The Problem with Business as Usual
Australian defence sustainment has a long history of incremental improvement dressed as transformation. Programs are announced, industry partners are engaged, and the result, after years of effort, is a modestly improved version of what existed before. The underlying structural issues remain: sovereign capability gaps, over-reliance on OEM support arrangements, and an industrial base that lacks the depth to absorb genuine capability transfer.
The DCSP has the potential to be different. The funding commitment is real, the strategic logic is sound, and there is genuine political will to see Australian industry capability grow. The question is whether the implementation machinery will match the ambition.
Commitment alone does not deliver capability. The DCSP will only achieve its goals if it is designed as a genuine catalyst for industrial transformation.
What Real Change Looks Like
Real change in defence sustainment requires three things to happen together: genuine capability transfer (not just work share), investment in the data and analytical infrastructure that makes modern sustainment possible, and procurement structures that reward sovereign capability rather than penalising it against the buying power of established primes.
- Genuine capability transfer, not work-share arrangements that preserve OEM dependency
- Investment in data infrastructure that enables intelligent sustainment
- Procurement structures that actively favour sovereign capability development
- Performance metrics that measure capability outcomes, not contract deliverables
Australian SMEs working in the defence technology space, including Anywise, have the capability to deliver genuinely sovereign solutions to sustainment challenges. We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for procurement processes that allow sovereign capability to compete on its merits, without being structurally disadvantaged by assessment frameworks designed for a different era.
The Anywise Perspective
We have built our platforms specifically for the Australian defence sustainment environment. Our products address real problems in engineering intelligence, health and usage monitoring, and facilities management. These are problems directly relevant to the DCSP's sustainment objectives. We are ready to contribute to the program's success.
What we are watching carefully is whether the program's implementation creates genuine pathways for sovereign technology companies to participate meaningfully, or whether it replicates the patterns of previous programs. The DCSP can be the catalyst Australia's defence industrial base needs. The decisions made in the next 18 months will determine which it becomes.