Brisbane Businesses score an innovative edge: Innovation Scorecard
TWELVE of Australia's most innovative businesses - including a world leading mine integrity radar safety system and a developer of hi-tech fibre-composite pipe products that have been used to create special effects at Sea World on the Gold Coast - have been showcased as part of the 2013 Brisbane Innovation Scorecard.
Brisbane Lord Mayor Graham Quirk highlighted the successes of mine safety system developer Groundprobe and poly products innovator JAG Poly, along with new material specialist Teakle Composites, digital strategy company Speedwell - which has created secure digital document encryption systems for government and - and even a ‘perfect' pre-cooked egg system developed by Sunny Queen Eggs.
The scorecard showcases a total of 12 Brisbane businesses for their innovations. Also on the list for 2013 are Emersteel Fabricators, Engineering Applications General Engineering Company, MTD Products, Oniqua, OSD, QIP Physiotherapy, and automotive trailer innovator Vehicle Components.
The 2013 Brisbane Innovation Scorecard found almost 40 percent of 330 randomly-selected Brisbane businesses were developing unique strategies to increase their market share, compete with overseas competitors and add customer value.
The first and longest-running city-based innovation benchmarking project in the world, the Brisbane Innovation Scorecardis in its fourth year and an initiative of economic development board Brisbane Marketing.
Cr Quirk said the key findings showed manufacturing and information and media businesses in Brisbane were among the most likely to innovate in ways completely new to, not only their own business, but their industry sector as a whole.
The scorecard research found the top five reasons for innovation in Brisbane businesses were: to differentiate products and services from competitors, increase responsiveness to customer needs, increase or maintain market share, improve quality of goods and services and establish new markets.
Cr Quirk said the scorecard findings were a testament to the progressive and pioneering spirit of Brisbane businesses.
"These businesses responded to tough economic conditions and focused on retaining and building market share by developing innovative strategies," Cr Quirk said.
"Innovation helps position Brisbane as a globally-competitive city by increasing our ability to rival overseas products with those produced in our own backyard by local people."
Fostering a strong manufacturing and engineering community was paramount to ensuring Brisbane sustained rapid growth according to the CEO of economic development board Brisbane Marketing, John Aitken.
"Brisbane is gaining recognition as a global hub for innovation and the businesses profiled in the 2013 Brisbane Innovation Scorecard help us to understand a little bit more about why," Mr Aitken said.
"It's clear Brisbane is not only a business-friendly environment with easy company set-up and cooperative governance, but it's also a hotbed of fresh ideas thanks to the businesses putting in the hard yards to reap real results for themselves and for the city as a whole."
The 2013 Brisbane Innovation Scorecard is a collaboration between Brisbane Marketing, Brisbane City Council, Deloitte, Enterprise Connect, The Department of Science, Information Technology, Innovation and the Arts and the University of Queensland.
The scorecard comes on the back of Brisbane's emergence as an innovation powerhouse by exceeding international benchmarks in more than 90% of indicators in the 2thinknow Innovation Cities Index.
Pitched against 445 benchmarked cities, Brisbane scored above expectations in 90 percent of the 162 indicators.
The index ranked Brisbane as five-out-of-five for offering encouragement to new businesses, a picturesque holiday destination with political stability and easy company set up.