NEWSROOM

Corporates must adopt start-up culture

Corporate firms should create a culture of innovation and encourage staff to work like they’re in a start-up, according to leading Australian businessman David Thodey.

They should move away from the “command and control” environment of processes, regulations and compliance, and allow staff to explore opportunities to do things different.

“This is the ideas generation. This is the moment in time when we need boldness, we need people who are willing to step out and take risks and really drive technology to a new level.

“Innovation, at its real heart, is actually trusting an individual to say ‘I think you have something to offer this business and we trust you to contribute to that greater good’.

Don’t think that innovation is just for the start-up community; it has got to be the very fabric for our society.”

David spoke at the University of Auckland Business School as part of the Unleash Your Potential Speaker Series, run by the Centre of Innovation and Entrepreneurship.

As a corporate innovator and technologist, David spent 22 years at global technology giant IBM where he held a number of senior marketing and sales positions, before becoming the CEO of IBM Australia and New Zealand.

He then became CEO of Telstra, where he doubled the company’s value and led its transformation from a telecommunications-focused company to an innovative technology giant.

Currently, he is the Chair of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia’s leading multidisciplinary research organisation with more than 5,000 people working out of 55 centres in Australia and internationally. It plays a role in enhancing collaboration within the Australian innovation system, and as a trusted advisor to government, industry and the community.

And it’s that collaboration between academics, industry and Crown research institutes that New Zealand needs to improve on, he says.

“The big question is, why are we not commercialising more of the technology coming out of scientific research? If we are so good at research, what is it that’s preventing us from getting to that next point?

“I think it goes back to the UK influence and the purity of scientific research – you’re a scientist and you will not be sullied with the filthy lucre, somehow you stand above the commercial outcome. But in countries like the US you could be, for example, an incredible biomedical scientist and actually make a lot of money.

“I don’t know that we’re risk averse, but there’s something in us that is preventing us from really achieving our full potential. I think we don’t say to enough of our scientists, hey it’s OK to be a great scientist and be a millionaire.”

David spoke to current and past students of the Master of Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship programme, a part-time programme that provides the core knowledge and skills to successfully commercialise and take to market new products, services and processes based on research discoveries, inventions and new ideas.

“This course in commercialisation is really important and I’m glad that you’re all here. The question is what are you going to do with it? Which one of you is going to become the next billionaire?”