8158.0 - Innovation in Australian Business, 2014-15 Quality Declaration 
ARCHIVED ISSUE Released at 11:30 AM (CANBERRA TIME) 21/07/2016   
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DRIVERS OF INNOVATION


The key drivers of innovation represent the underlying reasons why businesses may initiate innovation. Together with barriers to innovation, they represent part of a continuum of key factors that influence innovative activity within a business. Innovation-active businesses were asked to report the drivers for developing or introducing new goods, services, processes or methods. Businesses could report more than one driver and a ranking of importance was not required.

Drivers of innovation, by employment size(a)(b), 2014-15
0-4 persons
5-19 persons
20-199 persons
200 or more persons
Total
%
%
%
%
%
Profit related reasons(c)
59.8
66.8
64.9
67.6
63.1
Competition, demand and market related drivers
be at the cutting edge of the industry
33.3
39.0
43.0
42.0
36.6
increase responsiveness to customer needs
28.9
40.2
48.8
49.3
35.5
ensure the business' products are competitively priced
16.1
23.5
32.5
30.6
20.8
increase or maintain market share
21.0
35.1
40.3
36.7
28.6
establish new markets
23.4
25.1
28.6
24.3
24.6
increase export opportunities
3.5
3.9
5.3
8.8
3.9
any of the above competition, demand and market related drivers
58.1
67.1
70.8
67.5
63.0
Production and delivery drivers
increase efficiency of supplying/delivery goods or services
18.6
25.2
37.0
39.6
23.3
improve quality of goods or services
17.0
25.5
37.7
31.8
22.6
improve IT capabilities or better utilise IT capacity
15.3
20.7
29.2
28.9
19.0
increase capacity of production or service provision
11.1
12.2
17.8
17.3
12.3
any of the above production and delivery drivers
34.7
44.1
57.1
60.6
40.9
Reduce environmental impacts
5.6
9.3
8.6
15.9
7.4
Improve safety or working conditions
11.2
18.7
19.7
29.8
15.1
In response to government regulations
6.7
7.7
10.6
13.9
7.5
Adherence to standards
8.9
15.4
19.3
19.4
12.6
Other reasons
2.4
1.6
0.4
0.7
1.9
(a) Proportions are of innovation-active businesses in each output category.
(b) Businesses that were innovation-active were asked for the reasons they had undertaken innovation. Businesses could identify more than one reason.
(c) Including to improve revenue or productivity and to reduce costs.


Almost two-thirds of innovation-active businesses conducted innovation activity for profit related reasons (63%), while over a third of innovation-active businesses reported undertaking innovative activity to be at the cutting edge of the industry (37%). Increase export opportunities was the least common driver for undertaking innovative activity (4%).

The proportion of innovation-active businesses with 200 or more persons employed that undertook innovative activity to improve safety or working conditions (30%) was almost triple that of businesses with 0-4 persons employed (11%).

By industry, Financial and insurance services had the highest proportion of innovation-active business that undertook innovative activity in response to government regulations (18%), while those in Wholesale trade had the highest proportion of innovation-active businesses with increase or maintain market share as a driver of innovative activity (44%).

Further data relating to drivers for innovation can be accessed via the Downloads tab.