Imagine England losing the Ashes from their current series-leading vantage point? "We missed a great opportunity," English captain Andrew Strauss would cry.

Now picture the NBN combined with neo-Luddite board directors? Houston, we have a (potential) problem.

Those were the sentiments shared by many of Australia's leading digital thinkers at yesterday's AIMIA’s (Australian Interactive Media Industry Association) conference on,“What does digital mean for the NBN & what does the NBN mean for digital.”

"Ageing board directors will have a major impact on Australia’s ability to utilise the full spectrum of services offered by way of the National Broadband Network," stressed Bullseye’s Executive Chairman Jim McKerlie, a guest speaker, at AIMIA’s conference.

“Many key decision makers sitting on some of the most powerful boards in the country are not only lacking in the technical know-how but also completely out of touch with the digital landscape,” explained Jim. “And that’s a huge challenge for our economy in the face of greater dividend opportunities created by the NBN.”

Indeed fervent debate erupted at KPMG’s Sydney auditorium during an open session. Questions were thrown like hand-grenades at the guest panel and responses flew back equally thick and fast:

“Who is paying for what?”

“Who do you call if your internet goes down? The NBN Co? Or Telstra?”

“Will the NBN’s rich bandwidth capabilities signal a collapse for free-to-air television?”

And while KPMG Digital Partner Malcolm Alder, another guest speaker, confirmed the sands are still shifting on exactly how the NBN will work, the overriding message from the forum was clear: one way or another high-speed broadband is coming to Australia so start planning or get out of dodge.   

“Five years ago Nokia was a leader in the mobile sector,” described Malcolm. “Today they are playing catch-up to the iPhone and other smart-phone manufactures. So challenging your business model will be critical moving forward.”

But how you challenge your business model is not easy. Narelle Clarke (Vice President of the Internet Society of Australia) believes a good starting point for businesses is by reviewing the way they think about the NBN.

 “People are viewing the NBN as just ‘fast internet’ but this is simplifying the issue. The goal is services, and broadband is just a means of achieving them,” she explained. 

The notion of services was highlighted further by the forum’s next guest speaker Chris Zull (Senior Manager Regulatory & Government of Macquarie Telecom):

“More than 50 per cent of respondents to our latest study – I might add we had over a thousand responses from a large cross section – expect the way they do business will transform,” Chris stated.  “A further 50 per cent of Australian businesses believe they will be able to compete better.”

To view Macquarie Telecom’s study click here: www.macquarietelecom.com/media_room/releases/101202-Business_expections_of_NBN.htm

Chris used Quickflix, an online movie provider as an example. Quickflix currently uses Australia Post to send and return DVDs, a process that can take anywhere from 1 to 4 days. Under the NBN, consumers will select the movie they want to see and download it directly to their computer/TV as quickly as 7 minutes.

Bullseye’s Jim McKerlie gazed even further into a society under the NBN depicting a fragmentised marketplace (easily made track-able by more powerful content management systems) where dynamic personalisation dominates and “content is no longer king, because knowledge is commoditised... customer experience is now king”.

Malcolm Alder believes education is another major roadblock facing the NBN. “Trying to explain how something is going to work, especially when the object is not tangible and in-front of your face is a real challenge.”

The other major education obstacle is informing the community of the value it will add to our daily lives (and pockets). “If many people in the audience are confused as to why we need the NBN and what competitive advantages it can give us then our leaders probably need to be doing a better job of explaining it to the public.”

- Roghan  

Cricket image sourced from: http://www.thehindu.com/sport/cricket/article935294.ece 

  

 

 

 

 

 

As the National Broadband Network (NBN) moves ahead over the next 12 months, more focus on how it will impact business and communities will come to the fore. Business leaders must look at their corporate objectives in terms of digital delivery, and consider the game changing benefits of doing business in a high-speed broadband environment. It is imperative that they have a clear digital strategy in place that leverages these opportunities, and takes a whole-of-business approach. Those that don’t risk being left behind. Digital presents opportunities for technological improvements that can revolutionise the capability of organisations to improve their responsiveness, enhance customer service, control costs and standardise procedures. This can be achieved through the development of informative and engaging websites that improve your competitiveness; content management systems that manage and publish organisational information; applications that manage your supply chain; systems that promote personalised and effective customer management, and leveraging the increase in the take up of the mobile web to speak to customers anywhere, anytime. Accordingly, here are some key points for consideration to assist you in devising your digital strategy:

