Winning a government tender can be life-changing for an Australian small business. But a perfect storm of conditions, including of a crackdown on badly behaved large consulting firms, means skilled government contractors and consultants are now being replaced with in-house generalists.
This not only means government projects miss out on niche expertise, but many small businesses will eventually shut down, creating job losses, less economic spending, and less tax being paid to the government.
In the last year, more than 15% of Australian businesses failed, the worst rate since the Global Financial Crisis. Half of the businesses established in 2019 aren’t around today, and small business failures have jumped by more than 33% this financial year.
However, the federal government could make several simple but meaningful changes to open tenders to smaller businesses to benefit themselves and the wider economy.
Read more about this issue and proposed changes in gemaker Managing Director Natalie Chapman‘s insight on the InnovationAus website.
