Company leaders enthusiastic about National-led coalition

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The survey found 71 percent of respondents believed there would be better opportunities for growth under the National-led coalition.
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Business chief executives and senior managers are enthusiastic about the election of the National-led coalition and are putting much faith it will improve the fortunes of their businesses and the economy.

That’s some of the finding from a post-election survey of 200 company leaders and IT managers commissioned by technology company, Datacom.

On several levels respondents overwhelmingly welcomed the new government: 71 percent believed there would be better opportunities for growth; 93 percent of chief executives confident of positive impacts on their business; 65 percent expecting their industry or sector would get better support.

Datacom Managing Director Justin Gray said leaving aside the traditional favouring of National by business, the high levels of support suggested a desire for a fresh start and direction as inflation slowed, skill shortages eased, and the disruption of the pandemic faded.

“The focus needs to be on turning that confidence into results, which for many businesses will hinge on getting the right tools in place and anticipating future issues and opportunities.”

Top priorities

The top three priorities identified by the survey were improving growth, retaining and recruiting staff, and lifting productivity, while a strong majority said the government’s top issue should boosting the economy (72 percent), distantly followed by improving public services (31 percent), and climate change (17 percent).

Businesses were hoping for greater use of technology to allow data collection and analysis, automation, and cyber security.

“The focus on making greater use of data-driven insights and workforce enablement tools is a real positive … We believe generative AI and automation is likely to be even more impactful and disruptive than companies are anticipating,” Gray said adding the government and business needed to co-operate on identifying the opportunities and avoiding the risks.

However, other survey findings pointed to less attention likely to be paid to customers, and low intentions on adopting technology such as artificial intelligence.

“It was concerning to see customer experience falling so low in business priorities (6 percent) … when the focus turns to growth and bottom-lines, customer experience can get overlooked. In the medium to long-term a lack of focus on customer experience is going to be a handbrake for growth.”

Companies were also less committed to environmental, social and governance (ESG) issues, and climate change policies.

More than three-quarters of businesses (76 per cent) had not made a commitment to being net carbon neutral by a specific date. Of those that had, 7 per cent were by 2030 and 6 per cent were beyond 2035.

The smaller the company the more likely it was to have ESG policies in place, with 64 percent of companies with 100-199 staff having a clear strategy, compared to 53 per cent of companies with 200-plus staff.