• AMAZON: Fashion offer.
    AMAZON: Fashion offer.
Close×

Australia's largest companies are vulnerable to foreign competitors unless they stop being so complacent, according to a finance expert.

Speaking to 600 investors at the Wild Digital Conference in Sydney, Tyro executive director Jost Stollmann said the market is ripe for disruption.

“Australia is almost unique in the western world, with nine out of 10 of its top companies established more than 100 years ago, during the horse and cart era,” he said.

“Four of these are Australian banks, which leaves them ripe for disruption.

"The only question is whether disruption will come from an ecosystem of Australian startups working collaboratively to provide consumers and businesses with a better deal.

“Or will it come from global economic juggernauts like Amazon or Alibaba, who are currently eyeing the Australian economy with disbelief at the opportunities available for new competitors here.”

Stollmann said the digitalisation of the global economy is sweeping away companies frozen by an analogue mindset, unwilling to provide the efficiency and convenience customers now expected.

“In the United States, five of the 10 biggest companies were formed in the last 40 years alone,” he said.

“These include Microsoft (1975), Apple (1976), Amazon (1994), Google (1998) and Facebook in 2004. Apple alone is six times bigger than BHP.”

According to Stollmann, the common factor with all of these companies is the quest for efficiency and giving customers what they want.

“Australia needs to capture the creative energies of its people, and develop companies of the future that can harness the opportunities created by the digital economy,” he said.

“We need to show more boldness and innovation, and be more willing to take risks in order to realise the almost unlimited potential we have before us.”

Stollmann said Australia was a backwater when compared to the size, courage and sheer commercial creativity of the United States.

“The mindset in Australia has to change. We need ambitious and aggressive entrepreneurs reaching for the stars.

“The Government, regulators and investors need to do more to support our startups and scale-ups so that in the not too distant future, we will see more high-growth innovators hit our market.”

comments powered by Disqus