CREATIVE BUSINESS IN AUSTRALIA Learnings from the Creative Industries Innovation Centre 2009–2015 Edited by Lisa Andersen, Paul Ashton and Lisa Colley First published in 2015 by UTS ePRESS DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5130/978-0-9924518-2-0 The url for this publication is epress.lib.uts.edu.au/books/creative-business-australia This book is copyright. The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Australia License. Enquiries should be made to the publisher. © 2015 in the collection, Lisa Andersen, Paul Ashton and Lisa Colley © 2015 individual contributions, author/s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people should be aware that this book may contain images of people who are now deceased. The work as a whole is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. Individual chapters 1 through to chapter 13 only (excluding UpClose segments) are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution- NonCommercial 3.0 Australia License. National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: ISBN: 978-0-9924518-2-0 Creative business in Australia : learnings from the creative industries innovation centre, 2009 to 2015 / edited by Lisa Andersen, Paul Ashton and Lisa Colley ISBN: 9780992451820 (ebook) Creative Industries Innovation Centre. Arts—Economic aspects—Australia. Cultural industries—Economic aspects—Australia. Cultural industries—Australia—Case studies. Andersen, Lisa, editor. Ashton, Paul, 1959- editor. Colley, Lisa, editor. 338.477 Chapters 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 and 11 have been peer reviewed Editorial managers: Margaret Malone and Lachlan McLaine Picture researcher: Tanya Dyhin Researchers: Paul Byron and Barbara Messer Design by Nicky Hardcastle This book was developed with the support of: Brian Riley, Entrepreneurs Infrastructure Program David Sharpe, Moneypenny Belinda Tiffen, Julie-Anne Marshall, Matthew Noble and Scott Abbott, UTS ePRESS Monique Potts, Miranda Jelbart and Sun Suksubwasin, Ruth Tredennick, UTS Innovation and Creative Intelligence Unit Mal Booth and Duncan Loxton, UTS Library Drew Sandford, UTS Printing Services Bernard Andersen, Alexa Dodd, Ellen Yang The work of the CIIC was supported by: Roy Green, Dean, UTS Business School Kees Dorst, UTS Design Integration Research Centre Anne Dwyer, Deputy Vice Chancellor and Vice-President, UTS Printing workshop at Signature Prints Stephen Arnott, Megan Brownlow, Christine Burton, (Sydney), who specialise in the design, Oliver Kratzer, Adam Simpson, Michael Tear, Chris Winter, print and manufacturing of textiles, CIIC Advisory Committee wallpaper, limited-edition art and luxury Sarah Barnes, Hael Kobayashi, Sue Rowley luggage. Photo: Signature Prints. Foreword Professor Peter Booth It is with great pleasure that I invite you to read Creative Business in Australia, both for its insights into the creative industries and successful business practices in Australia and as one of the many significant tangible outcomes from the Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC). This was a collaboration between the University of Technology, Sydney (UTS), the Commonwealth Government Department of Industry and key players in the creative industries from 2009 to 2015. The creation of the CIIC was a significant innovation in its own right, being both the first dedicated focus for Australian government support to business activities in the creative industries and the first such front-line industry services unit located in and in partnership with a university. UTS was proud to be part of the development, scoping, shaping and implementation of this initiative. The CIIC made a significant contribution to both the understanding and the development of the creative economy in Australia and internationally. It is appropriate to acknowledge and congratulate Lisa Colley, Director of the CIIC, and her staff for their significant efforts in generating this success, particularly the direct support provided to over 1500 creative businesses over six years of operation. They led a process of reimagining what ‘creative industries’ meant and, for the first time, mapped out in some detail the sector in Australia. This provided a significant foundation for the effective delivery of the CIIC programs and for policy development. They also lead the development of new forms of business support, shaped to the specific needs and challenges of the creative industries. The stories in the chapters in this book seek to capture some of this richness of activity and provide a legacy for continued development of what will be a critical industry sector for Australia over the coming decades. It is also appropriate to acknowledge the partnership UTS had with the Commonwealth Department of Industry to make these achievements possible. Without the Department’s commitment to trying something different, and to working with UTS in doing so, not to mention the financial investment in the creative industries through this program, the success of the CIIC would not have been realised. I should also acknowledge all the UTS staff who contributed to the success of the CIIC. In particular, thanks to Sue Rowley for driving the proposal and then its establishment, to Roy Green, who championed the work of the CIIC at a policy level, to Hael Kobayashi and Ellen Yang for being the key coordination point with UTS and assisting with the management of the CIIC, and to Lisa Andersen for leading the development of this book and other projects to ensure the legacy of the CIIC was realised. 3D-printed jellyfish lamp shade by unellenu (Janelle Wilson). Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, 2013. Photo: unellenu (Janelle Wilson). Foreword Patricia Powell-Hughes This book partly captures the success of the CIIC mentioned above and provides My engagement with the Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC) was very a rich source of knowledge to support the further development of the creative important for my business, to say the least. It all started with the phone call I industries. Another important outcome is the CIIC archive, hosted by the UTS made in response to a marketing email sent out in 2009 to the creative industries Library (see hdl.handle.net/10453/34537). This is another first, representing a offering SMEs access to Business Advisers and government funding. I mean, rich, accessible digital archive of a wider range of data generated by the CIIC. really…who wasn’t going to call with an opportunity like that! Finally, another tangible outcome of the CIIC was that it drove UTS to formalise What followed was a six year relationship with the CIIC, as a result of which my its engagement with innovation and the creative industries, now expressed in the business underwent substantial change and growth through cross examination many leading initiatives under the Innovation and Creative Intelligence Strategy, and interrogation, exploration and experimentation—and all of this with an and in taking a leadership role for the digital precinct surrounding UTS, where industry relevant Business Adviser by my side. Unlike other Australian industry a significant number of Australia’s creative firms are located. sectors, before 2009, the creative industries had little opportunity to experience I have no doubt that the CIIC has left an incredible legacy and the expertise it government interest and expert guidance. However, the set-up of the CIIC forged will continue to support creative enterprise well into the future. changed this and delivered significant outcomes for creative businesses, both professionally and financially. Professor Peter Booth Provost and Senior Vice-President, University of Technology Sydney My company, EP Australia, accessed a number of services including a Business Review which led to the development of new products and services, and a strategy to monetise our intellectual property—which up until then we had given away for free. Then Tailored Advisory Service funding afforded me the luxury to engage previously unattainable experts and bring in new business thinking. Our first ever business plan was a product of CIIC-led Business Model Generation Sessions. This challenged and tested ideas about what we were delivering to our clients, versus what they actually wanted. Later we entered the Continuous Improvement Program which tackled business development strategies and set in train aggressive plans for growth. I also participated in the Leadership 21 business leadership program and, partly as a result of this, I took action to buy out my business partner. Throughout, I honed my skills in finance and operations and my team engaged in external learning to extend their experience and strengthen our team culture. What I got, money couldn’t buy. By the end, the little business I started in back in 1999 with $5000 and a fax machine had grown to become one of Australia’s leading recruitment and executive search specialists for the business side of the television, media and entertainment industries. With the 2015 closure of the CIIC there is now a gap in services to support, sustain, and grow Australia’s creative businesses; and at a time of industrial disruption and increasing global competition. As a worthy legacy of the work of the CIIC, this book provides sage advice to both creative business leaders looking for the right strategies for growth and for decision-makers on what is needed to develop our creative workforce—our best and brightest innovators. So, dear reader, pin back your ears and ‘listen’ carefully to the following pages. Patricia Powell-Hughes Managing Director and Founder, EP Australia . 9 Contents 0 1 0 2 CREATIVE Glossary & abbreviations ................................. 11 THE CREATIVE 5. The creative fulcrum: Where, how and why BUSINESS WORKFORCE AND the creative workforce is growing IN AUSTRALIA Introduction VALUE CREATION // Greg Hearn ............................................................. 93 // Lisa Andersen, Paul Ashton FOR GROWTH Section one outlines the common, & Lisa Colley ......................................................... 13 UP-close: Infasecure .......................................1 09 pressing issues that SME creative Section two examines the importance 1. Valuing Australia’s creative industries 6. Mentors, catalysts and provocateurs: enterprises face and offers solutions of creative industries as an enabling // Tamara Ogilvie, Yuan Deng & Rob Lee ............ 23 The changing role for designers in the shift to at both a company strategy level sector and skills set for innovation design integrated business and via sector-level activity. and growth in other industries. // Sam Bucolo ............................................................ 113 2. Business basics 101: Building good business foundations for Australian creative enterprises 7. Winning by design: Integrating design into // David Schloeffel .................................................... 41 Australian manufacturing // Adam Blake & Stuart Davis ............................... 129 UP-close: Atkins Photography .......................5 7 8. Mixing Australia’s mining ‘know how’ and 3. Creating with purpose: The DNA of a more interactive media industries: An opportunity? disciplined, sustainable creative enterprise // Sonya Henderson Edbrooke .............................. 