Future Prosperity – How Is Your Company Positioned?

In the the third report from the Deloitte Future Prosperity – How is your Company positioned? “Building the Lucky Country” series, – Positioning for prosperity? Catching the next wave – the authors have presented an excellent view of Australia’s future prosperity – should business and governments choose to position themselves to take advantage of opportunities.

The report forecasts industry growth across a range of industries and differentiates between those that are considered to have the potential to grow faster than GDP growth and those that are not.

In addition they consider these industries in terms of Australia’s ongoing competitive positioning relative to the rest of the world.

Some of the industries that could underpin Australia’s future growth may surprise you.

The top five in terms of growth and competitive positioning were:

Agribusiness
Gas
Tourism
International Education
Wealth Management

The report encourages business and government to start future planning for how they might support and capture opportunities in the many industries featured in the report.

They identify five levers that companies and governments can use to achieve this.

Porfolio Mix
Deliberately raise portfolio growth rate through M&A in high growth sectors, alliances and joint ventures, and active divestments in slower growth sectors

Resource Allocation
Increase exposure to higher growth markets by organically shifting internal resources. Invest dollars and deploy top talent into higher growth areas and invest in transformational innovation.

Opportunity Radar
Drive superior sensing of growth pockets within sectors, both internally and externally, keeping abreast of technological discontinuities, regulatory changes, global demographic shifts and customer trends.

Competitive Advantage
Gain significant operating advantages through superior talent and/or business practices. For example, attracting, retaining and developing top talent, incremental innovation throughout the business, institutionalisation of superior practices and ability to tap into the capabilities of third parties.

Structural Advantage
Secure positional advantage that is ‘hardwired’ and exclusive or difficult to imitate, For example: superior location or context such as climate, physical assets or exclusive access rights to physical assets, intangible assets such as intellectual property, and special networks and privileged relationships.

The report is well worth reading and gives an insight into a possible future for the country.

As directors and executives, it should encourage us to consider how well positioning our organizations for prosperity (now and into the future) is incorporated into the company’s strategic discussions.

The full report can be found at:
Positioning for prosperity? Catching the next wave
25 reasons to be optimistic about Australia’s growth