Why is innovation
important in the defence market? Because a small country deploying a small
defence force won’t derive either an operational or economic
advantage doing the same thing as everybody else, only cheaper. Innovation – in
equipment, organisation and process - is the difference between being ordinary (possibly irrelevant) and vulnerable, on the one hand, and strong, resilient and prosperous on the
other.
Defence is
a monopsony market. That means the
defence customer has a significant shaping effect on the market: its size, its
behaviour and the barriers to entry. If he is the launch (and possibly sole)
customer for a new piece of equipment, or service, then its success depends to
a significant degree on how he addresses both the operational need and the
opportunity to be innovative in meeting it. It also depends on the partners and
suppliers he chooses to deliver this new capability – and making a wise choice
is a pre-condition (one of many) for innovation success.
So what are
the pre-conditions for innovation success that the defence customer needs to
satisfy? There are a dozen, in my view, and they need to shape key attributes
and behaviours on the part of Defence and the ADF. Boiled down to their
essentials, this is what I think they are:
1 1. Nurture and grow your technical expertise
2. Nurture and grow your professional expertise
3. Maintain your situational awareness: keep abreast of emerging threats as well as emerging technologies and their potential effects on your own capabilities and operations
4. Understand your needs and articulate them properly
5. Be methodical in conducting R&D and capability development: this will help you understand your needs, as well as helping you identify solutions
6. Seek opportunities for innovation in your organisational practices, processes and procedures as well as in your equipment inventory (innovation in the latter is usually wasted without innovation in the former as well)
7. Take every opportunity to engage with and inform your industry and research base – the more they know about what you do, how you do it and what difficulties you face (within obvious limits!), the better able they are to support you – see Israel as an example
8. If it needs to be done at all, do it quickly. Urgency eliminates irrelevancy: a short deadline ensures a focus on the outcome, not the process
9. Establish a disciplined acquisition strategy that both reflects the urgency of the need and tolerates sensible risks (see 1 and 2 above) and remember that obsessive risk-aversion is itself another source of risk
10. Appoint a champion with sufficient seniority to drive the project forward in spite of bureaucratic obstacles – or to kill it, if this turns out to be the correct course of action; and give him or her the best possible project team
11. Make sure you’re nurturing your industry base – In a technology driven monopsony a smart customer doesn’t allow his industry base to fall into a technical rut or to fall behind in a technology sense.
12. Nurture a culture and capacity to work with your industry base to identify opportunities and develop solutions, both for yourself and also, potentially, for allies and export customers.
2. Nurture and grow your professional expertise
3. Maintain your situational awareness: keep abreast of emerging threats as well as emerging technologies and their potential effects on your own capabilities and operations
4. Understand your needs and articulate them properly
5. Be methodical in conducting R&D and capability development: this will help you understand your needs, as well as helping you identify solutions
6. Seek opportunities for innovation in your organisational practices, processes and procedures as well as in your equipment inventory (innovation in the latter is usually wasted without innovation in the former as well)
7. Take every opportunity to engage with and inform your industry and research base – the more they know about what you do, how you do it and what difficulties you face (within obvious limits!), the better able they are to support you – see Israel as an example
8. If it needs to be done at all, do it quickly. Urgency eliminates irrelevancy: a short deadline ensures a focus on the outcome, not the process
9. Establish a disciplined acquisition strategy that both reflects the urgency of the need and tolerates sensible risks (see 1 and 2 above) and remember that obsessive risk-aversion is itself another source of risk
10. Appoint a champion with sufficient seniority to drive the project forward in spite of bureaucratic obstacles – or to kill it, if this turns out to be the correct course of action; and give him or her the best possible project team
11. Make sure you’re nurturing your industry base – In a technology driven monopsony a smart customer doesn’t allow his industry base to fall into a technical rut or to fall behind in a technology sense.
12. Nurture a culture and capacity to work with your industry base to identify opportunities and develop solutions, both for yourself and also, potentially, for allies and export customers.
Defence – the ADF, CASG and DST - is mobilising
itself to satisfy these pre-conditions. The 2016 Defence
White Paper and Defence Industry Policy Statement kick-started the change
process. But to continue satisfying the pre-conditions for innovation and
operational advantage in both Industry and Defence we need to see the emerging cultural
changes embedded permanently in the ADF and in Defence’s capability development
and acquisition processes. The early signs are very promising – but these are
unsettled times: Defence and Industry together need
to make these changes future-proof.
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