143 // Mark Stewart ......................................................... 59 UP-close: Future Print ......................................7 3 4. The search for new business models in the creative industries // Tony Shannon ........................................................ 77 Glossary & Contents Abbreviations 0 3 GLOSSARY Enterprise Connect Enterprise Connect was a Commonwealth Government initiative that Biztro This small business development provided small and medium-sized enterprises GOVERNMENT 9. You’re hot then you’re cold: Creative service through the CIIC delivered one hour, (SMEs) with better access to new ideas, knowledge AND CREATIVE industries policy making in Australia tailored business advice sessions to small, and technologies, to enable businesses to become // Stuart Cunningham .............................................. 159 start-up or concept creative industry businesses INDUSTRIES more innovative, efficient and competitive and to and arts organisations across metropolitan DEVELOPMENT lift productivity across Australian industry. The 10. Australia’s approach to creative industries and regional Australia. Creative Industries Innovation Centre was a key policy: An international comparison Section three considers the role element of Enterprise Connect. // Anthony Merrilees ................................................ 175 Business Review The Business Review was a of government policy and support comprehensive analysis of a creative industry Tailored Advisory Service grant Tailored services for industry development. UP-close: CIIC Business Reviews .................1 88 firm, carried out by skilled and experienced Advisory Services enabled a company, or group Business Advisers through the CIIC. Business of companies, to engage one or more specialist 11. Servicing growth in established SME creative Advisers worked with clients to identify the consultants to implement recommendations industries businesses: Evidence from the relative strengths and weaknesses of the firm, identified in their Business Review. Tailored Creative Industries Innovation Centre client- strategic business issues, critical areas for Advisory Service funds reimbursed firms for half companies and Business Advisers business improvement, and potential pathways of the cost of engaging a consultant, up to a // Lisa Andersen ....................................................... 193 for growth. This service was delivered at maximum of $20,000 (excluding GST). no charge. 12. Levelling up: A government-led formation ABBREVIATIONS process for inter-organisational collaboration Business Adviser Business Advisers were between digital creative SMEs described employed either by the Commonwealth or ABS—Australian Bureau of Statistics // Sonya Henderson Edbrooke a partner organisation to deliver Business BR—Business Review & Melissa Anderson ................................................. 213 Reviews and ensure businesses got the advice CCI—ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative and support they needed to improve their Industries and Innovation UP-close: The Biztro tailored competitiveness and productivity. advisory service .............................................. 226 CIIC—Creative Industries Innovation Centre Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC) DIP—Design Integration Program 13. The Creative Industries Innovation Centre: From 2009 to 2015, the CIIC—funded by the EC—Enterprise Connect A model for government service delivery to Department of Industry and based at the EIP—Entrepreneurs’ Infrastructure Programme creative businesses University of Technology, Sydney, and in partner // Lisa Colley ............................................................. 233 ICT—Information and communications technology organisations around Australia—provided free business services to more than 1500 creative IT—Information technology Select bibliography ..........................................2 47 industry businesses around Australia to grow R&D—Research and development business and the Australian economy. Contributors .......................................................2 53 SME—Small to medium-sized enterprise STEM—Science, technology, engineering and Design Integration Program The Design mathematics Integration Program is an advanced enterprise capability-building service that aims to transform TAS—Tailored Advisory Service an organisation into one that is design led. The UNESCO—United Nations Educational, Scientific integrative approach embeds design as a strategic and Cultural Organisation capability across all areas of a firm’s operations to allow the firm to be more innovative and to grow— producing high value products and services. Introduction // Lisa Andersen, Paul Ashton & Lisa Colley In this book about and for creative business in Australia the focus is squarely on ‘business’ and not ‘creative’. So you won’t find consideration of aesthetics, beauty, pleasure or taste in the following pages. Nor will you find an examination of the creative process and methods of production—or words like ‘talent’, ‘virtuosity’, ‘forging’ or ‘dreaming up’. What you will find (which makes this book distinct from the developing body of literature on creative industries) alongside a big picture of the weight of this sector, is an interest in making visible the common, pressing issues that small to medium-sized (SME) Australian creative enterprises operating in the commercial sector are facing. These include growth