Digital companies pull away

Digital leaders³ were more likely than non-digital leaders to make additional technology investments as a result of COVID-19 – with 50 percent more organisations that are ‘very’ or ‘extremely effective’ at using digital technologies spending an additional 21-50 percent globally – notably in Australia this figure is three times more. These investments focused on large-scale implementations of Distributed Cloud (42 percent – 30 percent in Australia) and SaaS (34 percent – 32 percent in Australia). The crisis has served to emphasise a growing divide between organisations driving their strategy through technology, and those that aren’t.

Concerns over mental health

Nine in 10 Australian IT leaders during COVID-19 are concerned about the mental health of their team which has resulted in 8 in 10 IT leaders (78 percent) putting programs in place to support their staff.

Cloud investment up

After investment in security and privacy (58 percent), investment in infrastructure and the cloud was the third (fifth in Australia) most important technology investment during COVID-19, with the number of IT leaders actively considering Distributed Cloud nearly doubling in just 12 months (from 11 percent to 21 percent). This has tripled in Australia from 7 percent in 2019 to 22 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Skills shortages

Prior to COVID-19, 2020 skills shortages remained close to an all-time high. Subsequently, shortages in tech talent have remained high. In addition to cyber security skills (42 percent), the next three most scarce technology skills are organisational change management (24 percent), advanced analytics (24 percent) enterprise architecture (22 percent) and IT strategy (17 percent).

Bev White, CEO, Harvey Nash Group said: “This unexpected and unplanned surge in technology investment has also been accompanied by massive changes in how organisations operate – with more organisational change in the last six months than we have seen in the last ten years. Success will largely be about how organisations deal with their culture and engage with their people. In a world where location has dissolved, where the office now includes the kitchen table, and where over 80 percent of IT leaders are concerned about the mental health of their teams, organisations will need to reformulate their employee offer to attract and retain the talent they need to support them through the pandemic, and beyond.

Bruce Goldsmith, Managing Director, Harvey Nash Australia said: “It may seem obvious that the threat to an organisation’s cyber security would increase with so many employees working remotely, but for 4 in 10 that threat has become very real. This is exacerbated by the fact that the same number of organisations are also suffering from a shortage of skills in cyber. Hopefully with the increase in investment in cyber and privacy these organisations can protect themselves going forward, particularly as many employees won’t be going back to the office full-time.”

Guy Holland, Partner-in-Charge, KPMG Digital Delta in Australia said: “Technology has never been more important to Australia organisations’ ability to survive and thrive in the new reality IT has proven its role as a critical enabler throughout the pandemic as organisations have rapidly transitioned to hybrid working. As the new reality continues to be shaped by economic recovery patterns unique to each sector and location, digital transformation will become a key driver of recovery and growth. One thing remains consistent; the urgency to act swiftly and decisively.”