Terry
Should individuals do their own thing, or is working together co-operatively imperative?

Andrew
Well I think working cooperatively is imperative in the good old, bad old days when demand exceeded supply I think it was perfectly feasible and rational for individual stakeholders in the food chain to just pump out stuff, do their own thing and make hay. The trouble is those days are, if not long gone then soon will be. So the opportunities for growing the market, growing your share of the market are shrinking for individuals because it’s so much more difficult to differentiate to take out costs, add value just by yourself and that’s, that’s a reality that stakeholders in the Agrifood chain struggle with because around the world and I don’t think it’s that much different in South Australia there’s a fundamental lack of trust between stakeholders. So because stakeholders don’t trust each other they are driven to working on their own. So really to break down the barriers to building trust, we need to get more greater collaboration between stakeholders in the value chain through their understanding working together, identifying collaborative ways of taking out costs, of adding value and differentiating that’s going to give us a much greater chance of sustaining whatever competitive advantage we’ve got in an increasingly competitive global market.

Terry
Speaking of working together how do you in general find, I know its fairly early in your time here is South Australia but your ideas are received in such a “Thinker in Residence” role.

Andrew
Oh well I guess I am trying to be deliberately provocative and challenge the way people think about things and I guess as a result of that some people when they hear me talking about collaborative value chains, the need to develop trust, build commitment, have a much better understanding of consumers, without a doubt some people scratch their heads and think this is not for me, this makes no sense what so ever, whilst others recognise it is absolutely fundamental to them being able to continue to do business and generate a return investment. So as in most things when we are trying to get people to think differently some people get it and some people don’t.