Resiliency is a key watchword in today's Down Under market

 Part of our 2019 Trends podcast series

While some people believe that the Australian market is somewhat insulated from goings-on in other parts of the world, they’re wrong. Australia does approximately 75 percent of its trade with Asia, and disruptions like Brexit and the trade wars between the U.S. and China absolutely flow down to Australian organizations.

Intelligent automation and digital are a bit more embryonic from Australia’s perspective, but they’re gaining considerably more traction. Cost reduction, cyber security, and operational improvements are all top of mind for Australian firms, particularly in preparation for upcoming bumps in the local and global economy.

All these things are causing considerable challenges specific to the Australian market. And they’re driving firms there to seek practical resiliency on multiple fronts.

In this podcast, Michael Smart, leader of KPMG’s Australian shared services and outsourcing advisory practice, sat down to discuss:

• How enterprises should go about balancing the perennial need to cut costs with all the other things that are on their agenda, including investments in cyber security and intelligent automation
• Why legacy environments and data are major impediments to realizing the desired benefits from robotics, analytics, and other types of advanced automation
• Why he believes today’s talent shortage challenge isn’t anywhere near as much about digital skills as it is about attracting and retaining people to work in a legacy environment.

This is one of many installments in our 2019 Trends podcast series. 

Visit our series page to listen to others.