Digital Economy Strategy

Its truly impressive how many cloud services and applications there are available to run a business. As a small business starting up over the last year it is very empowering to be able to find a great selection of services, as well as how-to's and help available online. It can get rather complicated though - you suddenly realise you've got 30 different logins!

Coming from a corporate IT background I find it pretty easy (and enjoyable) to decide what technology capabilities I need, research and select solutions and then configure and implement them. However I can see that for small businesses that don't have the time, expertise or resources available that it can be pretty daunting. In fact the the business we've set up caters exactly to that market - to help small businesses through some of these challenges.

Also for small businesses they don't always know what they don't know. This makes them either reliant on an IT/digital (or other) provider to be recommending the right solutions for them, or sadly lacking in the appropriate solutions they need. Even the basics like offsite backups, never mind getting their heads around cyber security.

I think the future is exciting for small businesses in Australia. As the workforce changes I think we will eventually see every individual essentially being a 'small business'. Full time employment will morph into more casual employment as organisations need a more flexible workforce, and as individuals don't want to be owned by an organisation. Retirement is being redefined and people want more flexibility and autonomy as well as purpose as they get older - they don't want the corporate slog anymore but they still want to be useful and do something they enjoy as well as continue to earn an income. Younger people too are redefining what work looks like e.g. developing portfolio careers, being more mobile and creating a better work/life balance.

Government can help by continuing to simplify things - for example the recent ATO changes for submitting BAS statements. We need the right balance of simplicity but still needing protection. Two things stand out for me
(1) Cyber security is one of the biggest concerns - small businesses know this is an increasing threat but don't have the resources of big businesses to really understand it and address it
(2) Doing digital/online business internationally - feeling comfortable that we're sufficiently protected (e.g. in terms of liability), and abiding by the relevant regulations - knowing what to be aware of and the best way to operate.

Fast internet - lets get the basics right.

Covered above

This is a very exciting space, and I'd be willing to participate in any panels or research you're doing.