Australia has a great opportunity to innovate, so why isn’t it taking it?
Australia needs to step out of its comfort zone and work on the basics in order to attract and retain talented people in the tech space before we can get excited about the future, argues PwC Digital Change senior manager Jonathan Outlaw.
Last week, I celebrated my one-year anniversary in Australia. When I made the decision to move here, my friends (perhaps in an effort to get me to stay) said I was making a big mistake and that I would be frustrated by how far behind Australia is compared with Europe. Unfortunately, my friends were right. However, only partly.
Australia is undoubtedly the underdog when it comes to digital innovation. Actually, it’s behind in pure customer/ user experience. I’ll provide two examples that really stood out for me. The first was when I tried to buy something from one of Australia’s largest retailers on my iPad. I was shocked and frustrated that I couldn’t (the site is not responsive) and that I had to fire up my laptop to complete the transaction. In the UK, I would have just abandoned the retailer altogether but unfortunately not having a mobile/tablet optomised site is common for many Australian retailers.
My second example is when I tried to sign up to an home multi-media provider. As I needed broadband and TV, I couldn’t sign up online and was given a number for the call centre. Long story short, it took me 45 minutes on the phone with a customer services rep to complete my transaction. I don’t know any Londoner who would have done that.
This appears to be more of a when rather than a case of if. I wholeheartedly agree that Australia is still set in its ways with perhaps a ageing workforce at the helm.
Australia has a rich/unrich history of arriving to the party late, and not fashionably. We can blame this on our isolation to Europe and the US. The positive to this however is that Australia, having watched the northern hemisphere rid itself of cobwebs, can implement well oiled cost effective solutions from the get go
What we are starting to see now is a new breed of Innovative and disruptive technologies on the rise in Australia and digital efficiency is at the forefront of its development. Look no further than the taxi industry’s latest players etc
The big question is, who out of the big established players in Australia are willing to invest first and capitalise in what is essentially an untapped market.
We have seen that the big banks are starting to move in this direction with key hires boasting digital backgrounds.
Watch this space.
Dear Mumbrella,
Do we really need another PR piece stating the bleeding obvious? Sure, Jonathan does a great job pointing out the problems, but unless he is offering some solutions (other than a vague shill for his employer), then he is simply whinging.
Thanks.
Jonathan
So you are 1 year old in Australia and somehow you know what we are and what we need. In short, you need to know what an Australian Comfort Zone is before you tell us to move out of it.
Like you I am an import from a little bit closer to home, NZ. However like you I have been doing business in Australia since 1983 and I have been living here fulltime (even became an Aussie) for over 12 years.
What you and people from outside of Australia need to understand is that corporate Australia for lack of a better term operates ‘culturally’ in different ways to say downtown London or New York. Yes the flavour of the place has changed a bit over the years by the influx of imports the likes of you and I however much of the old establishment (baby boomers who have done pretty damn good in this country since the late 70s) still control a lot of what is going on, be it as old executive still walking the walk or thru influencing the stage from a board table.
But in some areas there is a breath of fresh air as newbies or aliens decide to do their own thing and when one does successfully (dollars in the bank) then you will do alright too, even in these harder times.
The key globally, not just here is to innovate. This is the challenge and always has been. Whether you are in London or Sydney, the challenge is to make the business work. Sadly Australia is a closed shop so if you want to be successful, suck it in and go it alone. The culture here of established players is not to share or build. It is to protect! The word ‘mate’ should not be taken literally. Good luck.
Great articulation of where we as an industry is at.
The outside-in view is something we need to be reminded of, often.
Australia’s place in the next 20 years amongst the 7B population will be defined by how we compete amongst SE, E and Subcontinental Asia. (And we can’t treat any nation as homogenous because it is not.)
If we are to succeed in APAC we need to lead from the front, not from behind. Or else we will simply be the lucky country, but that luck won’t last beyond this lucky generation.
You think you have problems? Come visit NZ…
Australia is utterly dominated by duopolies.
Duopolies live to protect – not to innovate.
A career in Australia – therefore = working inside a mindless bureaucracy.
The best careers are found in competitive markets.
Come to Australia for lifestyle.
For exciting work go anywhere else.
a) Programmers/Developers create 99% of the innovation in digital media.
b) being a developer in Australia (in media) is on par with being a shelf stacker
You massive whiner!
What Brick Wall said… sadly.
Unless you’re willing to work with tiny firms… which PWC won’t give you access to.
“When it comes to industry concentration, Australia leads the world.”
http://www.abc.net.au/news/201.....ke/6373210
Combine with Shirky’s “Institutions will try to preserve the problem to which they are the solution”… and it explains why not much changes here.
Big institutions in Oz will only innovate when threatened by global players.
Having lived and worked in digital in Australia for the last 4 years and prior to that in London and Manchester for 5 years I think this is a fair analysis. This market is stumped for innovation because the big players are running scared and not driving the market forward. Rather hindering any progress. Look how long it has taken to get Netflix here..lets get M&S here and Boots and Sky!
Australia has structural issues that prevent innovation. We have regulation that ring fences established players, poor tax structures and a ceiling on acheivable scale due to a small population.
Easy to “role play” the innovative start up from PwC, harder to actually be one.
To quote the final sentence of Lucky Country written in 1964:
“Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people’s ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders (in all fields) so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.”
The book also questions why Australia has failed to be innovative whereas countries with similar sized populations have traditionally shown remarkable innovation to offset what they lack in ‘people power’.
Written over 50 years ago but still relevant.
Israel has a far smaller population than Australia and is a tech innovation leader. It’s not an accident, they work at it and make conditions favourable for start-ups and tech development.
Why is it people only think about bringing other people in instead of cultivating locals in the field from the ground up if necessary?
We have a massive unemployment problem but most people use tech in some form or other – unemployed or not – and many would leap at the chance to work innovatively and in innovation.