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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

The New South Wales government has established its $25 million Agriculture Industries Innovation and Growth Program to increase uptake of innovative technology and equipment in the local agriculture sector. Applications close 23 January.

The Western Australian government has announced recipients for round seven of its Agrifood and Beverage Voucher Program, offering a share of $680,000 in funding to small-to-medium food and beverage companies.

Treasury Wine Estates has flagged softer near-term earnings as category conditions weaken across key markets, while outlining a broad reset of inventory, capital structure and operating costs under newly appointed CEO, Sam Fischer.