A recent Stuff Article provides some interesting insights and stats around how technology can and is expected to drive future business productivity.
From a labour productivity perspective New Zealand ranks poorly by OECD standards. The question is why?
There are probably a number of contributing factors. We have a large percentage of small businesses with less than 20 employees which leads to a of a ‘jack of all trades’ approach resulting in inefficient work practices. We also have a bit of an old school mentality of just working harder not smarter which is compounded by the default feeling that we need to busy. The kiwi can do attitude whilst a huge strength, can also be a limiting factor on how productive we are at work. Typically larger organisation’s invest more in systems and develop best practice efficient ways to do things following documented operating procedures and guidelines. Without these small businesses get by with individuals all doing things their way with widely different levels of efficiency and inconsistent outcomes.
“Research undertaken by Xero concluded that 85 per cent of Kiwi small business owners think we need to operate smarter – not just harder – to rebuild the New Zealand economy”
Research undertaken by Xero (NZ’s leading cloud provider of accounting software) identified that since Alert Level 4, nearly two-thirds of Kiwi small businesses said they wanted to increase their business’ productivity and 42 per cent wished their business had better processes in place before the lockdown.
So what is the answer – there is certainly no silver bullet but there is no doubt that cloud technology will be one of the key tools that will contribute to improved productivity in your business.
Read the full Stuff Article
Check out some of our other recent Productivity articles: