Melbourne Market Relocation

Running head: MELBOURNE MARKET RELOCATION
Melbourne Market Relocation
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Author Note

1MELBOURNE MARKET RELOCATION
Introduction:
The relocation of a business operations or an organization is generally influenced by
the scope of profitable business in the new destination. The choice of the new destination is
affected by significant amount of facilities like easy transport, profitable market and the
comfort in the operations. Along with these advantageous points, the concern in the
relocation is the possibility of losing a developed market along brand awareness that the
company or the business operations have in the existing market. The paper analyses one such
case of relocation of Melbourne Markets which is formally known as Melbourne Wholesale
Fruit and Vegetables Market.
Overview:
The Melbourne Market was one of the prime sources for the growers and the
wholesalers of the country to sell their fresh products and as result the market was considered
a significantly influential factor in the economy of Australia. The market was generally
situated in Footscray Road, West Melburne which was near to the Melbourne Fish Market
and Port of Melbourne. In the year 2000, the government started considering the plan of
relocation to Epping in order to avail a world class facility which in the year 2005 was
announced. But the implementation of the plans took 10 years. The plan considered a new
site of 70 hectare with 120000 square meters of warehousing along with 3000 business
processes and an employment of 8500 workers. The new market place was planned to trade
products worth 2 billion US dollars with the motive to offer the fresh fruits, flowers and
vegetables to the people of Victoria and Australia.
Leadership Players for the Project:
The project had the sincere leadership of two of the renowned organizations of
Australia which are the Government of Victoria and the Melbourne Market Authority. In the

2MELBOURNE MARKET RELOCATION
year 2000 the government considered the plan of relocation and the approval of the plan was
also done by the government. The implementation of the plan and the settlement of the issues
related to the growers, wholesalers and the other stakeholders in the process of relocation was
managed by the Melbourne Markets Authority or MMA.
Required Leadership Attributes:
The government was significantly ignorant to one of the major step of the 8 suitable
steps in leading a change. The step was creating a sense of urgency. The Government of
Victoria considered this plan of relocation in the year 2000 and it took five years for them to
approve the plan of relocation. After that, the government took another ten years in the
implementation of the plan which was crossing the scheduled date of implementation by
considerable amount of time. The Government in this case along with the Melbourne Markets
Authority were not able to get the sense of urgency and that was one of the major detrimental
factors as that led Fresh State to think about the alternatives in the form of a privately funded
market in the south eastern suburb of Dandenong1. The absence of effort in recognising the
sense of urgency damaged both sets of people and that is significantly visible with the rapid
growth in the estimation of the budget for the implementation of the plan. Along with this,
even the wholesalers’ organization with the growers were significantly concerned with the
rates of rents in the new destination that is yet to be disclosed by the government. Apart from
this one of the influential factor in leading a change is the correct formation of the goals and
the drive towards the exact completion of the objectives. The managerial organizations for
the plan significantly failed in this aspect as well as it is observed that the wholesalers or the
growers were going to have almost half of the space that they used to get in the Footscary
Road. The general aim behind the relocation was the increment of the space and the
1 Parker, David, et al. "Integration of project-based management and change management: Intervention
methodology." International Journal of Productivity and Performance Management 62.5 (2013): 534-544.