management, market development, dealing with digital disruption and offshoring, and the need to ‘skill up’ in management practice. Furthermore this book suggests a way forward both at the individual company strategy level and in terms of the role for government policy and sector-level leadership to back growth. In other words, Creative Business in Australia was written for the owners and managers of design, software and digital, advertising and marketing, screen, sound, music, publishing, performance, events, architecture and visual arts businesses—as well as politicians, policy makers and peak business thinkers and leaders. It also considers the critical role the creative workforce plays in value creation across all industries—particularly manufacturing, mining and post-farm food production—through soft innovations driving competitiveness and the transformation of industry business models though design-led innovation. The book captures the knowledge and insights on creative business generated from the six years of operations of the Creative Industries Innovation Centre (CIIC), Established in 2009, the CIIC was Australia’s first national business support service for the creative industries and, while other international models existed, the services developed by the Centre (as described by Lisa Colley in her chapter) were unique and based on the needs of local creative businesses. As a collaboration between government, a university, industry-peak bodies and thousands of creative businesses around Australia, the CIIC aimed to be the door through which knowledge, experimentation, real-world application and learning could flow, in both directions. The timing of the CIIC’s establishment in 2009 was no accident. International Peri(pheral)scopes, 2011, for the City of Sydney. research was consistently pointing to the economic potential of the creative By Heidi Axelsen, Hugo Moline and Adriano Pupilli from MAPA, specialists in public and participatory art industries. The CIIC’s own analysis (as detailed by Tamara Ogilvie, Yuan Deng and architecture. Photo: MAPA Art & Architecture. 14 Creative Business 15 Introduction in Australia and Rob Lee) shows that the creative industries contribute three per cent of As part of the process to capture knowledge and insights, at the end of 2014, GDP in Australia and that the creative economy is worth more than $90 billion Lisa Andersen interviewed key people—including Adam Blake, Sam Bucolo, to the Australian economy annually (including generating exports of $3.2 billion). Lisa Colley, Stuart Davis, Sonya Henderson Edbrooke, Anthony Merrilees, David Greg Hearn describes a creative workforce of nearly 300,000 members that Schloeffel, Tony Shannon, David Sharpe and Mark Stewart—and those edited has grown strongly over the past decade, while the industrial workforce has interviews informed or formed the basis for a number of the chapters. In addition, declined, and is now a major contributor to national growth. case studies were developed to provide a further ‘Up-close’ look at areas touched on in the chapters. Not least among the many achievements of the CIIC is the increased profile and understanding it has brought to the creative industries as a whole. While The content in this book was also designed to sit alongside the Creative the bulk of its work was focused on individual companies, the Centre also Industries Innovation Centre Digital Archive hosted by UTS Library: a collection strove to look at the big picture. Here was an opportunity to think creatively of CIIC publications and videos, industry presentations and discussions and and strategically about the business of doing business in the creative industries. business case studies. It also includes the images you see in this book, generously Networking, cross-fertilisation, scaling up—these were (and still are) all of made available by the companies for re-use under the creative commons license. vital importance. Similarly, there was a role for the CIIC to better identify and One hundred years from now—when 3D printing is quaint technology—the communicate the particular strengths of this industry—skill sets which are archive will remain an important snapshot of creativity in Australia during (what increasingly in demand from industry sectors right across our economy. Tony Shannon describes as) ‘the difficult teenage years’ of the 21st century. Some of the chapters deal with initiatives piloted by the CIIC. The Design The book is divided into three sections that, in order, focus on the issues of Integration Program (DIP) described by Adam Blake and Stuart Davis, was creative business management, the impact of the creative workforce across started up, piloted and refined through the Centre as a way of engaging all industry and, finally, the role for government policy and services in industry Australia’s declining manufacturing sector with new ideas around design-led development. innovation for growth. With the closure of the CIIC, the DIP is still a major Section one, ‘Creative business in Australia’, starts with Tamara Ogilvie, Yuan Deng component of the Department of Industry’s ‘growth services’ initiative. and Rob Lee’s overview of ‘who’s in’ the creative industries and the size and scale How can different SME creative companies retain their own identities while of the sector in Australia. Given that the ‘creative industries fail to fit neatly into at the same time combine their skills to scale up? This is ‘holy grail’ for cluster a recognised industry segment within most national statistical frameworks’ the development and broaching larger marketplaces. Sonya