“Quicklook” Assessment of Greater Adelaide's Assets & Challenges ...

INNOVATION, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY CENTRE
Monday, July 9, 2001
Submitted by Pete Polonsky
Interview Team
• Pete Polonsky
• Dave Gibson
• Martha Flores
• Catherine Polito
Strengths
• There are already a wide and varied number of entrepreneurial support initiatives
already in place, including: Incubators, Mentoring Groups, Business Centre, 1 st
Tuesday, Enterprise Workshops, Say Yes, NEIS, EEDA.
• There appears to be a strong, core group of smart, talented people in South
Australia who compete very favorably within all of Australia when they get the
opportunity to compete. Examples mentioned: Comet (Commercializing Emerging
Technologies) program- 20% comes from South Australia. 7 of the recently
announced Fast 50 Tech Companies of all of Australia were from South Australia.
There 3 Universities ranked in top 15% of Australia.
• South Australia has a high degree of Export expertise, which is critical if an
enterprise wants to grow to be of any significant size. South Australia exports to
50% more countries than the rest of Australia combined. Examples of companies
successfully exporting- Gropep, Vili’s, Mining Companies, and Wineries.
• Several core competencies with opportunity for world-class status in Software
Engineering; Ag Science- WIITE is largest Ag Research facility in the Southern
Hemisphere, Biotech.
• It is also very important that there is the recognition that something needs to
change.
• Electronics industry is strong and growing.
• Largest concentration of telecomm R&D in the country is in S.A.
Weaknesses or Barriers
• There seems to be a disconnect between government and successful Private
enterprises. Many in the government agencies state that one of the biggest
problems is the lack of access to capital. However, those in successful private
enterprises disagree. They say that if they have a strong business plan and a
good management team, there is plenty of money available.
• The incubators and accelerators are lacking in a set of screening criteria to
determine which deals to focus their resources on. There is a need to target high
growth potential opportunities. However, many of these government-funded
incubators and accelerators have no screening criteria at all. They act more like
benevolent landlords. They also need to set milestones for enterprises so that if
they do not meet them, they can get rid of them and make room for other new
opportunities.
• The Government agencies feel like their efforts and initiatives are only reaching
about 1/3 rd of their potential audience. There needs to be better communications
and follow-up with their targeted audience, which is the private enterprise
businesses that are using their services.
• In addition, there is a lack of coordination and communication among the state
and local organizations that are focused on providing entrepreneurial support
services. This is causing overlap and redundancy.
COMMERCIAL IN CONFIDENCE
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