1. Having a digital roadmap. It is crucial to develop a digital roadmap. One of the first steps is to consider how digital can play a role in harnessing your offerings and competitive differences by engaging your customers, potential customers, stakeholders, suppliers, buyers and employees when you work through your strategic business objectives. This will require clarity on what you offer, who buys it and why.
2. What is the purpose of your digital mediums? Clearly identify your purpose and objectives when engaging with your different audience groups (B2C, B2B/B2b/B2P, and B2E/B2S) to help you determine which digital mediums will deliver the highest value. For example, should you focus on your website or internal intranet? Developing criteria to help define priorities will assist in providing a balanced score card for each initiative.
3. Governance and a publishing model are critical. Ensure a strong governance framework and publishing model is in place to support ownership, roles and approval definition. This requires a dedicated team to manage your digital mediums. Since 2001, we have seen an increase in the investment in digital teams by 133%.(1)
4. Need to consider mobility. With advancements in the speed of access to information, comes increased expectations of mobility. The functionality available in phones allows for 24/7 engagement between people and businesses. 77% of mobile users use their phone for more than text and voice.(2)  Organisations need to embrace this and provide ways to make access to information through mobile devices easier.
5. Content is still king. Define the ownership and supply of content and digital assets. It is important to understand what needs to be created, versus what needs to be sourced. This allows you to place a value on the content and define the space it will exist in.
6. Social media – if you are not yet ready to engage then at least listen. Start monitoring the conversations taking place about your brand and/or products. This will provide some great insights into real or perceived positives and negatives that you may want to address in the conversation, or use as part of customer service and product improvements. From there, you may wish to engage and nurture relationships through the creation of an online community of advocates.
7. Information and marketing relevant to the user. Targeted content and marketing are critical in ensuring that you can engage in a relevant way with your audience. Consistency of your brand messages, whilst providing relevance, is key. This does not only require technology and digital experience, but strong management of your content online. Digital is no longer seen as simply an effective tool for dealing with transactional activities. It is a way to connect to people in our work and play.
8. Digital changes the way we do business. The traditional value chain of the manufacturer controlling production is changing. Consumers have a greater influence over what they want and increased customisation options available to them. Through digital, feedback can travel directly to the wholesaler and manufacturer, meaning the conversation bypasses the retailer. Information about the product can be sought on many different sites; independent product/service comparison sites (e.g. www.choice.com.au ), demonstrations on YouTube (Open the box ….) and social media feedback.
9. Real time information will allow for more responsive and accurate decisions. Delivery of real time information that is relevant to the audience will increase the efficiency of decision-making. Systemisation of processes to provide information in real time leads to improvements in quality, better business operations and, hence, improved business performance. High-speed broadband will be key to facilitating this exchange of information.
10. Metrics and analysis. Employing effective tools to monitor feedback, and generate metrics and analysis is important to evaluating the performance of your digital mediums. This will feed into ongoing improvements, whether you want to know how a marketing campaign has had an effect on a targeted audience, or where your site traffic is coming from. This information also feeds in to your digital roadmap so that you can measure against the key indicators, and identify what is important and what is not, allowing for refinements.

Digital is all-pervasive. We know all about it. It touches many of us in our daily lives in one way or another. Most of us are using it more and more, and it is becoming central to how we all live, work and play. To stay ahead of the game, businesses must think of ways to leverage digital technology, particularly the opportunities available to them with the imminent roll out of high-speed broadband. There is little doubt that the firm of the future will be heavily reliant on digital, and, with that in mind, developing a whole-of-business digital strategy has never been more crucial. Mark Nicklin, Managing Director - Digital Strategy mark.nicklin@bullseye.com.au For more insights in to the impact of high-speed broadband on business and the business environment, please download our discussion paper, ‘business@100Mbps – A View of the Firm of the Future’ at www.bullseyereports.com.au.

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1. Intranet Design Annual 2009 - The Year's Best Intranets (Jakob Nielsen)
2. Changing Australian Mobile Phone Habits Revealed In New Report 29 September 2009 http://www.aimia.com.au/i-cms?page=6289

Jim took a few moments to discuss the premise around Bullseye whitepaper, business@100Mbps: A View of the Firm of the Future with SkyNews journalist Richard Gonclaves on October 13. The First Thoughts edition of the whitepaper can be downloaded from the business@100Mbps microsite where visitors are also asked to contribute to the discussion blogs. Have your say about this topic that will impact us all.

On 7 April 2009 the Federal Government terminated the previous National Broadband Network Request for Proposals process and replaced it with a NBN policy which the Government proposes would connect 90 per cent of Australian homes, workplaces and schools with fibre-to-the-premise, and all other premises in Australia with next generation wireless and satellite technologies. On 14 May 2009, the Senate revised the Committee's terms of appointment to reflect the change in the Government's policy direction. The Committee has since called for further submissions on its revised terms of reference. On the back of his recent presentation of the Bullseye Report, 'business@100Mbps: A View of the Firm of the Future'  to delegates at the AFR Broadband Conference, Jim has been asked by the Federal Government to submit the whitepaper and appear as a witness to the Senate Select Committee.

Jim will appear before the Committee on August 5, 2009

http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/broadband_ctte/submissions_from_april_2009/sublist.htm

Richard Gonclaves from SkyNews' IT program, interviewed Jim to gain his insights on the impact of the impending national broadband network.

AIMIA are conducting a short online survey for the AIMIA Digital Services Index to get some interim insights into attitudes and intentions regarding Digital Services in 2009.

The economy has changed since the first DSI results were published late last year and AIMIA are keen to give the digital media industry as much current info about the state of the market as possible. The government also has a great interest in getting as much data on digital activity as possible in light of the recent announcement about the National Broadband Network.

As with the main DSI research, the online survey is about gathering data on broad industry digital activity (e.g. Australian media, telco, banking, finance, retail, government agencies and the like) rather than from within the digital media industry itself. Where it's appropriate they'd like to encourage us to forward details of the survey to as many relevant clients as you can and ask them to contribute. The data is all aggregated and there will be nothing to identify individual companies contributing to the survey. The more digital services clients that contribute to the survey, the more insight the entire digital media industry will have into the current market for digital services.

The survey can be completed here, it will only take a few minutes and contributors go into the draw to win a $250 Coles Myer Gift Voucher. The survey closes on April 30th with results released in late May.