Australian industry has its fair share of innovators but it requires focus and commitment and most businesses just don't have the time.
According to the Chamber of Commerce and Industry the so-called “ideas boom” is being strangled with red tape.
A new survey shows why most businesses are average, at best, when it comes to innovation.
The WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry’s latest business expectations survey shows 38 per cent of those polled claimed to be somewhat of an innovator while 34 admitted being a below-average innovator.
Only 28 per cent of local businesses polled claimed to be above-average innovators.
Lack of time was cited as the biggest reason for not innovating.
A separate survey by the Australian Chamber of Commerce shows one-quarter of all WA businesses spend more than 11 to 40 hours a week on compliance.
Chief executive Deirdre Willmott blamed the time spent navigating issues from complex industrial relations to taxation, for stopping people from developing new ideas, technologies and ways of doing business.
“Reducing red tape and the amount of time that small business spends on compliance will actually free them up to think about innovation,” she said.
“Our message to business is that we all need to be thinking about the changes happening in the economy.
“We are told that 40 per cent of the jobs that we are currently doing won’t exist in the next 20 years, so we know change is coming and successful businesses will be monitoring that change, understanding threats and looking for opportunity.
“However, red tape and tax issues need to be addressed so they don’t hold back our ability or cost us on the ideas boom.”
The WA survey found 71 per cent did not have a specific employee or role responsible for innovation.
It also showed two-thirds of local businesses expected the economy to worsen this year, which was a slight improvement on previous surveys.
The share of businesses expect conditions to remain unchanged dropped slightly to 29 per cent and 5 per cent expect the economy will improve this year.
While turnover, exports and trading conditions improved in the last three months, almost half of business reported lower profits in the December quarter.
“Businesses continue to feel cost pressures in the December quarter, but without business input costs falling, it’s hard to increase profitability,” Willmott said.
Find out about the Age of New Ideas in a special Innovation Excellence feature in the April edition of CCN Magazine.