14 Feb 2022

How to unleash New Zealand's digital productivity

From Nine To Noon, 9:05 am on 14 February 2022
Smart city wireless communication network with graphic showing concept of internet of things ( IOT ) and information communication technology ( ICT ) against modern city buildings in the background.

Photo: 123RF

New Zealand's being urged to do everything it can do now to boost its digital productivity, before it loses out to other OECD nations racing on the information super-highway.

The recent 2022 OECD economic survey of New Zealand said the country needed to "unleash digitalisation" to boost productivity.

It said New Zealand was being held back by skilled worker shortages brought on by border restrictions and a weak pipeline of those skills due to poor maths achievement in schools.

So how can the local tech sector continue with the gains they've made in the past decade? Tech mergers and acquisitions here have grown from $750m to over $11b last year.

Kathryn discusses with Bruce Jarvis, who's working on the Digital Tech Industry Transformation Plan, focusing on Software-as-a-Service. And Andrew Mayfield is the CEO of Optimal Workshop, which creates information architecture tools for user research, and has just recently had a $10m dollar investment that will help double his staff.

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