By Jonathon Wolfe, Director – Wrays Solutions
Australia is well placed to capitalise on digital disruption. Efficient and proven data science methods combined with strong strategic rationale will allow Australian companies to proactively build new and innovative services – leveraging our national competitive advantages and people.
The wave of digital disruption facing service based economies like ours is a significant opportunity. To take full advantage we must understand the drivers – how to recognise the emerging opportunities and how best to use the emerging technologies to our advantage.
Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes. Digital disruption in particular is sweeping many countries and industries and Australia is uniquely placed to take advantage.
It is about innovating to break the ranks of the status quo. It is change that is radical in the way it transforms businesses and societies through the application of technology. Still, it is not evolutionary in nature; it redefines the norm, and it changes the markets and competitors around us. It comes about from a relentless focus on the customer or consumer through an innovative and entrepreneurial lens, and it offers new business models and new ways of applying technology. – Reserve Bank CIO
Digital Disruption has some new and unique attributes and these characteristics should guide our thinking. A truly digital disruption has the potential to grow quickly and globally. This potential trajectory is important for Australia – a country that has traditionally been geographically isolated can now compete in this environment but it requires a shift in our mindset. The size and use of the internet is set to double in use in the next 5 years and this opens up a whole new level of interactions and collaborations at multiple levels in constant dialogue.
In Australia we have one of the highest penetration rates of internet usage (80%) and have had so for many years. In the Asia pacific region it is at 30%, projected to go to 40% which is the fastest growth area in the world in the next 5 years. This head-start that we have and our proximity to the region provides significant opportunity to lead the disruptions. This proximity coupled with the nature of Australia’s economy (70% service based) means we are well placed, as it’s the service industries that are currently experiencing the most significant disruptions. We have learnt many of the hard lessons and now can take advantage of this and assist our Asia Pacific neighbours.
Another trend that plays well for Australia is the concentration of ideas and capability in our region demonstrated by patent filings in the Asia Pacific growing at the fastest rate globally. This entrepreneurial culture and environment is growing and creates its own momentum that increases the pace of change and innovation.
The Australian economy has another significant advantage in the emerging global ecosystem. We have low sovereign risk, good food security, rule of law, the ability for government to make appropriate policy settings and a high quality education system that has begun to pivot to fostering more STEM and entrepreneurial skills into our graduates and school leavers.
Our culture must evolve to be more tolerant of failure and the onus is on all of us to encourage entrepreneurs and be tolerant of set backs. New businesses grow job opportunities rapidly and taking the best of our “can do, fair go” attitude to build resilience and capacity will greatly assist those that work to deliver a more efficient and effective service to any marketplace.
Given the fast paced environment and opportunity for disruption, we have turned to the same approach to help our clients benefit from the patterns and learnings that have emerged. At Wrays we use a range of proven data science and big data analytics to help our clients to be more effective and efficient in their decision making. Making use of the field of big data science to analyse the potential of our client’s innovations makes sense. After all, these proven tools already do everything from helping cars drive on the road to driving billions of dollars of investment decisions.
Using similar techniques we can simulate business models in new and existing markets and provide data driven analysis on how well any particular new market entrant and business model will perform. Having reliable predictions of market success and failure allows our clients to be able to evaluate models of market entry by simulation – making more informed and efficient decisions about where to put their effort and investment dollars. This increases the likelihood that an investment decision in an innovation is going to be successful, leads to less dislocation from failure and improves corporate decision making.
Take advantage of today’s decision making tools and support – the combination of data science together with experienced commercial acumen and sound strategic advice will make your innovation more likely to succeed in a competitive and global marketplace.
