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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

Australia’s national science agency has proposed cutting up to 52 net roles from its Agriculture and Food division and exiting food ingredient innovation, precision fermentation, microbial technologies, and its national food innovation network – changes the food tech sector says leave a significant gap.

The NZ$307 million sale of the Pŋkeno facility to Abbott is complete, delivering a material debt reduction for the Canterbury dairy processor – but significant refinancing pressures remain as the company pursues its Stabilise, Simplify, Scale recovery plan.

Pure Foods Tasmania has entered a binding agreement to acquire the assets of Brilliant Food Australia, a premium seafood brand. The $300,000 deal adds the brand to the Woodbridge Smokehouse stable and lifts PFT’s revenue base by approximately 24 per cent.