable power source
• Decreased natural effect on services and products
• Energy creation utilizing the gasses produced at water treatment plants

Being one of the renowned brand in Australia and the market leader in Sydney, Sydney Water Company has very few disadvantages. The disadvantages are mentioned below:

• The Sydney Water Company has faced criticism back in 1998 due to Sydney Water Crisis (Troy 2013).
• Global firm that provides potable drinking water has large amount of operational zone compared to the Sydney Water Company. Owing to the small scale of operation, Sydney Water Company has failed to become a global competitor in the field of water supplying.
• It has limited amount of flexibility because the Australian government operates it.

The Sydney Water Company has main rivalry from its global counterparts that has large amount of operation throughout the world and can provide the same service as the Sydney Water Company at a lower cost due to their economies of scale. Thus, if the Sydney Water Company wants to hold its position, then it has to become more efficient and more productive in their business. Besides this, it has opportunities to grow its business by providing hydroelectric and natural gas power generation.

Conclusion:

According to the above analysis, it has been found that Sydney Water Supply has performed really well over the last three decades. It has helped the Australian citizens to have clean drinking water and has substantially enhanced the usage of renewable energy in the country. However, there were cases like Sydney Water Crisis of 1998 that has hampered the growth of this industrial and residential water trading institution, but it managed to overcome the situation owing to its good quality service. To conclude it can be said that Sydney Water Supply is certainly an outstanding organisation, however it need to improve itself in order to withstand the demand of the future generations.

Sydney Water Supply is certainly the best organisation that provides clean and potable drinking water to the Australian citizens; however, it has certain limitations and drawbacks. If the firm wants to become the market leader, then it has to be the more potent and need to extend its operations. Some of the recommendations for the Sydney Water Supply  Has been provided below, which will help it to become the best firm in the Australia that provides fresh and potable water:

1. Expansion is the key to the growth of any organisation, so does the in case of the Sydney Water Supply. If it wants to become the market leader, then it has to expand its business to the various other states of the country.
2. Better crisis management is required to tackle with the water shortage during the summer seasons.
3. Sydney Water Supply needs to implement their latest renovation plan in order to overcome the water scarcity in future.
4. Sydney Water Supply should be act as an autonomous body rather than working under the whip of government. It would bring clarity and efficiency in the work of the industrial and residential water supply trader.

References:

Annual report 2016-2017. (2017). [ebook] Sydney: Sydney Water Company. Available at: https://www.sydneywater.com.au/web/groups/publicwebcontent/documents/document/zgrf/mty4/~edisp/dd_168714.pdf [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].

Chong, J., 2014. Climate-readiness, competition and sustainability: an analysis of the legal and regulatory frameworks for providing water services in Sydney. Water Policy, 16(1), pp.1-18.

Grafton, R.Q., Chu, L. and Kompas, T., 2015. Optimal water tariffs and supply augmentation for cost-of-service regulated water utilities. Utilities Policy, 34, pp.54-62.

Hamilton, R. and Penny, D., 2015. Ecological history of Lachlan Nature Reserve, Centennial Park, Sydney, Australia: a palaeoecological approach to conservation. Environmental Conservation, 42(1), pp.84-94.

Marques, R.C., da Cruz, N.F. and Pires, J., 2015. Measuring the sustainability of urban water services. Environmental Science & Policy, 54, pp.142-151.

Qureshi, M.E., Hanjra, M.A. and Ward, J., 2013. Impact of water scarcity in Australia on global food security in an era of climate change. Food Policy, 38, pp.136-145.

Singh, P., 2014. Change in Water Cycle-Important Issue on Climate Earth System. In 40th COSPAR Scientific Assembly(Vol. 40).

Sydneywater.com.au. (2017). Annual Report. [online] Available at: https://www.sydneywater.com.au/SW/about-us/our-publications/annual-report/index.htm [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].

Sydneywater.com.au. (2017). History of Sydney Water. [online] Available at: https://www.sydneywater.com.au/SW/education/Watermanagement/HistoryofSydneyswater/index.htm [Accessed 15 Dec. 2017].

Troy, P., 2013. Troubled waters: Confronting the water crisis in Australia's cities (p. 217). ANU Press.

Verboncu, I. and Condurache, A., 2016. Diagnostics vs. SWOT Analysis. Revista de Management Comparat International, 17(2), p.114