In a frank speech delivered at an industry event in Sydney today, local head of consulting group Accenture, John Gattorna, said the country's B2B industry was lagging behind its global counterparts because the press was too critical of new business models and governing bodies, such as the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, watched over inter-business relationships too rigidly.
He said the ACCC's -governance" was keeping local business-to-business players focused on being -paranoid about what their competitors are doing", rather than forming -networks of networks" in which the entire supply chain was encouraged to collaborate.
He named PricewaterhouseCoopers venture e-conomy and industrial portal CorProcure as examples of the local industry's struggling attempts to create vertical marketplaces.
-This phenomenon is not happening fast enough in Australia," he said. -We haven't seen a lot of results."
-We really need a bolder agenda. We've got to get a greater propensity to experiment.
-From the experiences we've observed around the world and here in Australia, the governance issue has been slowing everything down."
Regulation was preventing the Australian B2B chain from collaborating with neighbouring markets, such as the New Zealand and South African markets, which he said were a similar size.
-We all share the common fate of having small markets. We're going to have to get a lot more creative about the way we aggregate our marketplaces. The technology is there, the processes are there. All that is missing is the will to do it."
He added that the press was too quick to criticise experimental business models.
-If you're a critic, you say something for long enough, eventually it's going to come true," he said.
-We want to get some successes. We haven't got enough so far."
