A new study by SAP has affirmed the resiliency of Australian businesses, with 70 per cent already have contingency plans in place that will help them quickly respond to incidents like severe weather, geopolitical conflicts, or cyberattacks, compared to 65 per cent of global respondents.
However, Australian businesses still have work to do to boost resiliency in other areas as they trail the rest of the world in effective planning for talent shortages, transport disruptions, unexpected market events, or supply chain issues.
In particular, labour and skill shortages are considered the number one risk to growth in the next year (56 per cent), higher than the global average of 40 per cent. The next greatest risks include economic volatility (52 per cent), cyberattacks (45 per cent), and supply chain disruption (44 per cent).
Despite these challenges, the research noted that Australian businesses are confident in their current ability to manage their people. 60 per cent are found to be extremely or very satisfied with their ability to develop skills across their workforce, while 56 per cent were extremely or very satisfied optimising their workforce such as boosting productivity and ensuring people have the right skills for their roles, underpinned by having effective plans to manage staffing to deal with shortages (59 per cent) and having the right processes to prepare employees to adapt to new or different roles (72 per cent).
Damien Bueno, President and Managing Director, SAP Australia and New Zealand commented, “The research establishes a strong link to the resilience of your business and the resilience of your people. We are living in a world demanding new solutions and opportunities to solve for these problems. This study should act as a wake-up call to organisations across Australia that we have to continue to invest in our people to foster curious cultures that support the exploration of ideas and new thinking that when applied to big data and technology, not only safeguards their businesses but enables future growth.”
Still, 40 per cent of Australian organisations noted that they must address skills shortages to be more responsive to change and 33 per cent agreed that they needed to address labour shortages too. As such, they plan to empower their people with technology.
40 per cent have said that the biggest opportunity for their growth is using intelligent technology to drive decision-making, and 78 per cent believe they have the right data to plan for the future, but 42 per cent said they need to address technology improvement to be more responsive to change.
“Being able to react quickly to change across your whole organisation is critical to future success. Australia trails the rest of the world when it comes to the flexibility of our business processes. This is where consistent, integrated innovation platforms can bring your whole value chain together to create strong business outcomes,” Bueno said.
The research highlighted that important innovations for resiliency among Australian businesses are automated business networks (61 per cent) and cybersecurity (58 per cent), followed by employee collaboration and experience management software. Interestingly, AI and machine learning are considered less important to their future resiliency (36 per cent).
“While AI is in its nascent stages right now, business AI can help companies predict, prepare, and perform when it comes to responding to rapidly evolving demands. At SAP, we’ve recently built AI into the systems that power the most critical business processes to discover exceptional insights and efficiencies. That helps future-proof your business by bringing together people, innovation, and core business processes,” Bueno concluded.
