Figure 33 illustrates two risk amelioration strategies undertaken by ICT funding bodies in Tasmania:
Reduction of identified risk factors in the adoption of new technologies. This strategy was employed by the Tasmanian Electronic Commerce Centre in its promotion of funding for development of electronic commerce solutions, with Tasmanian SMEs and industry sectors;
Chapter Five – Findings
Partially covering the cost of development and commercialisation, in exchange for taking equity in the business that commercialised the ICT project or service. This strategy was adopted by the ICT incubator In-tellinc, which was funded through the Intelligent Island Program.
These strategies had both beneficial and adverse outcomes:
Proof of concept projects were funded as demonstrations to industry using lead agencies or companies. This outcome was particularly relevant in Tasmania with its high proportion of SMEs in the business sector, and the need to be able to provide concrete, replicable project results that other SMEs could readily adopt;
An experimental approach could be adopted to determine what development and commercialisation programs were successful in the Tasmanian business environment;
Business and individual ICT developers could be mentored and guided through the various stages in the adoption of ICT solutions. This outcome was achieved for developers within the In-tellinc incubator, and the Launceston ICT incubator, and via the education and funding programs of the Tasmanian Electronic Commerce Centre;
Due to the limited funds available, not all relevant technologies could be supported in the stages of development, commercialisation and adoption. This, for example, applied to projects that unsuccessfully applied for admission to the incubators;
Also due to the limited funds available, and due to the size of the businesses that were funded, there were limitations on the extent to which the business alone could take high risk projects to the level of national prominence, and national markets.
Chapter Five – Findings
Figure 33. Risk Culture within Tasmania
The relationships are supported in the following extracts:
“… this whole problem of political conservatives was there all the time, you know, “If it’s a good idea private industry will fund it …” (G: 234-236)
“… we took a lot of risk out of traditional businesses, developing something simple like a technology uptake or a web strategy by being able to put them through a bit of a wringer of either workshops and training, as to what would be the best result for their business …” (D1: 66-69)
Chapter Five – Findings
“… it took the risk out of it by us being there helping them through the stages …” (D2: 311-312)
“… how do you take the apparent risk out of it …” (D2: 319)
“… how can you make sure they’re not taking a risk that joining a sort of you know a smarter business community in Tasmania …” (D2: 320-321)
“… so we were trying to partner them through the process and remove the risk at each stage …” (D2: 331-332)
“… you’re the sort of organisation that can be the risk taking, you know on the edge of it, and if we hadn’t been on the edge of it, it would have put the whole thing back ten years.” (D2: 348-450)
“… we also encouraged to be the risk taking ‘let’s fund things that are a bit out there to see what happens’.” (D2: 355-356)
“… the role out of the things like TasCOLT we can say we were taking the risk in that stage again.” (D2: 535-537)
“The other thing they [the Tasmanian Government] established at that time was a unit within Premier and Cabinet that took on high risk projects, I think the acronym was CIPU [Corporate Information Projects Unit] but I can’t remember and this became a world leader in terms of producing policy and guidelines on project management within the government context.” (F: 38-41)
“We are also talking about a time in which we didn’t have the contact management systems or even the EFTPOS or the other infrastructure we take for granted now. A lot of that was untried, so small companies saw it as very high risk and there weren’t the demonstration projects.” (F: 251-254)
Chapter Five – Findings
“Basically they gave a bucket of money to set up a business, and they did carry some risk …” (G: 92-93)
“I saw a lot of risk [in BioInformatics proposal], more risk than a commercial operation would take but that was part of the expectation that there was going to be more risk taken with this funding than a commercial operation would take, otherwise commercial operations would have already taken it.” (G: 119-122)
“MAPP is basically, OK, we’re not going to necessarily expect a return, we’re going to put the funding out there, and we’re going to let people give us a good reason why we should fund their operation and we’re going to let them carry the risk and we’re going to help them fund it.” (G: 250-253)
“... [IIB] was also risk averse, they weren’t prepared to take the risks.” (G: 270)
“… that might have been something we [IIB] should have been spending a bit more time on, to assist people to go national. But there’s a huge amount of risk, which you can’t necessarily subsidise from a grant from an Industry fund. A huge amount of risk.” (G: 521-524)
“… they [Incubator] take on some risks, and they take some equity.” (G: 533)