Brisbane 2032: getting your business ready to supply and deliver

Todd Johnson · 15 October 2026 · Brisbane North Chamber of Commerce

If a larger contract came through tomorrow, could your team prepare the submission and then deliver the work? That was the question I came away with from the Lord Mayor’s breakfast. Brisbane 2032 gives businesses a reason to look at both.

At the Brisbane North Chamber of Commerce breakfast, Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner described opportunities across the organising committee, state government projects and local councils. He talked about practical supplies such as temporary fencing, seating and washing machines, alongside the much larger construction program. Smaller businesses could also participate through subcontracting and partnerships.

You may already know what would slow your team down. Perhaps quotes wait for you because nobody else knows which price to use. Or the team copies a tender answer from an old document because it cannot find the current one.

I’d look at those problems before choosing an AI tool. Sorting them out can also help the customers you already serve.

The opportunities discussed at the breakfast

The Lord Mayor’s view of legacy extended well beyond the weeks of competition. He spoke about international training bases, investment before the Games and facilities that communities could keep using afterwards. He also argued that Brisbane’s growing international profile would create opportunities across the economy.

For your business, the decision is whether a particular contract fits. You need enough margin to deliver it properly and enough capacity to keep looking after existing customers.

You can find supplier opportunities through the Brisbane 2032 ICN Gateway. It covers sectors including logistics and professional services, with links to other Games delivery partners. Check who is buying the work and follow that organisation’s procurement process.

Council’s Brisbane legacy plan and partnerships program also provides a route for businesses with ideas that could contribute to the city before and beyond the Games. A proposal through that program is a different conversation from responding to a published tender.

Colin Lee encouraged businesses to use quieter periods to prepare. If your team has that time now, use it to check whether the information you need for a submission is current and easy to find.

Prepare the evidence before a tender arrives

Preparing a submission often means asking several people for information. Finance may have the insurance documents, while the details of a past project sit with whoever delivered it. Someone then has to check that the response describes what your business can do today.

I’d keep the approved material in a company knowledge library, with someone responsible for each document and a date for checking it. Start with your capability statement and the records that support it. Include certificates and quality procedures where the buyer requires them. Any sustainability claim needs evidence too.

Business Queensland’s capability statement guidance explains what to include. Check project details and customer permissions before reusing an example from an earlier submission.

AI can help a team search that library and prepare a first response from approved material. I would want every factual answer linked back to its source. If the evidence is missing, the system should say so. An old certificate or an invented project outcome becomes a much bigger problem once it is inside a submission.

Sales may want faster tender answers while operations is still correcting the records those answers depend on. Through our AI Implementation Partnership, we help the leadership team decide which problem to address first. That may mean updating the records before setting up an AI assistant.

Check the draft against the tender requirements

When a tender pack arrives, AI can help prepare a requirements register. Keep a reference to the original document beside each requirement, so the reviewer can check it. Record who will prepare the answer and what evidence they need. Put compulsory conditions and deadlines where the team can find them.

Someone still needs to compare the register with the complete pack, including attachments and later updates. Check that every compulsory form is accounted for.

Use the register to track unanswered questions and documents that need updating. AI can draft sections from the approved evidence for the team to review. The people responsible for pricing and delivery need to approve those commitments before the response goes out.

Before uploading tender information, check the buyer’s conditions and your own rules for handling commercial data. Decide which people and tools may access it. Customer records and supplier pricing should not become available to everyone simply because they are in the same document library.

Business Queensland’s tender development checklist can help with the final review. Use it alongside the buyer’s documents.

Check whether delivery can handle the extra work

A larger order puts pressure on more than the sales team. Someone has to confirm the specification, buy materials, schedule people, deal with changes and show that the work was delivered correctly. If information is being copied between email, spreadsheets and the accounting system, extra volume can multiply the mistakes.

I would follow one order through the business and watch where it waits. Who has to retype information? Where does someone check with the owner because the rule is unclear? Which exceptions stop the whole process?

The examples below are processes you could test with your team.

Before building anything, check whether a clearer form or approval rule would solve the problem. Where you do use AI, give the team a way to spot errors and correct them before they affect a customer.

If sales changes how orders come in, operations needs to check what it will receive. Finance needs to review any effect on purchasing approvals. As your Fractional Chief AI Officer, we work through those decisions with the people involved and help them test the agreed changes.

AI in Brisbane’s traffic signals

During the Q&A, the Lord Mayor discussed using AI to adjust traffic signals in response to conditions on the road and give buses better priority through intersections. He described the intended improvements, including responding more quickly when an incident disrupts traffic.

For a supplier, the measure might be how long a quote takes to prepare. Record that time before changing the process, including checking and corrections. Then compare it with the trial. If the draft arrives faster but takes longer to check, you need to account for that.

Test one process with your team

Choose a process your team already uses and collect examples from recent work. Include an incomplete order or a changed specification. If the process uses restricted documents, check that people cannot see information they should not have access to.

Agree how you will judge the trial and who will review the results. Keep the current process available if something goes wrong. Compare the time taken and the amount of rework before extending it to more people.

For submission preparation, test whether the team can find accurate answers in the approved records. An equipment supplier could instead test the handling of incoming orders. Choose according to the problem your people are dealing with, and the time they can give to the trial.

Working with a Fractional Chief AI Officer

You may know what needs attention but have little time to work on it with your team. If different people are trying AI tools separately, it can also be hard to see what is being used or whether it is helping.

Our AI Implementation Partnership gives you a Fractional Chief AI Officer to work on this with your leadership team. We agree a rolling 90 day roadmap and support the implementation within the agreed scope. Your people receive coaching on the work they actually do. At monthly leadership sessions, we review what they are using and decide what needs to change.

For a supplier preparing for larger contracts, that could mean starting with capability evidence or the handover between sales and delivery. We agree the scope together. Substantial custom development is scoped separately, and software costs are additional.

If someone is spending each afternoon correcting the output, I want that raised at the review. We need to understand the cause before asking more people to use the process.

Download the supplier preparation guide

The three page PDF summarises the preparation discussed here and explains our AI Implementation Partnership.

Read it with whoever prepares your submissions and someone from delivery. Ask each where the delays occur.