Why small businesses should invest more money in innovation? Why should small business be invested in and participating in innovation?

You need to invest in innovation to stay relevant, and to get a market share in a very competitive landscape in Australia you need to be at the forefront of what your customers need now, but also what they might need into the future.

So, do you think in Australia we’re innovative already? Do you think Australian businesses are innovative already or do we need to learn more?

I think there’s always areas for improvement. I think we should keep pushing the boundaries, but I think due to the size of our country but also the size of our population as in being smaller than other markets in the globe, I think that yeah, Australian businesses are putting their best foot forward. And having to get the market share and get their customers, they really do try really, really hard through innovation, which is a fantastic thing, but I always think there’s room for improvement.

I know I work in the infrastructure sector, but I often look at sectors outside of the infrastructure industry for inspiration. And I know in the infrastructure sector certainly even though governments are working hard to make them more innovative and create platforms for more innovation for construction and design, there’s still a long way to go in terms of progress.

Where do you think that long way to go is? What do you think we need to do to get to that?

I think it’s just a lot of collaboration and people really sharing ideas. I think people can be quite protective over the things that they’re doing and that they’re not necessarily always willing to share that IP or help work together as industry body to take those things forward. I think there’s a lot out there and the people are investing in those things in silos, whereas I believe there’s a bit of collaboration that could be happening across different sectors to really push things forward and help quench the appetite for the customers, but also hopefully make things more efficient in terms of time, cost, productivity, safety, et cetera.

I think there’s a lot of small business owners out there that have been doing things the same way for a long time, years and years in some cases, they’ve done well, they’ve been successful, they’re making money. Why would they change the formula? It’s obviously already working for them, why do they need to change?

Yeah, change is inevitable, and if you’re not changing, if you’re not mixing it up, if you’re not breaking things and failing, then you’re not trying hard enough.

I think the change is inevitable in business and anybody who’s sitting, resting on their laurels, thinking that the opportunities before them are always going to be there. I always look at a really good example of, obviously Blackberry versus the iPhone and I think Blackberry has some fabulous stuff on YouTube about how they thought no one would actually want to listen to music and also do work on the same device and well, where are they now? So, I think any business who is sitting there thinking that they’ve got a gain in the market now and that nobody can touch them, they’re not being competitive and they’re also not trying to improve themselves which can be a little bit dull and boring in my world.