New Zealand’s digital leaders share their Priorities
Over the months of February and March of 2022, we interviewed 23 senior leaders in a number of Corporations and Government Departments on the topics of issues and priorities in both their businesses and across the digital sector in Aotearoa New Zealand. This was the second year we have completed this report – you can read the 2021 report here.
Read the full report here: Aotearoa’s Digital Priorities in 2022
The challenge of another year of ongoing uncertainty.
The global COVID-19 pandemic continued to create a series of unexpected events, challenges, and uncertainty for businesses throughout 2021. While initially, digital leaders considered how to navigate the post-covid-19 world, it soon became clear that the pandemic was far from over.
Pandemic lockdowns and restrictions both locally and globally remained disruptive to business-as-usual, amplifying existing challenges and creating a new set of challenges for digital leaders. The majority of those interviewed said these challenges were expected, with only a few digital leaders who had unexpected challenges.
With the international borders closed and increased demand for digital skills due to digital transformation and change, the already competitive labour market began heating up and retention became a real concern.
Organisations faced hardware and product shortages as the global supply chain continued to see demand exceed supply. Lead times increased because of port bottlenecks, labour shortages due to pandemic lockdowns, and shipping delays.
Cybersecurity became an even hotter topic as international activity increased, employees using devices remotely on unsecured networks and access to information became key.
With the acceleration and rapid change due to Covid-19, many technology lifecycle management programmes were put on hold. As the dust began to settle in 2021, digital leaders were faced with the challenge of learning to balance business as usual with strategic programmes and transformation going forward.
Our leaders priorities.
From our interviews we found that in 2022 these are the priorities that our leaders were focused on:
Change management in digital transformation – Supporting their workforce to continue to adapt to change and adopt new systems and technologies amidst lockdown fatigue to realise the ROI expected will be key for digital leaders this year.
Cybersecurity – Enabling a secure hybrid workplace remains a key priority as security threats only continued to increase during 2021. Digital leaders are looking at how they can bolster their defences and design a far more resilient cybersecurity entity.
Retaining and recruiting for digital skills – A continued lack of international talent and the growing local skills shortage is a big concern for many leaders. With the increase in digitalisation of services and organisations’ appetite for digital transformation increasing, the demand is through the roof.
Enhancing the experience for customers, employees, and the community – Delivering operational efficiency is one thing but removing friction from the employee experience and enhancing customer experience and community engagement is also on digital leaders’ radar this year.
Getting the most from our data – Data collection, data analytics, data organisation, utilisation, and exchange, automating the delivery of data – Getting the most out of their data, efficiently and ethically, continues to be a big priority for leaders in 2022.
Supply chain resilience – De-risking supply chains to mitigate the ongoing effects of Covid-19 restrictions, natural disasters, and other disruptive events is key for digital leaders to ensure the physical availability of products and hardware.
This report was done in partnership with:
And was supported by:
