22
t h e n ew no rma l
| 2 01 2
responding to
emerging technologies
A number of Private and Not-
For-Profit Chief Executives rated
emerging technologies as among
their top three to five challenges,
but it was the Not-For-Profit
sector that found technology
most challenging.
Chief Executives had plenty to say on
the subject of technology, expressing
that it poses both “huge opportunities”
and “huge challenges”. Technology is
very much something that respondents
struggle to know how to handle. As one
respondent put it, “Innovation and new
technology – we don’t go there first –
others do”.
Technology is seen as a two-edged
sword, with numerous Chief Executives
mentioning pros and cons in a single
sentence. On the one hand, it is a
competitive asset, an investment.
On the other, risks such as internet
fraud, not having the right infrastructure
in place, privacy breaches and loss of
reputational control weigh on Chief
Executives’ minds.
0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
arket shifts
[
Most highly ranked item ]
hanges in
economic
climate
0%
10%
20%
30%
40%
50%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[ 4
th most highly ranked item ]
[
Most highly ranked item ]
[
Most highly ranked item ]
0%
5%
10%
15%
20%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[
Outside the 10 most highly ranked items ]
[ 8
th most highly ranked item ]
)
Emerging
chnologies
0%
5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[ 3
rd most highly ranked item ]
[ 7
th most highly ranked item ]
[ 6
th most highly ranked item ]
4)
Access
to nance
[
Outside the 10
most highly
ranked items ]
0%
5%
10%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[ 5
th most highly ranked item ]
[
Outside the 10 most highly ranked ite
[
Outside the 10 most highly ranked ite
8)
Cultural Barriers
0%
5%
10%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[ 6
th most highly ranked item ]
[
Outside the 10 most highly ranked ite
[ 5
th most highly ranked item ]
9)
war for
talent
10)
govt led change
0%
5%
10%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[
Outside the 10 most highly
ranked items ]
[ 3
rd most highly ranked item ]
[
Outside the 10 most highly ranked ite
0%
5%
10%
PRIVATE SECTOR
PUBLIC SECTOR
NOT-FOR-PROFIT SECTOR
[ 10
th most highly ranked item ]
[ 9
th most highly ranked item ]
[ 4
th most highly ranked item ]
11)
social
responsibility
respond i ng to emergi ng technologi es
For Not-For-Profit Chief Executives,
the two-sided attitude to technology
came in the form of desire versus regret.
With limited funds for technology
investment, some respondents wrote
off technology as “outside our ability
to utilise”. One Chief Executive noted that
“
there is much we could do with more
sophisticated information systems but
it’s hard to justify the investment against
short-term community needs”. It was
this sector that seemed to express the
most uncertainty about how to make
technology work for it.
One Chief Executive noted that
“
technology is moving at a much faster
pace than staff willingness and capacity
to utilise that technology”. No sooner has
one technology emerged than a newer
version supercedes it, requiring staff to
develop new skills. This pace of change
leads to strong pressure to invest, develop
and innovate, simply to stay relevant.
Many technologies were mentioned,
ranging from online learning technologies
to electric vehicles, on-farm technologies,
emerging delivery platforms for
broadcast material and advertising,
vehicle telematics, digital information,
GPS, ‘e-government’, changes to retail
payment systems (the “google wallet”),
ebooks, medical technology and
clean technologies. However, cloud
technologies and social networking
were the technologies mentioned
most frequently.
key findings //
3:
responding to emerging technologies