SPECIAL FEATURE: BANKING INNOVATION | BFM
INTRODUCING THE NEW GENERATION OF SMALL BUSINESSES The growing demands of today’s consumer, along with the changing face of leadership, have influenced an influx of inspiration and ideas that is transforming the way we do business; forming the next generation.
T
he small business sector continues to be the engine room of the Australian economy, increasingly driving innovation and new ideas. Moreover, the savvier smaller businesses are embracing a social purpose, as well as a commercial imperative. Small business is where innovation transpires, where risks are taken and where new business opportunities are generated and fostered. We see this across every type of small firm from microbusinesses, which may be a sole trader or three people starting a business in their kitchen, all the way through to large, private, multi-generational family businesses. Innovation is embedded in what we do at St.George. Being the first bank in Australia to launch internet banking in 1999, and the first bank globally to introduce touch fingerprint I.D. to login into an account, thinking outside the box is our temperament. So we’re serious about seeing Australian businesses innovate and grow stronger, and we have a huge focus on helping business owners thrive in an environment of constant change. The St.George Kick Start grants program is one way we do that. It’s an opportunity to support growing established businesses as well as fantastic new enterprises on their path to success, and help bring to fruition the next generation of ideas showing promise for a sustainable future. We recently held the finals for the 2017 Kick Start program in front of a huge crowd at TEDxSydney. This is an incredible annual showcase of ’ideas worth spreading’ and we were delighted to be able to position the program at the centre of this inspiring event. During a ‘fast pitch’ competition, six established and six start-up firms pitched their business idea to go in the running to win one of two $40,000 grants for the winners and one of two $10,000 grants for the runners up. We saw some incredible ideas from businesses that have the drive and knowledge to disrupt a diverse range of industries, including in health, agriculture and construction.
www.businessfirstmagazine.com.au
Patch’d Medical, this year’s winner of the new business idea category, is a good example of a business driving both a social and commercial purpose. It has developed an app to collect a patient’s vital signs. In the future, Patch’d Medical aspire to keep many thousands of people outside the hospital system, rather than see them occupying a hospital bed so their vital signs can be recorded. The winner in the new idea for an existing business idea category, Molten-Labs, is another example of a flourishing business with a social purpose. The company will spend its grant to further develop robots to detonate the millions of land mines all over the world that kill or maim more than 20,000 people a year. Molten-Labs and its purpose align really well with St.George’s values to help enterprises grow. I was fortunate to be one of the judges for this year’s Kick Start awards. We were looking for businesses with a clear need and associated market opportunity. We wanted to see out-of-the-box thinking and we needed to be satisfied the grants would help the recipients in the next phase of their business growth. More importantly, we needed to understand how the money would help their business grow stronger. The strength of their 60-second pitch was the final criterion. FUTURE FOCUS Of course, it’s not only the businesses that entered Kick Start this year that are innovating. Across our business, many of the small businesses we serve are forging important paths. At the end of the day, small business owners are looking to manage two critical resources: cash flow and time. As they do this, many are actively looking to understand opportunities to leverage digital technologies to better serve their customers, and to ensure their business is more efficient. To help save time, business owners are using new technology to assist them to be more efficient, manage their customer data more effectively, deliver products and services more effectively and enable customers to more easily access their capabilities and services.
BUSINESSFIRST MAGAZINE
9