The Millennial Survey 2013
How our future leaders view business and innovation
As part of Deloitte’s activities for the World Economic Forum at Davos, Deloitte conducted a survey of just under 5,000 Millennials to get their view on the importance of innovation in business – and received some interesting feedback, including findings specific to Australian Millennials.
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The Millennial Survey: Australian findings |
One of the main conclusions was that Millennials (those born 1982 on) believe innovation is key to business growth (78%). In fact innovation is seen by Millennials as one of the top three ‘purposes’ of business and as important as profit.
Yet only 26% of Millennials in the 18 countries surveyed, including Australia, feel that business leaders are doing enough to encourage practices that foster innovation, in particular encouraging idea sharing regardless of seniority.
Deloitte Australia’s Chief Strategy Officer and head of Innovation Gerhard Vorster believes that sharing ideas freely in an organization is critical for innovation to flourish and thrive. He said while our current business leaders can debate how and where to innovate, it is clear how much importance our future leaders place on innovation - not just as a driver of business growth, but as a catalyst for solving society’s most pressing problems.
In Australia, our drive for productivity is absolutely innovation dependent and critical for the performance of the economy. The survey highlighted that Millennials felt that Technology and Media, Consumer Business and Manufacturing were the most innovative sectors, with Australia, Spain, the Netherlands and Canada also pinpointing Energy and Resources, and that Public Sector was most in need of innovation.
The survey also identified that the most innovative people were to be found in India (81%), Thailand (79%), South Africa (78%), Brazil (77%), China (73%) and US also 73%, with Australia below average at 55%.
The Millennials pinpointed creativity (62%) as the characteristic that will mark out future innovators, followed by academic ability, technical skills and most tellingly – the ability to challenge.
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About the Deloitte Millennial Study:
The research findings are based on a study conducted by Millward Brown. A total of 4,982 interviews were conducted online between 19 November and 19 December 2012. Approximately 300 interviews were conducted in each of 16 markets: USA, Canada, South Africa, Brazil, the Netherlands, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Russia, South Korea, India, Australia, Japan, China, Southeast Asia (Singapore, Thailand, and Malaysia). Screening questions at the recruitment stage ensured that all respondents were Millennials – born January 1982 onwards, were degree educated, and were currently in full-time employment. Interviews lasted approximately 15 minutes.
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