Renu Agarwal

Dr Renu Agarwal is a Professor in Management at the UTS Business School with expertise in Strategic, Operations and Supply Chain Management. Renu provides leadership in the disciplinary fields of service innovation, service value networks, supply chain management, dynamic capability building, management practices, management education, innovation and productivity, and policy making.

As the Director of management practices projects Renu has been instrumental in managing several federal and state government research project grants funded by DIISR Canberra, Ministry of Economic Development New Zealand, NSW Health, and Queensland Health working in collaboration with London School of Economics, McKinsey and Stanford University. This research resulted in the 2009 landmark study - Management Matters in Australia – Just how productive are we? - which has had an impact on government policy and contributed to the broader international WMS study. More recently, Renu and her team designed the Australian Management Capability Survey (MCS) funded by DIIS, Canberra in collaboration with Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) and Prof Nick Bloom from Stanford University which resulted in the release of the data cube output 8172.0 - Management and Organisational Capabilities of Australian Business. Currently the team is investigating gaps in productivity and management quality of firms, and that better overall, strategic, supply chain, environmental and digital management practices can have a positive impact on Australia’s economic growth, competitiveness, and policy making.

In addition, Renu has been a lead investigator of several research projects on sustainable supply chain management, supplier relationship management, supply chain Innovation, management practices, and Australian Leadership Capability Standard projects with the Office of Environment and Heritage, NSW Premier and Cabinet Department, AiG, ResMed, SGEC, Microsoft, ASCI, Hargraves Institute and FIAL, and Centre for Workplace Leadership respectively, as well as a research investigator in the Service Innovation: developing business models for future Value Chains theme, part of the Wealth from Waste CSIRO Flagship Cluster project. In addition, more recently, as the Chief Investigator Renu has been instrumental in managing several projects: the Regional High Performance Networks Programs Project (Centre for Workplace Leadership, Melbourne), Mapping NSW Innovation Precincts project (IPC NSW Department of Industry), Economic Value of Accreditation to Australia project (NATA), Australia’s International Business Survey 2017 (Export Council of Australia), the Imagine Sydney Create project (Deloitte Access Economics), and Barriers to University-Industry Collaboration IPCC NSW Department of Industry).

Renu has published in top tier international journals which include the Decision Sciences, International Journal of Production Economics, International Journal of Operations and Production Management, International Journal of Production Research, Supply Chain Management: An International Journal, International Journal of Logistics Management, Journal of Service Theory and Practice, Journal of Health Management and OrganizaIion, Journal of Management and Organization, International Journal of Supply Chain Management, Journal of Cleaner Production, Resources, Education + Training Journal amongst many. She has edited The Handbook Service Innovation published by Springer-Verlag UK, and the Global Value Chains, Flexibility and Sustainability edited book published by Springer, and the Routledge Companion to Global Value Chains: Reinterpreting and reimagining megatrends in the world economy. As a lead editor Renu is amidst editing a book on Innovation to be published in 2022.

Prior Academic and Industry Experience:

Renu has a background in tele- and data-communications engineering and more recently expertise in business and management. Renu possesses a unique blend of 30 years of extensive industry and academic experience, out of which 19 years of industry experience involved operational and strategic senior management roles at the State Rail Authority (SRA) of NSW, OTC and Telstra Corporation, and its Hong Kong based joint venture company REACH. Renu’s career initially started as a data engineer at the SRA NSW where her greatest achievement as a project leader included the commissioning of an X.25 Packet Switching Network across the NSW Rail Network. Thereafter, Renu switched to academics as a Lecturer in the Department of Electronics and Computer Engineering at the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee India teaching UG and PG students and conducting research. Returning back to Australia in 1993, Renu joined OTC/Telstra and through progressive promotions, Renu migrated to senior management roles in the area of international switching, global service planning, design and delivery, business management, and global strategic sourcing and procurement including the successful planning and cutover of the Telstra International telephone exchange networks established with 225 countries around the world. Thereafter, Renu joined REACH as the Global Strategic Sourcing Manager in 2002, Renu’s efforts resulted in millions of dollars savings for both Telstra and REACH whilst ensuring Telstra’s purchasing power in their vendor relationships; as a result of which Renu received a ‘Recognition Award’ from David Moffatt, the then CFO and Group Managing Director of Telstra Corporation. In these senior roles across different organisations, Renu successfully managed strategically important projects within budget, on time, and with significant impact and outcomes.

DEGREES

• B.Tech
  Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, India 1976 - 1981

• M.Eng.Sc
  University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia 1986 - 1988

• PhD
  MGSM, Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia 2004 - 2008

CERTIFICATIONS

• Internal Auditor
  Quality Assurance Services, Sydney, Australia, Sydney, Australia 1997

• Executive Certificate in Managerial Skills
  University of Technology Sydney, Sydney, Australia 1995

AREAS OF RESEARCH INTERESTS:

• Service value networks
• Innovation and Productivity
• Innovation in Services
• Dynamic capability and dynamic managerial capability
• Business Model Innovation
• Management practices and its impact on firm performance - productivity, innovation, growth and export
• Supply chain management, Sustainability,
• Managerial innovation education

AWARDS:

Renu won the “ANZAM Best Doctoral Dissertation Award 2008” for her doctoral research titled “Drivers and outcome of elevated service offerings in a collaborative organisational environment” conducted on Telstra and its partnering organisations. She also won the “Best Student Paper Competition – Highly Commended” award sponsored by IBM for the paper titled “Drivers of elevated service offerings in collaborative service networks” at the POMS College of Service Operations Conference held in London Business School 2007. Renu also received “Triple Helix Association Best Empirical Case Award 2016” for the paper titled ‘Smart Specialisation as an Engagement Framework for Triple Helix Interactions’ awarded by the Triple Helix Association (THA), the International Triple Helix Institute (ITHI) and the Organizing committee of the XIV International Triple Helix Conference.