Made in Australia Electronics: How to compete
This will be no surprise to anyone who has heard me speak on this topic. You can’t compete with low cost economies on raw transactional cost if they have access to the same components and production automation you do.
And my design team can do an excellent job of the electronics design, embedded software development, Apps, web services, production support, sales / service support systems and even the electronics manufacturing and that in itself is not enough to guarantee success.
So what do you need to do?
Compete where you can, not where you can’t!
What does it mean to compete where you can?
You have to find what you are better at that someone else cares about enough to pay what it is worth.
The diagram above is one way to think about this.
- What do they Need?
- What can you do – Capability?
- What will they Pay for – Affordability?
Where these intersect you could have an Actual Opportunity. But the work isn’t done yet.
How do you define success?
A good Product Development Process will look at every stakeholder, every person / entity that cares about the product, and articulate their needs. If you can meet every stakeholders needs sufficiently well enough you are likely to have a very successful product. That is a lot of work but it is necessary work because a disgruntled stakeholder can pull the plug on the opportunity for everyone.
The map above gives you a model for mapping sourcing of knowledge and ideas for the product and who cares about the product, the stakeholders. At least up to the point where you are making it. Even your bank is a stakeholder. But so is the supply chain, the sales chain and support. Don’t forget the customer. There are more stakeholder downstream so you need to map it out fully for your opportunity.
AMTIL‘s Australian Manufacturing Technology magazine in the June / July 2025 edition page 68 (70 in online view) has published a complete article we wrote on this topic and I commend it to you. And if that gives you some ideas for a product that could be successful, then please drop us a line because we would love to help you with that.
Successful Endeavours specialise in Electronics Design, Embedded Software Development and Electronics Manufacturing, focusing on products that are intended to be profitably Made In Australia. Ray Keefe has developed market leading electronics products in Australia for more than 40 years.
You can also follow us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.
This post is Copyright © 2025 Successful Endeavours Pty Ltd
Leave a Reply