Digital transformation will add an estimated $A45 billion to Australia’s GDP by 2021 and increase its growth rate by 0.5 per cent annually, according to a new study “Unlocking the Economic Impact of Digital Transformation in Asia Pacific]”, produced by Microsoft in partnership with IDC Asia/Pacific.

While the study found the benefits of digital transformation include improvement in profit margin and productivity, as well as cost reduction and increased revenue from new products and services, it also highlighted some of the challenges facing organisations as they transform. These include a lack of skills and resources plus siloed organisations and cultures which are resistant to change.

“Australia is clearly on the digital transformation fast track. Within the next four years, we expect to see an additional $A45 billion of Australia’s GDP derived from digital products and services,” said Steven Worrall, Managing Director, Microsoft Australia. “At the same time, organisations are increasingly deploying emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence as part of their digital transformation initiatives, which will accelerate growth even further.

“However, it’s important to note, transformation is about people as much as it is about technology. The top two barriers to digital transformation cited in the study are strongly anchored in an organisation’s ability to empower their people and transform their organisations to take advantage of the opportunity that digital transformation represents,” Worrall said.

The study echoes comments made by the Governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia last week who said that Australia’s future economy is likely to be built through investment in information technology and the skills in our labour force, rather than the natural resources which have been the backbone of the Australian economy for many years.

Jobs and skills a major focus as we transform our economy

According to the Australian business leaders surveyed, one of the societal benefits of digital transformation will be the creation of higher value jobs.

Respondents in Australia believe that 83 per cent of jobs will be transformed in the next three years due to digital transformation, with 54 per cent redeployed to higher value roles or reskilled to meet the needs of the digital age.

“The rise of digital transformation will no doubt affect the labour market where many jobs will evolve and change. While it’s encouraging to see that 66 per cent of respondents are confident young professionals already have future-ready skills that will help them transition to new roles, organisations must focus on reskilling and upskilling those already in workforce who may not have the required skillset for the changing economy,” Worrall said.

Unlocking the Economic Impact of Digital Transformation in Asia Pacific was conducted with 1,560 business decision makers – including 100 in Australia – in mid and large-sized organisations across 15 economies in the Asia-Pacific region.

Findings include

• Embracing a full digital transformation strategy enables organizations to see improvements of up to 30% in: Productivity, Profit Margins, Customer Loyalty and Revenue Growth. This will grow to close to 50% in the next 3 years.
• 2018 will mark the year of mass adoption of Artificial Intelligence. Leaders are focused on building the foundation for this emerging technology today by investing in big data analytics.
• Companies need to focus on: Capitalizing on their own data;  and Data-sharing in an open and secure manner.

The full report is available here: Unlocking the Economic Impact of Digital Transformation in Asia Pacific