1. Presentation to 9 th World Electronics Forum Australia 2003 Australia is a competitive location for Innovation – Product Development and Manufacture

2. Australia’s Competitiveness has moved to 2 nd I M D W O R L D C O M P E T I T I V E N E S S Y E A R B O O K 2 0 0 3

3. Australia has one of the most stable and predictable political systems in the world

4. Australia rates strongly with growth & technology

5. Australia ranks highly on skilled labour

6. Skilled labour is very competitive

7. Australia has proven itself to be competitive globally at managing new technology. Combining an advanced economy with rapid technology uptake, with skilled competitively priced staff and high flexibility has created an environment in which the risks of complex ICT projects can be managed effectively. Where many multinationals combine low labour cost countries for software writing or process work with high cost countries to manage the processes, Australia's competitive management costs together with a well-trained, multilingual, flexible work-force make us attractive in managing outcomes, taking into account most of the risks. We examine two case studies, illustrating how this has advantaged the companies. Our studies look at NEC Australia, a large Japanese MNC performing R&D in Australia and GPC Electronics, a SME EMS provider based in Australia.