CREATIVE COUNTRY - FOUR PAGE SPECIAL Corporate Australia must become less wary of risk-taking and re--embrace a long tradition of creativity and innovation to achieve business success, News Corp Australasia executive chairman Michael Miller says.
Mr Miller opened The Australian's Creative Country conference yesterday with a clarion call to business leaders to break the cycle of short-termism by thinking like start-up entrepreneurs. 
"Creativity is a necessity of any business success story and cannot be bound by stereotypes," the media executive told delegates at the inaugural gathering.
"Corporate Australia doesn't have to throw out the board table to drive innovation. Nor should it outsource it. We are still the clever country. Some of the greatest technical, medical and product -innovations have come from Australia, but I'd argue we've let creativity slide to the periphery of our thinking. It needs to be front and centre again." Since the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008 and the ensuing economic crisis, boardrooms have become ultra-cautious in their -decision-making.
But in a world of relentless cost-cutting, activist investors and digital disruption, large corporations with shareholder obligations "must demonstrate creativity to succeed", Mr Miller said.
"When I think about corporate Australia there is a simple truth: for too long creativity has been in the hands of a few - the cool and unconventional, on trend, wearing trainers and beards. We have also allowed crea-tivity to be overtly -defined and ring-fenced by digital technology. Creativity is too often confined to warehouse conversions or those offices in inner-city suburbs with exposed pipes and polished concrete floors." While industries are more and more reliant on innovation, the process of supporting creative individuals and endeavours can go against the grain of businesses pursuing a risk-averse approach based primarily on cost management, he said.
"For Australia to truly be a Creative Country, we need to recognise the power of creativity within big companies and be far better at unlocking it. We must be careful that structure and process does not strangle it." New ideas were the lifeblood of all successful businesses, he said. "Irrespective of size, successful organisations are those that generate the clever thinking that changes behaviour: ideas that engage an audience and provoke a response; ideas which lead to enhanced customer experience and, at best, create new markets; those ideas which generate products or services that customers never knew they needed." Mr Miller said organisations should not think of creativity as a silo department in their corporate structure. Instead, industry leaders should foster a culture of creativity and innovation "across all aspects of their organisation".
"They can be nimble, can fail fast and act like start-up entrepreneurs. Through their scale advantage, corporates can turn a single clever idea into market success." Mr Miller said News Corp itself had shown how to create new opportunities with big, bold bets - from The Australian's launch 52 years ago to building REA Group into a $7 billion tech-driven multinational from a Melbourne-based garage.
More recently, News Corp pioneered the world's first live Facebook political leaders debate with news.com.au during the federal election campaign.
Mr Miller cited Rupert Murdoch's decision to start The Australian as an idea that was "bold, challenged the norm and defied the critics".
"The man behind it, as you may know, was then a 33-year-old Rupert Murdoch, an innovative entrepreneur driven by a desire to shake up a conservative, sleepy Australia and a personal frustration with the incumbents of the media landscape," he said.
"Through their scale advantage, corporates can turn a single clever idea into market success. Take News Corp, for example."We employ close to 10,000 staff and reach over 16 million Australians a month through our titles. Our mission each day is to inform, advocate and inspire to help build a better Australia."