WHAT INNOVATION MEANS FOR THE LOGISTICS INDUSTRY

WHAT INNOVATION MEANS FOR THE LOGISTICS INDUSTRY

 

by Peter Melville Leaders Speak

In today's transport and logistics industry, a typical senior manager will have worked their way up the ladder, from either driving trucks or managing a warehouse, and as such they are very good at managing these businesses - operationally. But innovation has not typically been a strength in logistics. New idea generation has more or less been restricted to fairly simple ideas on operational optimisation - bigger trucks, bigger warehouses.

Truly innovative ideas tend to arise out of the problems of our clients. When fuel prices rise or bottlenecks are affecting the wharf, they come to us to find a solution. Innovation at Maersk Logistics has historically been and continues to be, to a large extent, driven by client demand.

Looking forward, the Australian logistics industry faces three main issues. The first issue is staff and the dwindling attractiveness of the industry to today's generations. Becoming a truck driver is no longer considered the career opportunity it once was. The average age of Australia's truck drivers is over 50 and many of them will be considering retirement in the next 10 years. Meanwhile, in this same period, imports to Australia are going to increase twofold. This begs the question, "Where are the drivers going to come from? And if it is from overseas - then where?"

Then there is infrastructure and the question of capacity. Terminals are already congested and existing rail infrastructure is insufficient. So, who will finance new ports and railroads? Will there be a role for short sea shipping? And how are we going to bring about genuine competition to ensure efficiency?

Finally, there is the issue of the environment. With consumers becoming increasingly environmentally aware, Australian businesses and their logistics service providers need to consider their carbon footprints. With our distance to the global market, Australian businesses need to consider the impact this is going to have on their competitiveness and make efforts now to minimise this.

We don't have all the solutions, and although we are spending a lot of resources trying to deal with the above issues, we still depend on our clients to ask the right questions to come-up with the right innovative solutions.

- Peter Melville, General Manager, Maersk Logistics

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WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO ENVIRONMENTAL LAWYERS

WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO ENVIRONMENTAL LAWYERS 

 

by Justine de Torres Leaders Speak

What role will lawyers have in helping businesses shape and respond to new environmental regulations?

The transition to a low carbon economy will present challenges to lawyers as business people as much as anyone, as well as challenges to them as providers of legal advice. Environmental law is bound to be extremely complex; all Commonwealth law is, and you need only look at water law and corporations law to realise that, under the emission trading scheme and associated legislation we are bound to see documentation as thick as telephone books, and several volumes of it. Because of the complex scientific issues involved, this will create a challenge for the writers of the regulations and for business to decode it.

But lawyers should play a more strategic role than simply reacting to legislation and advising clients on how to react. There is a need to get on board and get on board early - to influence the content of regulation on behalf of clients, to make themselves heard and play a part in setting the agenda. This is where clients will get real value out of their lawyers.

This is a new area for many lawyers, drawing on science and economics as much as legal and ethical considerations. Certainly the scientific understanding, if not background, that is required is not common with lawyers. We will need to innovate, to think beyond purely legalistic horizons, and help to develop a positive outcome for all involved.

- Justine de Torres, Preactice Leader, Optim Legal

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WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO HEALTHCARE

WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO HEALTHCARE 

 

by Steve Rusckowski Leaders Speak

To meet the patients' real needs, we have to provide integrated solutions across the entire cycle of care. We have to concentrate on prevention, early diagnostics and remote patient management. We simply cannot afford to focus only on extremely costly and traumatic surgical interventions.

Of course, hospitalisation will always form an essential part of a decent healthcare system. But patients obviously prefer prevention and diseasemanagement in their homes. Our healthcare systems of the future will have to focus much more on prevention, screening and early diagnosis.

While we typically see innovation in imaging technology, monitoring, specialised therapeutics, and targeted diagnostics equipment, I think innovation also includes very carefully thinking through the real issues our customers deal with everyday and how we can innovate the way they interact with our products. How we deliver that product to them, how we can service and install that product and how we can go back to them and provide other value added services. So there's innovation in the product, the process and in the service and the delivery.

We need to think about the specific issue and the technology, and think about innovating the whole business model and approach. In addition to providing good healthcare technology, we believe what customers are looking for is assurance that everything they need to have is readily available. It's more than just wanting a product, it's more than good software. It's in the model, as well.

- Steve Rusckowski, Chief Executive Officer, Philips Healthcare and member of Royal Philips board of management

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WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO SOCIAL NETWORKS

WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO SOCIAL NETWORKS 

 

by Allen Hurff Leaders Speak

The model up until now, before people opened the networks [through Open Social, a universal programming language applicable to MySpace, Google, Bebo and others], companies had to spend a lot of time building products and were bound by their own innovation. But a company can only build so many products a year. It can only innovate so much.

When you bring in the developer community through Open Social, all of a sudden you bring in 5000, 10,000 or 300,000 developers working to build these applications. They are not bound by the company's direction and main focus, so innovation just starts to happen. If you don't open it up, your innovation is only limited to your own staff basically. We have to go to the community and let it innovate. Instead of having to go outside and find innovation, it comes to you. I am amazed at some of the things that are coming out through Open Social networking. But now we are reviewing intellectual property issues. I want to mature that discussion.

When it comes to innovation, there are a lot of people who just want to do it. I think that's great. But we take a step back and we whiteboard all the scenarios before proceeding, because we have a reputation out there and we want to protect it.

I don't believe there is any risk in opening up to innovation; obviously, you have to think of security, but if you provide that and extend it to the developer community, I don't know if there's a risk.

- Allen Hurff, Senior Vice President, Myspace Engineering

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WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO THE IT INDUSTRY

WHAT INNOVATION MEANS TO THE IT INDUSTRY 

 

by Les Williamson Leaders Speak

Australian businesses, governments and our society in general face a range of unprecedented challenges to maintain and grow our standard of living and ensure our economic prosperity. The good news is that we also live at a time of unprecedented knowledge sharing and productivity. But we need to do more if we are going to create new business practices, government policies, health and educational innovations to drive our standard of living higher over the coming two decades.

In our company in the IT business, we strongly believe the key to growing our standard of living in a time of significant economic and social transition is to promote an environment of innovation and collaboration. By doing this, we are able to become more productive, adjust more quickly to changes in economic situations and opportunities, and also create a culture of empowerment and workforce fulfilment. But it is not only Cisco and companies in the IT industry that can benefit from taking this approach. All major Australian industry sectors, healthcare, education and even into the not-for profit environments such as charities and indigenous affairs are in a position to change the way they operate by collaborating more effectively.

Collaboration enables organisations to think faster and to work more effectively, but only if they understand how to use the information tools now available to them across a range of information networks. This will allow them to drive innovation and collaboration between people which, before the rise of the internet, was simply not possible. If people can use the tools made available to them via networked communications, decisions can be made more effectively, resources can allocated more efficiently, innovative new ways of doing business can be created, services can be improved without the need for driving up costs, and standards of living can be raised.

To achieve these goals, we need a clear understanding of the challenges our economy and society face and an even clearer understanding of how we can use the network to solve them. That, perhaps, is our biggest challenge if we are to think fast.

- Les Williamson, Vice President, Cisco Australia and NewZealand

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