Innovatia

So, what are other key ingredients? High on the list is purposeful R&D in science and tech- nology, including frontier technologies. This will be central not only to rebuilding the econ- omy but to fuelling grand challenges – races “Breakthrough innovation is key to reshaping business models and creating new products and services that bring revenue into our country.” that we can win. Australia is blessed with an abundance of academic resources. We need to utilise these better and be clear on what activ- ities are to be industry- and market-led versus research- and discovery-pushed. Though R&D is a critical element of innova- tion, it is not the only element. Just look at com- panies, such as Atlassian, which have built glob- al software platforms and created new business models. Scale matters, too. But this is dimin- ished by duplication of resources and effort, and by fragmentation of incentive programs. Also high on the list is effective collaboration – even in competition (as long as it isn’t collu- sion) – across all business sizes, and with the research and education sectors. Collaboration creates the opportunity to work with universi- ties, suppliers, customers and even competi- tors to solve shared problems and create new business models. We need, therefore, to invest in manufac- turing as both a vertical-industry sector and a horizontal enabler for most primary Australian industry sectors, in terms of key enabling tech-

Breakthrough Innovation – Opportunity From Crisis Manufacturing is the portal through which the Australian economy can add value from its vast resources, as a horizontal enabler of key technological industries. By David Chuter “ N ever let a good crisis go to waste,” said

work for SMEs in terms of leadership develop- ment, collaboration, and investment in design, innovation, R&D, talent and competitiveness. This will require larger companies to help devel- op and promote both smaller businesses and government programs that incentivise the right behaviours rather than propagate entitlement. We need to find more ways to focus on break- through innovation – as distinct from invention or incremental continuous improvement – that reshapes business models and creates new products and services that can be sold locally and internationally. History shows that busi- nesses that invest in innovation through a cri- sis outperform their competition during the re- covery. Key to both innovation and continuous improvement in Australia is the rapid adoption of digitalisation and associated business mod- els enabled through the fourth industrial revo- lution, also termed Industry 4.0. This will drive much-needed step changes in productivity and competitiveness, while enabling superior val- ue to be both captured and created.

Winston Churchill – advice I tried to ap- ply in a three-decade career in automo- tive manufacturing. And to be sure, we must not waste the pandemic, nor the opportunities it pre- sents. Concepts and virtues such as leadership, collaboration, innovation, ingenuity, research and, dare I say it, even local manufacturing, are not just in vogue but important and necessary. Many businesses engaged in historically strong areas of the Australian economy simply cannot continue to operate as they have in the past. There has never been a more important time to understand the difference between what a business does and the business model it could successfully deploy – that is, how the business can stay competitive in an uncertain world. En- suring that businesses are agile and able to find opportunity in times of uncertainty is essential. In Australia, this will require a strong focus on small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs), as they make up the bulk of most industry and service sectors. For any strategy to succeed, it needs to

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INNOVATIA

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