Australian companies talk a good game when it comes to technology-driven productivity improvements, but would welcome more incentives from the federal government.
Costa’s Harry Debney speaks for many, noting the importance of the R&D tax benefit and stressing “this must remain in place”.
READ MORE: The 2019 CEO survey
There is an array of new initiatives, including recycled bottles for Coca-Cola Amatil.
CCA chief Alison Watkins said: “The technological breakthrough that delivered the most for us this year was the ability to make carbonated beverages in 100 per cent recycled bottles. Up till this year, a 100 per cent recycled bottle was only durable enough to hold still beverages, like water and juice.
“That’s because the pressure inside a carbonated beverage bottle is high enough that recycled PET bottles, or RPET, would burst if used for this purpose.”
BHP’s outgoing chief Andrew Mackenzie said Australia needs to become a “more competitive place to invest”.
He is looking for reforms that will boost the nation’s capacity and upgrade capital works and, in turn, spur innovation and productivity.
These include fiscal policy reform, investment incentive and regulatory conditions that will encourage business “to invest in technology and create high paying jobs of the future across industry and across the country”.
Macquarie’s Shemara Wikramanayake said: “Our tech spend is around 10 per cent of total income. Central to that is how we capture, store and analyse data.
“Our ability to develop technology platforms and to use the incredible array of technological tools at our disposal will be crucial on how well we do at providing solutions to our clients’ challenges.”
Tabcorp’s David Attenborough said: “Amazon Web Services allows us to scale up our server and processing capacity during major events such as the $150m Powerball draw or the Melbourne Cup when we process more than 100,000 bets a minute.”
APA’s Richard Vincent said: “We put in the world’s first fully integrated wholesale and retail SAP system. This has transformed our business, providing us with a strategic competitive advantage and allowed us to grow substantially while managing costs down.”
Medibank’s Craig Drummond said: “Replacing our mainframe with a single SAP IT system has meant that we can spend more time on personalised conversations and digital interactions with our customers.
“This has changed what was a more mandatory and transactional approach to a relationship with customers that is a lot more timely, meaningful and proactive centred on health and wellbeing.”
Fortescue’s Elizabeth Gaines said: “Our implementation of autonomous haulage has ... delivering productivity improvements of 30 per cent as well as significant safety benefits.”
IAG’s Peter Harmer noted: “Next year we’re rolling out new technology that will help predict whether a customer’s vehicle is a total loss, reducing customer’s wait time from 16 days to just hours after making a claim.”
Herbert Smith Freehills Mark Rigotti said: “The main ways we are using technology to improve our performance are: document automation, processing massive amounts of data, for example, vendor due diligence or court based discovery, among other items.”
Technology, said PWC’s Luke Sayers, was improving audit quality “with investments in artificial intelligence, machine learning, robotic process automation and data analytics resulting in lower-value transactional tasks being delivered faster and more accurately.
“Not only does this provide greater confidence in audit results, but it also frees up our teams to focus on the riskier areas of the audit that require judgment.”
Rio’s JS Jacques said: “We spend about $US200m on R&D, spread across our groups and in our growth and innovation business. We then spend far more each year on the scaling and deployment of tech into our business.”
Seek’s Andrew Bassat said: “We invest heavily in AI which is enabling us to improve the relevancy of job search and job recommendations to candidates.”
Woodside’s Peter Coleman said: “Maintenance is one of the biggest costs for an asset-intensive business like ours. By using sensors to collect information about facility performance and data science to predict disruptions to operations, you can identify issues before they become a problem.
“The prize is substantive — in maintenance alone, there is an opportunity for a 30 per cent cost saving, which reaches hundreds of millions of dollars pretty quickly.”
Aurizon’s Andrew Harding said: “Now we can pinpoint to the millimetre any wear and tear on 12,000-tonne coal trains as they rumble past. We use trackside ‘supersites’ with banks of lasers and cameras that take more than 200,000 images on each train pass This data then drives how we plan and prioritise maintenance.”
Steven Cain of Coles said: “We have put technological transformation at the centre of our strategy, including automating manual tasks and simplifying above-store roles to remove duplication, allowing Coles to offset the impact of rising costs.”
CBA’s Matt Comyn noted: “By using analytics to help our seven million digitally active customers better manage their finances, or to connect them with a range of benefits they may be entitled to.”
Cochlear’s Dig Howitt said the company invested “12 per cent of revenue each year in R&D. Last year, this amounted to more than $180m. The primary focus of our R&D is investing in improving hearing outcomes. This involves continuing to understand the science of hearing loss and developing new implants and speech processors.”
Woolworth’s Brad Banducci said: “In our supply chain, we’ve invested in cutting-edge automation, put electric trucks on the road, and are pushing into real-time transport visibility with our partners through telematics.”
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