“Collaboration may be the single most important skill needed in the 21st Century security environment. But unless it can be embedded in the people, commercial models and incentives for the whole defence sector it will become a box ticking exercise.” Steve Clark, Defence and National Security Sector Leader, KPMG Australia
KPMG, tasked with assisting Government and Defence in the daunting task of building defence industry capability, has released a report outlining what successful collaboration looks like and its vital importance for achieving the overarching aim rankhaya.com. The KPMG report “Building defence Capability: The vital role of collaboration “ (dowload here), was presented at the NSW Collaboration for Defence Symposium held at the University of Technology Sydney mid Feb 2017.
About SME:
Darren Burrowes, CTO The Blue Zone Group, said that from an SME’s perspective, a meeting of equals was essential when it came to engagement with academia and Defence. “Ultimately, Industry Policy needs to be delivered into the hands of SMEs smoothly so that they can quickly utilise it, especially in this age of rapid technology advancement,” he said. “At the end of the day all of that IP is funded by public money and having it sit on the shelf doesn’t do anyone any good.” He said culture eats strategy for breakfast, “if the culture is wrong then it’s just not going to work”. Burrowes also said technological conversations between SMEs and Defence needed to be reinvigorated.
Mark Baker managing director Sonartech Atlas said understanding the customer base was key, and not just that here in Australia, but all over the world and agreed with Burrowes that there had to an effective way for those who developed Industry Policy to get a return on their investment – “that means you may have to be prepared to accept the fact that you are giving it for nothing to an SME to utilise it in the first instance, but you will get licence fees or some form of compensation as the technology gets into the market”.
source: KPMG report and Patrick Durrant: ADM Sydney