Data-driven insights biggest tech opportunity for 2024 - Datacom

With artificial intelligence set for widespread take-up in 2024, business leaders are eyeing how their organisations can gain data-driven insights, as well as develop their generative AI and digital skills training.

Of 200 C-suite, senior managers, IT managers wirking in New Zealand companies employing 100+ staff and surveyed by Curia Market Research in December on behalf of Datacom, the country’s biggest tech company, 33% saw “data-driven insights to support decision-making” as the biggest tech opportunity this year. That was followed by workforce enablement tools (23%) and generative AI and digital skills training (20%).

In a similar vein, the top three IT priorities for 2024 included:

Data - 34%

Automation - 31%

Cybersecurity 25%

“The focus on making greater use of data-driven insights and workforce enablement tools is a real positive and it is worth noting that AI and automation are likely to play a support role in the application of these technologies too, says Datacom New Zealand Managing Director, Justin Gray.

“We believe generative AI and automation is likely to be even more impactful and disruptive than companies are anticipating. This is an area where we believe government, tech and business leaders should come together to better understand the opportunities and how New Zealand can keep pace while avoiding the risks.”

In December, a benchmark of 130 countries compiled by research group Cambridge Insights, ranked New Zealand 49th on AI readiness, while Australia ranked 12th, and the US claiming the number one spot.

While we scored poorly as a nation when it came to AI governance, ethics, and vision, we scored highly on data availability and data infrastructure. Our task now appears to be getting the governance and guardrails in place, and upskilling the workforce to make ethical use of the data that is available to us as a nation.

“To do” list for government

Business leaders were optimistic that the new coalition government would be better for the economy and the largest portion of them 35% picked “growth” as their biggest priority for 2024 after a period of flat GDP growth, falling productivity, labour shortages. Staff retention and recruitment (24%) and workplace productivity (19%) were the other two most highly ranked priorities.

Boosting the economy should be the number one priority for the new government, according to 72% of survey respondents, with the number even higher (94%) for leaders in companies with 200+ employees. Improve public services was a priority for 31% of respondents and climate change was a priority for 17%.

While 76% of those in businesses employing up to 200 people agreed that the "incoming Government’s policies to boost the technology sector will help", the number dropped to 53% among leaders in larger businesses with 200+ employees.

Don’t forget customers

Improving the customer experience ranked lowly as a top business priority favoured by just 6% of respondents, which Gray sees as a red flag that needs addressing.

“It was concerning to see customer experience falling so low in business priorities (6%) but notable that this jumped back up to 18% among c-suite respondents,” he pointed out.

“We all know it is important but when the focus turns to growth and bottom lines, customer experience can get overlooked. In the medium to long-term, a lack of focus on customer experience is going to be a handbrake for growth.”

The future of hybrid work

When it comes to hybrid work and the growing tension around businesses demanding employees spend at least part of their week in the office, the survey data reflects a mixed picture of work.

While 40% of respondents said they would continue to support a hybrid work model, 27% said they did not support it.

A further 28% either had not yet made a decision about retaining hybrid models or were currently supporting it but looking at a full return to the office within the next 18 months or were looking at introducing mandatory days in the office.

Says Gray: “Whatever model companies choose – hybrid or not – the deciding factor for workplace productivity and creating positive experiences for both employees and customers comes down to having the right physical work environment and platforms and tools in place to make it easy to communicate, to interact with their wider team and to get the help they need, when they need it.”