In the race for competitive advantage, many organisations chase technology, talent, and market position. All three matter. But all three can be replicated. The outliers are winning with something harder to copy, which is a culture where innovation a reflex.
At SXSW Sydney, leaders from Adobe, Carsales, and DHL Supply Chain joined Great Place To Work ANZ’s Rebecca Moulynox to unpack why culture has become the ultimate differentiator. The session was a candid look at the messy, relentless work of building environments where advantages are created every day, at every level of the organisation.
The Competitive Advantage You Can’t Outsource
When Allen Russell from Adobe asked a colleague celebrating ten years with the company what stood out most, the response of “This is the place I’ve been able to be the truest version of myself,” cut through.
For Russell, an HR leader of nine years at Adobe, it was more than a feel-good moment, “When people are truly who they are, that’s when creation and innovation happen at their best.”
Competitors can poach talent, reverse-engineer products, and copy go-to-market strategies. What they can’t easily replicate is an environment where people feel safe enough to bring their full creativity to work, and the compound effect of thousands of daily decisions by people who care about outcomes.
Innovation Born on the Warehouse Floor
Rachael McDonald, Vice President HR at DHL Supply Chain, shared an example that began on the warehouse floor. A frontline team member spotted the waste and inefficiency in transporting temperature-sensitive pharmaceuticals. Most medications move at two to eight degrees Celsius, and the manual process relied on cold-room space, ice bricks, and constant monitoring.
He didn’t just raise the issue. He built a solution in an Australian facility: reusable, environmentally friendly packaging with integrated temperature tracking. Customers across the pharmaceutical sector adopted it. Five years later, he developed a smaller, more economical version.
“I like this example because it scaled. We’ve been able to take it globally across our organisation, and we didn’t stop there,” McDonald said. The edge isn’t only the innovation. It’s a culture where a frontline employee solving a multimillion-dollar problem feels natural, not exceptional.
Building the Architecture of Advantage
These stories share common architecture: deliberate cultural choices that allow advantage to emerge organically. Allen Russell described Adobe’s shift from “posters on a wall” to values people can use. Over 12–18 months, Adobe listened across the business, reset four core values, and defined Values in Action, observable behaviours that show what each value looks like in practice.
“In action means I can look, feel, and almost touch what that needs to be,” Russell said. “It gives people a tangible way to understand experimentation, being genuine, and giving feedback.”
When 30,000 people understand not just what you value but how to demonstrate it, you get coherence that competitors can’t quickly copy.
Make Failure Transparent
Anthea Corridon of Carsales explained how acknowledging what doesn’t work accelerates what does. When Carsales pivoted away from non-core businesses, leaders were open with teams.
“Some of the work was great and innovative,” Corridon said. “It just wasn’t serving us anymore, so we were transparent and we pivoted.”
Carsales reminds teams that the company itself was a bold idea, moving car ads from newspapers to online, and expects leaders to “celebrate wins and also acknowledge failures and the learnings.” Removing the career risk of failure speeds experimentation and discovery.
Embed Feedback as Infrastructure
Rachael McDonald described DHL’s focus on feedback as a daily habit rather than a scheduled event. “It’s part of everyday business life,” she said. “On-the-spot, regular feedback helps people thrive. If someone’s giving me feedback, I’m improving, in my career and in how I deliver for customers.”
Her caution, echoed by Rebecca Moulynox, was clear: “Nothing erodes trust faster than leaders treating people in different ways and not doing the same thing across the board.” Inconsistent leadership shuts down the idea flow that fuels differentiation.
From Innovation Theatre to Innovation Infrastructure
Hackathons and labs create spikes in creativity. Sustained advantage comes from making innovation continuous.
Carsales launched Red Tape Radar, inviting anyone to flag a process, policy, or way of working that slows them down. Submissions are triaged: fix, bin, or explain.
Within 48 hours, 50 ideas came in from 700 people. “People get used to three or four steps just to get something done,” Corridon said. “We needed to ask why those steps exist and whether they’re outdated.”
She added that when certain processes do need to remain, it’s just as important to help people understand why they’re there, because clarity builds trust as effectively as change does. While rivals drown in accumulated process, Carsales is deliberately unblocking speed.
Adobe’s approach is direct, and experimentation is measured. “One of our organisational goals is to try three experiments in a specific priority,” Russell said. “We bake it into goals so there’s comfort with experimentation.”
When tests are expected and tracked, innovation becomes muscle memory, not a side project.
AI Enhancement Without Displacement
How you position AI determines whether it amplifies or undermines your edge. Corridon cited a quote she heard from Accenture’s panel, “AI is nothing without human ingenuity.” The point resonated across the session. Everyone has witnessed the rise of so-called work slop, the AI outputs that lack context and depth.
“AI doesn’t understand your business strategy or what’s worked over time,” Corridon said. “People do.” Carsales runs a Try AI programme with clear guardrails. Teams request tools, governance reviews follow, and learnings are shared. The focus is business outcomes, not just task completion.
Measuring Cultural Competitive Advantage
What you measure signals what you value, and shapes what you scale.
- Adobe: retention of critical talent, especially in engineering and AI/ML. Keeping great people doing enriching work increases innovation over time.
- Carsales: engagement items that test whether people can share ideas, whether decisions move quickly, and whether teams have the tools to think beyond BAU. More engaged teams consistently deliver stronger outcomes.
- DHL: the degree to which innovations embed and scale, not one-offs. Customer and employee retention are key proof points that innovation supports operational excellence and sustainable engagement.
The Advantage That Compounds
Adobe, Carsales, and DHL compete in very different spaces, creative software, digital marketplaces, and logistics. Yet they converge on one truth: in a world where technology, strategies, and even talent can be copied, culture is the advantage that compounds.
It compounds because small decisions build momentum. A warehouse operator’s idea becomes a global practice. A regional learning festival scales company-wide. A transparent conversation about failure becomes the foundation for the next experiment.
This is why culture is the future of competitive advantage. Not because it sounds inspiring, but because everything else can be copied. The environment you create for human creativity and contribution remains uniquely yours. As Allen Russel’s colleague put it after a decade, “This is the place I’ve been able to be the truest version of myself.”
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