Australia faces widening 'productivity gap'
23 February 2010- Australia's productivity gap, the difference between productivity expectations and action, has widened from 29 per cent in 2009 to 34 per cent this year, according to research released by Telstra today.
The new research found:
- Improving customer service and productivity are the key priorities for Australian organisations, ranking 78 per cent and 76 per cent respectively
- Only 42% of decision makers measure productivity, have a target and know what that target is compared with 49% in last year's report
- ICT investment is seen as the most important contributor to improving the productivity of organisations with 55% of those surveyed identifying it as having contributed to productivity gains in the last 12 months
- Whilst organisations place a high priority on ICT investment, only 34% of organisations believe that ICT deployment is greatly aligned with the needs of worker groups to maximise their productivity. Those organisations that place greater importance on aligning ICT deployment with worker group needs are more likely to pursue productivity improvements
- The top five ICT investments for improving productivity focus on network-based capabilities including access, wide area networking, network coverage and speed, information and resource sharing and flexible/remote networking.
