Business Innovation Program grant recipient and Territorian Mr Sulal Mathai is getting ready to launch Realtime Feedback, a web based application he founded and established with the help of the Northern Territory (NT) Government's Department of Industry, Tourism and Trade.
Mr Mathai is a human resources professional with extensive experience working for multinational, Australian and Territory organisations. In 2017 as the head of human resources at Danila Dilba Health Service, Mr Mathai trialled an anonymous feedback program and noticed it was helpful in increasing employee engagement and encouraged feedback from staff members towards positive changes.
Then in 2018 when Danila Dilba won the prestigious Australian HR Institute's Stan Grant Indigenous Employment Award, Mr Mathai was given the opportunity to speak at various Australian Human Resource conferences. While attending these conferences Mr Mathai spoke about the benefits of anonymous real-time feedback and discovered the concept was of interest to many other human resource director's and chief executive officers. It was at this time he realised there was no digital platform offering this service in Australia and Realtime Feedback was born.
Realtime Feedback uses innovative technology in two ways, firstly the feedback provided is 100% anonymous and secondly the feedback form is non-prescriptive. The employee, customer or stakeholder is not asked any leading questions that have the ability to lead the response.
The web application is designed to integrate with technology 4.0 and aligns with current trends around more flexibility in our work-life balance. Mr Mathai explains
"QR codes are part of daily life now, an organisation can seek immediate real-time feedback on the spot and respond immediately by reallocating resources. For example, an event venue or restaurant could set up a box to source customer feedback on the cleanliness of the bathrooms, meaning the customer doesn’t have to hunt down a manger to 'complain', they can simply make the suggestion and move on. For some the burden of being seen as 'difficult' can prevent the business from improving their operations. Customers can also provide compliments and suggestions to help businesses understand what is working well. This is what we mean by technology that is people centric and humane".
Realtime Feedback offers a fully customisable digital feedback box and user-friendly dashboard. Their unique algorithm interprets and presents patterns in data which support strategic decision making for growth. The reporting feature enables management to see open and resolved cases and integrate the data into actionable outcomes.
"I am grateful to the NT Government for funding start-ups without whom this idea would not have been possible to reach in commercialisation phase. We aim to start in the NT and expand across Australia and New Zealand" - Mr Sulal Mathia.
If you have an innovative idea that you are looking to commercialise, check out the Business Innovation Program to see what support is available.