What we do
Economic, strategic and management services for regional and rural Australia, built on method refined over three decades.
Last updated 31 August 2026
Decide: turning questions into defensible decisions
Business & investment cases
With more than 100 investment and business cases completed across regional infrastructure and social assets, SED scopes, develops and delivers feasibility studies, investment cases and business cases to every necessary investment-management standard: Commonwealth, Infrastructure Australia, state gateway frameworks and Local Government Investment Management. We work backwards from the decision and forward from the funder's rules, so nothing is built that won't survive the review.
Strategy & governance
A core service offering. Our strategic and governance reviews connect planning, strategy and governance, underpinned by effective leadership and strong culture. We work with boards, executives and senior public sector leaders to translate direction into decisions the organisation can act on.
Program & process evaluation
An extensive body of ex ante and ex post evaluations. We specialise in program and process evaluations in regional and rural contexts: measuring outcomes against intent, benchmarking against comparable programs, and turning findings into practical next steps. Our approach aligns to the Commonwealth Evaluation Policy and equivalent state frameworks.
Analyse: the evidence base underneath the decision
Economic impact assessment & analysis
Our economic assessments are renowned for their thoroughness and credibility. We assess economic impact across physical infrastructure, social infrastructure and programs, either supporting an investment case or delivered stand-alone. We use input-output and, where warranted, computable general equilibrium modelling, and we're explicit about what each method can and cannot tell you. Where clients need net welfare analysis, we run cost-benefit analysis alongside impact, clearly labelled so the numbers do not get conflated.
Market analysis & regional profiles
Unique, evidence-based insight into the current state and future drivers of regional economies. Our regional profiles map industry structure, workforce composition, knowledge-base composition, demographic drivers and the constraints that shape what's possible. Clients use them as the foundation for economic development strategies, investment prospectuses and industry attraction.
Workforce analysis
A value-adding approach that looks past skills to their drivers, and to the knowledge bases beneath them. This is where SED's research on knowledge-intensive economies goes to work: we don't just count workers or vacancies, we map the knowledge composition of a workforce and identify which capabilities are strengths, which are adjacent opportunities, and which are gaps. The result is workforce advice that connects to industry strategy.
Financial modelling & data analysis
From financial forecasting through complex statistical and geospatial modelling. We build discounted cash flow models, sensitivity and Monte Carlo analysis, econometric models and spatial data products. Every model is documented so a successor analyst, or an opposing one, can trace every assumption.
Deliver: turning analysis into outcomes
Research
Regional decisions increasingly turn on evidence that isn't in the standard datasets: the ABS release doesn't hold it, the sector report doesn't cover it, and the answer only exists if someone goes and gathers it. SED's team includes experienced researchers who design and run that work. We conduct literature reviews, develop research proposals, and design and deliver mixed-method studies combining qualitative interviews, structured surveys and quantitative analysis. Where a client needs the methodology to meet a peer-reviewed publication standard, we can build it to that standard. Our researchers are the same senior people who lead our economic analysis, so research findings arrive already framed for the decision they were commissioned to inform.
Engagement & facilitation
Every substantial regional project depends on getting stakeholders to the same page, and doing it in a way that produces decisions, not just documents. SED delivers stakeholder engagement and consultation in person and online: structured interviews with senior figures, targeted focus groups, community consultation, and the kind of workshop that gets a fractious room aligned on the shape of a solution. We are also experienced facilitators for boards, executive teams and cross-organisational working groups, from single strategic planning days through to multi-session facilitations that carry a project from options to decision. Because our facilitators are the same senior people leading the analysis, nothing gets lost between the room and the report.
Not sure which of these you need?
Start with the decision. The shape of the work follows from there.