CEO Survey 2020: Richard White, WiseTech

Through Covid many of the things we thought of as ‘unchanging’, were able to change quickly, says Richard White of WiseTech.

Richard White, CEO of Wisetech. Picture: Britta Campion for The Australian

What are the three enduring lessons or changes to flow from COVID?

Firstly, that rapid change and innovation thrives even in adversity. Through COVID-19 we’ve seen many of the things we thought of as unchanging, were able to change quickly and improve quickly to protect people’s jobs and the economy.

Secondly, digital meetings, digital collaboration and working from home has a range of benefits and actually increases productivity in many cases. The move to working from home and the use of digital meetings has been revolutionary for WiseTech Global and many other tech companies and has shifted the way of working at WiseTech as we move to a hybrid work model.

Digital working also has important implications for travel, especially international travel. It has changed and will continue to change corporate business processes and commercial models.

Lastly, the importance of the logistics and supply chain industries was brought into the spotlight as the world grappled with the challenge of moving critical goods globally. This has made our purpose at WiseTech stronger; we are making a critical difference in enabling and empowering the world’s supply chains.

How would you rate the shape of the Australian economy as we head into the New Year?

We’re in a relatively strong position which seems to be improving now that vaccines are predictably within reach. The many steps taken by the federal and state governments, the reserve bank and by ordinary Australians to deal a blow to the pandemic and restore the strength of the economy were necessary and appropriate in mitigating the longer-term risks and costs of social dislocation. In a world sense, Australia and Australians have done better than most, and it shows the resilience of our people and the Australian way of life.

What three reforms are needed to sustainably grow the economy.

We need to move from being adopters of technology to the creators of technology. Australia has excellent examples in Xero, Atlassian, WiseTech, Altium, to name just a few of the highly innovative businesses we have here. We have the talent and the capability, and we can be the digital drivers of the knowledge economy. This is not just about start-ups; we need to foster growth companies and keep them in Australia and help them teach all Australians that the world can be our playground too.

Ensuring we have a strong future pipeline of top technical talent is also critical if we want to be the drivers of the Australian knowledge economy. This means attracting talent into Australia, and more importantly, fostering our own talent from a young age. Encouraging curiosity and creativity starts in our primary schools where we need to build a love of knowledge and learning using technology and problem solving. I worry that our education systems sometimes aim at jobs of the past, jobs that are safer, more conventional or understandable whilst in many respects the jobs of the future are going to require curiosity, creativity and passion and whilst that is present in most children, we risk losing it in later primary and high school unless it is specifically nurtured.

We also need a more comprehensive and advantageous R&D program that supports and enables businesses to contribute to the knowledge economy in a more sustainable and effective way. We need programs that reward international business success; the current R&D programs have a highly academic slant that feels deeply misplaced when applied to modern technology invention and innovation.

What are the three best growth opportunities for your company in 2021?

The COVID-19 challenges faced by the logistics industry are driving greater demand amongst global logistics providers for truly digital and deeply global solutions. That’s where our technology solution has already had a massive impact and can continue to amplify efficiencies and productivity improvements.

Our focus for 2021 and the years to follow will be on:

• Expanding our technology lead by accelerating and prioritising our product development around key customer pain points;

• Expanding our market penetration by focusing on and winning more of the world’s large global freight forwarders and logistics providers; and

• Driving operational efficiency by continuing to improve and build on our established processes and aligning key development resources.

There has never been a greater need for the end-to-end digitalised, globally integrated logistics technology that our CargoWise platform provides. Our opportunity for growth is vast and I’m truly excited by that.

What impact will digital transformation have on your company?

As a pure tech company, we already have the engineered processes, architectures and strong, positive, problem solving culture in place that will continue to help us face the many challenges that all businesses are facing today.

Across the logistics and supply chain industry we’re seeing a real shift in understanding the criticality of digitalisation in driving productivity and cost efficiencies. We’ve built our CargoWise platform so that many of the bottlenecks that usually occur in digital transformation are not present. Our technology enables logistics service providers to better plan, visualise and control their global operations while mitigating risk and facilitating regulatory compliance and safety for their customers and communities. The shift to digital transformation across the industry only means greater opportunity for growth at WiseTech.

6-How would you rate business, State and Federal Government performance this year.

It’s been an incredibly challenging year, but despite that, we’ve done an excellent job in Australia, with one or two notable exceptions. We are living in a different world now, and the ability for business, government and communities to come together with shared purpose, while embracing change, has been incredible.

Final thoughts

I am truly honoured to be an Australian working with a diverse global team of brilliant technology heroes that have helped the world and will continue to help the world when COVID-19 is done. I continue to want to be an Australian, a technologist and part of a world that is changing for the better.