Seasons Greetings
Seasons Greetings
Our New National Innovation and Science Agenda
I think that I speak on behalf of the financial services industry and welcome the new National Innovation and Science Agenda introduced by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull recently in Canberra.
The innovation statement will focus on four pillars:
- Culture and capital
- Collaboration
- Talent and Skills
- Government as an exemplar
Underpinning the four pillars will be tax breaks for early stage investors, an incubator support program, investment in cyber security, new visas, and greater opportunities for women and the introduction of a $200 million CSIRO research fund.
There will be a focus on facilitating private investment in the early stage start-ups and collaboration between public sector and private business. Given the statement included 24 policies costing $1.1 billion over four years and covering 11 portfolios the scope and potential of this focus will be broad.
The superannuation industry will be digesting this policy mandate, from a wide range of opportunities the mandate will enable, from impacts on the investment landscape, to how to better service consumers and the changing market dynamics as innovation brings new services and competitors into the marketplace.
Of note is the major emphasis on changing culture to embrace change and innovation.
Embracing change and innovation will be the key to successfully adopting these opportunities, and for many these will be the challenge of 2016.
A story that is developing, and a case study that no doubt will be referenced by many over the year will be the Uber experience in Australia. The value of the Uber service is clear, a well-designed service delivering what customers want in a market overdue for disruption. We have seen the arrival of an innovative competitive service that is focused on the customer. For the superannuation industry the challenge will be how stakeholders, including the state and federal governments embrace change, accept innovation AND focus on the customer. We may very well see the impact of de-regulation in the ACT and how this plays out in other states and potentially the courts. However we don’t expect the media and consumers behaviour to change their tune over the coming year – they are for Uber.
We are on threshold of 2016 and reform is on the agenda. It is clear that the superannuation industry will need to ramp up its efforts as the number of agendas start to take shape, with changing market dynamics made available through the implementation of the FSI recommendations, , questions on the award nature of superannuation and the continued focus of superannuation funds to continue the digital journey. A more recent blog also covered what we believe to be an unplanned but major consideration – interpreting the opportunity of the New Payments Platform. Superannuation funds need to ensure their own culture is ready to embrace change and innovation, and to adopt what is becoming the word of 2015 – agility.
No doubt 2016 will be another exciting year. If you don’t think it will be call me and I can tell you what you are missing out on.
Director – Business Development Network
Recollections of ASFA 2015
I left the annual ASFA conference last week with some truly memorable moments.
I think the tone was really set with the opening address from Buzz Aldrin. As you may know Buzz Aldrin had a plan to travel to Mars, and visiting the moon as a consolation prize! In his mid 80’s he is an inspiration and proof positive that passion wins out over process every day. The guy flew fighters, carried nuclear weapons, and went to the moon, and he’s still travelling the globe.
Next up was Ian Silk who set the tone with a compelling Industry oration, calling on us all to deal with issues authentically and with the highest of integrity. Ian challenged us to accept that only when we do this will the member be truly at the centre of our industry. Inspiring words.
Passion, and more particularly passion for the customer was front and centre in most of the sessions. One of the most intriguing was Cass Sunstein and his journey through the concept of Nudge, the new approach to better decision making. Where strong incentives and disincentives give way to simple behavioural “nudges” to encourage active choosing, and inevitably influence in our case policy decision making.
Different ways of dealing with the member/customer also permeated the conference, whose positive Thrive theme was picked up time and again.
The session on Beyond SuperStream, dealt with the game changing potential of the New Payments Platform (NPP), with Roland Slee from Bravura blue-skying a future where payments become an information superhighway, disrupting many of our pillars of understanding about payments and customer centricity and expectation. We were able to nod knowingly given IQ Group’s experience with overseas NPP implementations. And we recently covered this here, read on.
The Change Leadership session – the role of technology, seemed to be less about technology, and more about the fundamentals of change, with organisations such as Nab, Link, ASX and UniSuper on the panel, this session highlighted the crucial need of aligning the culture of the organisation, firmly behind any attempt to put the customer centre. It was refreshing to hear stories of success, and failures. However what shone through was a passion for their organisation and clarity of purpose.
Finally from my perspective the most used word at the conference was of course Digital. The conference emphasised (as if this was necessary) the compounding impact that Digital engagement was having on our industry. We saw many sessions dealing with the challenges that come from organisations new to integrating services, rather than just consume them, from a rapidly widening range of sources. We have had quite a bit to say on Digital this year and the conference validated our research and thoughts in this dominant arena. We covered this topic with our research earlier this year – head here for more info.
So that was another year wrapped up. Here’s to 2016 and all it brings.
CEO
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