INSIGHT: How Kiwi businesses can lead in the digital race

"To be successful you need to be rigid on your goals but flexible on your methods."

Ohri believes that cyber-attacks are a serious and very real threat (only 23 percent of CIOs globally, believe they are ‘very well’ prepared for an attack) the recent cyber-attacks on big corporations have revealed the vulnerability of businesses and the widespread damage such attacks can cause to operations and reputation.

“Boards and executive teams are increasingly becoming aware that cyber-attacks are not just a technology risk, but a real business risk,” Ohri adds.

For Ohri, New Zealand companies too, have also been dealing with their share of security headaches such as zero day malware and open source.

“There is also the imperative need to safeguard SDN, mobile users and IP appliances,” he adds. “These concerns are not inhibiting the ability of businesses to innovate.”

According to Ohri, the US, characterised by its gargantuan market and databases focuses on data aggregation, while New Zealand, with its predominantly small to medium business landscape, is determined to make data analytics work with more customer insights and benchmarking.

“The old ways of capturing market share and improving profitability are fast becoming obsolete and Kiwi companies are taking notice of the rapidly evolving business environment,” he claims.

“They are enthusiastically incorporating new practices and processes even though change can sometimes be difficult and expensive.”

To maintain and augment their position, Ohri believes companies in New Zealand are changing their practices around data management, and building confidence and reliance on BI and social listening as their tools of choice to remain relevant in a rapidly digitising environment.

“As advanced data analytics becomes more mainstream, businesses in New Zealand are being able to analyse data more speedily and cheaply,” he adds.

“Like all things new, there is much trial and error and everyone is in a race to find the best solution to the digital challenge.”

Industry analysts predict that the IoT (Internet of things) will balloon to 26 million connected machines by 2020 with countries like China and Korea at the forefront of this revolution and New Zealand not too far behind.

“New Zealanders have adopted the Internet with ease and enthusiasm and over 84 percent of kiwis are now connected,” Ohri adds.

“The habits and interests of customers have undergone a sea change and business owners have realised that even the best advertising is only effective when there is a receptive audience.

“The race is on to meet and influence consumers where they congregate. On the Internet.”

Ohri adds that KPMG New Zealand is “unreservedly embracing” this trend towards digitisation and is poised to lead the pack in the digital technology space.

“KPMG envisages that its early adoption and current expertise in this space will give it the edge to lead the field in digital technology and analytics for a long time,” he adds.

“2015 will present challenges but I am optimistic and looking forward to an exciting year.”

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