While the intention may not be there to hire, Australian companies are continuing to invest in their people, "significantly outstripping" their counterparts in the rest of the world in this regard, according to Michael Clarke, Deloitte Private Chief Strategy Officer.
Indeed, 58% of Australian companies are planning to invest in staff training, compared to the global average of 46%, and 42% have plans to invest in leadership development, versus 32% in the rest of the world.
The findings are part of a new report
Global perspectives for private companies, in which Deloitte Private has tracked the plans, priorities, and expectations of almost 1,900 private company leaders in 30 countries.
The report also identifies that private market companies may be moving to develop more flexible or augmented workforces – 54% say full time headcount will remain the same in the next 12 months and 14% are expecting it to go down, despite their strong optimism around future growth.
“This suggests companies will manage growth opportunities by automating processes and augmenting their workforce with technology rather than hiring,” said Clarke.
“The Australian private market understands that automation doesn’t replace jobs, it improves the quality of them.
“Business leaders are taking advantage of automation, cloud and analytics to maximise their resources, but also recognising the importance of holding onto engaged and highly skilled employees to carry out higher value work.”
Meanwhile, the report also found the top risk for Australian private companies over the next 12 months is the cost of keeping up with technological advances, with 30% of business owners being concerned about this.
Concerns about foreign exchange rate fluctuations (26%) and increased regulatory requirements (22%) are not far behind.
There is mixed sentiment about the impact of technology advances: 60% of business owners believe they will have a positive impact, 30% a negative impact and 10% no impact.
The technology trends expected to have the greatest impact in the next 12 months among Australian firms are big data (34% see as critical) cloud infrastructure (30%) and analytics (28%).
The research found Australian private businesses are investing accordingly: with 56% saying they plan to invest in cloud computing or Software as a Service (SaaS) and 40% investing in data analytics/business intelligence.
Over a quarter (26%) also plan to invest in Virtual Reality and Internet of Things technologies, and 18% in robotics.
Deloitte Private Commercial Advisory Leader, Andrew Culley said it’s good to see that the private market understands the importance of investing in technology, because it is going to play a greater role in every aspect of business.
“However, Australian companies could act faster and be more proactive in adopting technologies like cloud and data analytics. Investing in these technologies is complex. It requires a significant change in capability from what tends to exist in private business," said Culley.
“That’s why SaaS is so attractive; it means companies can now upgrade technology without the scale of investment previously required.”
Private companies are using emerging technologies, such as cloud computing and predictive analytics in a variety of ways: with the priorities for business owners being increasing efficiency (56%), facilitating growth (52%) and reducing capital costs (42%).
The main functional areas using these technologies in Australian firms are to improve customer service (46%), management of employees (38%) and purchasing (36% - much higher than the rest of the world, 27%).
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