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Disruptive technologies are helping leading manufacturers to boost productivity, attract and engage new consumers, inspire new market strategies and drive substantial business growth. Here's our pick of disruptive technologies to watch:

Drones: Deutsche Post, the world's biggest courier company, is using a drone to deliver medication to a remote German island. It’s been such a success the company is considering using the “parcelcopter” to make more regular deliveries.

‘Mobile-geddon’: mobile devices are making waves in the business world: think service delivery, worker productivity and customer experience.

Distributed manufacturing: is where the final product is manufactured near the final customer, so the raw materials, assembly and product fabrication are decentralised, potentially increasing customisation.

Advanced robotics: including human-machine collaboration.

Emergent Artificial Intelligence: is where machines can learn automatically by taking on large volumes of information; it has huge implications for productivity.

Self-driving vehicles: that could potentially move or distribute goods.

Internet of Things: has massive potential for business process optimisation, reduced downtime and waste, and increased quality overall.

Find out more about these disruptive technologies by reading the full story here.

Food & Drink Business

Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund will take a 25 per cent stake in JBS’s Australian and New Zealand operations, with Danantara Investment Management paying $3.5 billion (US$2.5 billion) in equity under a joint venture that gives the world’s largest protein producer up to US$5 billion to fund regional expansion.

Robotic Automation has been acquired by Varley Group, in a move both companies say will strengthen their ability to invest in automation and support Australian manufacturing.

Inghams Group Limited has significantly expanded its Victorian poultry breeding operations by partnering with ProTen, Australia’s largest corporate meat chicken grower.