Henderson Edbrooke task of monitoring the sector has been left to academy and industry groups which and Melissa Anderson describe a successful process they facilitated in has lead to ‘stops and starts’ and inconsistency (for example, even between the Queensland where a number of small companies—who had hitherto seen measurements in chapters one and five of this book). This lack of industry data themselves as competitors—came together to work collaboratively and and intelligence for creative SMEs to benchmark against is not helping a sector eventually form a joint venture to secure projects larger than any one company facing increasing pressure from competitors in lower cost economies abroad on could attain by themselves. top of the already intense local competition. When the Centre’s closure was announced in September 2014—due to a change The following chapters, by senior CIIC Business Advisers David Schloeffel, of focus in government industry policy towards the ‘five growth sectors’ of Mark Stewart and Tony Shannon, collectively aim to answer to the question advanced manufacturing; food and agribusiness; medical technology and ‘what’s wrong with creative SME business in Australia?’, and are essential reading pharmaceuticals; mining equipment, technology and services; and oil, gas and for owners/principals/managers—and all final-year students of creative practice energy—this book was conceived by the University of Technology, Sydney, as dreaming of starting up their own enterprise one day. David Schloeffel, in outlining a major legacy from their partnership on the CIIC. And it is very much a ‘family the core business foundations that all creative enterprises should start out with, affair’ as we invited contributions from the CIIC’s Business Advisers and from and which are missing from many even long-established businesses, sees a leading Australian experts on the creative economy—including Professors Sam role for government and industry peak bodies to work on building foundational Bucolo, Stuart Cunningham and Greg Hearn—whose thinking had significantly business competencies across the sector (although his outlook on this occurring influenced the work of the Centre. is gloomy, given there is no peak creative industries body and the sector is 16 Creative Business 17 Introduction in Australia This book makes visible the common, fragmented). Mark Stewart’s focus is on businesses developing customer-centred ‘purposefulness’ (exemplified by the transformation in Atkins Photography told in the ‘Up-close’ preceding his chapter) and he proposes seven disciplines that pressing issues that SME creative enterprises will allow companies to grow through the levels of profitability to move a small company to a medium-sized company and on. face and offers a way forward both at the In the final chapter in this section, Tony Shannon points to the irony that while creative industries have done more than any other industry to ‘disturb, disrupt individual company strategy level and in and re-create’ the ways business is done, they themselves are ‘particularly vulnerable to the disruptive winds of industrial change’. The solution is to look terms of the role for government policy and outside your sector for new business models and new ways of making money (as the print industry is doing in the accompanying ‘Up-close’ about digital sector-level leadership. disruption in that sector) and think about which business model will attract and satisfy your customers. Section two looks at the creative workforce across all Australian business as an enabler of growth. Through his research with the ARC Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation, Greg Hearn has mapped the growing number of creative occupations across all sectors and describes their role as the ‘fulcrums’ for innovation within traditional sectors, such as manufacturing, which in turn has the potential to slow job decline in those sectors. The next two chapters form an essential primer on how the process of design- led innovation introduces design thinking as business strategy and enables a company to become user-centred and design integrated. Sam Bucolo’s chapter introduces the process and intention behind design-led innovation and lays out the new industrial role here for designers (or at least those who are prepared to grasp it) as either the ‘mentors’ or ‘catalysts’ of design integration and how education needs to play a part in developing new capabilities for these roles. Through their experience of the national Design Integration Program (accompanied by the ‘Up-close’ case study of InfaSecure) Adam Blake and Stuart Davis outline the opportunity for Australian manufacturing of embedding design thinking and design practice at all levels of business and to bring ideas to market. Finally in this section—using the case of the mining industry and the uptake of simulation and visualisation technologies—Sonya Henderson Edbrooke makes a case for bringing together local creative businesses dealing with emerging digital technologies with industries where Australia has world-leading expertise in order to enhance Australian industry and, potentially, export that ‘know how’. Creative Industries Innovation Centre archive Section three on the role for government in industry development begins with launch event, University of Technology, Sydney, April 2015. Photo: Tanya Dyhin. Stuart Cunningham’s history of creative industries, communications and innovation policy making in Australia. He shows that while we invented the term ‘creative industries’ in 1994, in 2015 government policy on the sector is