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Innovation is a key driver of productivity, jobs creation and economic performance.
Businesses in Australia experience a wide range of barriers to innovation, suggesting that policy to support innovation needs to be flexible and broad-based, the Institute of Public Accountants said in its recently released Small Business White Paper.
Talent, not technology, is the key, the IPA emphasised, warning that if wider skill requirements are not addressed there are likely to be bottlenecks created downstream in the process.
“Technical skills across the workforce, and particularly interdisciplinary skills that bridge areas of expertise, are particularly important for innovation and are often subject to market failures,” the IPA added.
How to be innovative
Despite the complexity of innovation, it is possible to abstract an underlying set of stages typically followed by inventive firms. These include:
The IPA advised, however, that the steps will only be successful if business owners and their staff focus on building the business overall, rather than making what they do in their business solely a matter of habit.