Business Guide to Innovation

Attain external help

Robert Dew: Find an expert and get their help for a short period of time, with measurable outcomes at a fixed price arrangement. Not necessarily an innovation consultant—they could be a marketer, or someone to rearrange your finance, or someone who can help you with production methods—someone who will help you do something different.

Lyndal Thorburn: Innovation can be something known to others but new to a company. [Organisations need] a capacity to scan the environment external to the business so that emerging trends can be identified and incorporated. It is a matter of looking around to see what others are doing and then thinking about how it can be adapted to your circumstances.

Do things differently

Robert Dew: Compete on value. Real comparison is not a price comparison but a value one: the time it takes me, the emotion that’s involved, the risk I perceive, how the price is presented as an investment, and my past and future situation. Find your unique selling proposition and exploit it.

Sonja Bernhardt: Hold meeting in different ways, in different places, and at different times. Some may be formal face-to-face, some virtual, some at restaurants, coffee shops, the beach etc.

Fast Fact

Australian businesses spent 37 percent more on innovation in 2007 than they did in 2006.

—Survey conducted by ACA Research on behalf of Fujitsu Australia and New Zealand

Event

Innovation Festival (April 26–May 30)

AusInnovation will officially launch this year’s Innovation Festival on April 22, to commence over a month of events running in all states and territories. The theme for 2008 is ‘Innovation Clusters’ accompanied by events on innovation’s 4Cs—Creativity, Connections, Collaboration & Commercialisation.

To register an event, find out more information, or search for an event near you, visit www.ausinnovation.org

Case study: Tracking Purchases

Like the rest of us, Julie Ringrow hates bank fees. But the Adelaide mother-of-three wanted to stop complaining about fees and start controlling them. “I wanted to be able to track my spending at the point of purchase. I found it quite frustrating because my Visa statement would come in and I would already be into the next spending cycle,” explains Ringrow. “There wasn't anything out there so we just said 'let's just do it'.”

She knew what she wanted the device to do and how it would look, so she commissioned an electrical engineer to build it for her. The result was Spendtracker, an easy-to-use device the size of a credit card that could help users track their budget according to different categories.

The innovation was simplifying budget control and making it portable and affordable, leaving behind the pen and notebook system and eschewing nights in front of a computer adding receipt amounts to spreadsheets. The Spendtracker literally takes seconds to use and can be pulled out at the point of purchase, so users don’t have to worry if they lose a receipt.

Ringrow then developed the second version of the device, Spendtracker Advanced, in response to the first version. “I had a lot of feedback and inquiries,” she says. “People were telling me what they wanted and that was really helpful.” This allowed her to compile a wishlist of features, some of which made it onto a design brief for the development of Advanced.

A patent and a registered trademark currently cover the device. There are plans to release a unit with a USB interface, to link up with software for a complete budget solution, and a mobile phone application, which will both complement the product.

Ringrow has also been savvy about marketing and distribution. Media outlets, from local and metropolitan newspapers to TV shows and magazines, have relished the story of how she came to invent the device, and even more so since Ringrow underwent two mastectomies after being diagnosed with breast cancer. In addition to selling directly through her website via the publicity generated, Ringrow also has Mortgage Choice-branded products distributed through the lender.