Over the past few months, federal governments all
across the world have been exploring different ways to kick-start their
economies that witnessed a historical plunge due to COVID pandemic. The
consumption rates had plummeted, production and been hampered, and the
disrupted global supply chains plagued the growth plans. It was evident that
global economies are going to need a bit more support to start growing again
and sustain this growth.
So, the Australian government has announced to pour in
$800m as stimulus in measures that said to help businesses. Known as the “Jobmaker
Digital Business Plan” the stimulus package is aimed at improving productivity
in Australia by adopting digital technology and driving income growth.
Digital
Business Plan: Breaking Down the Details
It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the
Australian PM Scott Morrison’s JobMaker plan is inspired by a McKinsey report
which revealed that the COVID-19 pandemic has advanced adoption of technology
by 5 years in just 8 weeks. Citing this report, the PM made it clear that he
was focusing his efforts and resources on growing Australia’s digital economy.
As the name suggests, there are two key intentions of
the stimulus package – 1) adoption of digital technologies and 2) creating
jobs. The Morrison government has long been nurturing the vision of a digital
Australian economy. The Digital Business Plan is a concrete step towards making
that vision a reality.
The key takeaways from the Digital Business Plan are:
· Merger of Business Registers
Currently, any industry has to interact with different
government agencies and registers for different purposes in a manner.
This plan will remove this siloed engagement pattern.
There will be a super-merger or an over-arching merger
of all business registers so that the industry finds it easy and effortless to
engage with them. This merger would also facilitate information sharing between
different stakeholders.
The intention is very clear here – to create a single,
easily accessible, and trusted source of business data, which is crucial to the
vision of creating a digital government.
· Digital Expansion
Lately we have seen an increase in adoption of digital
channels by consumers. People are getting more comfortable with online channels
for shopping and other activities and have started demanding the convenience.
For small businesses, going digital is the most logical thing to do right now.
But that requires resources and not everyone has that available currently.
Hence, the Australian government will be stepping in
to help. A part of the funds will be allocated to help businesses who want to
expand their digital capabilities and go online with their products and
services or offerings.
The government will be setting aside AU$3 million over
the next four years to develop a Digital Readiness Assessment tool. This tool
can be used by small and medium businesses to self-assess their digital
maturity.
Other points worth mentioning here are:
ü Digital
Skills Finder Platform that small and medium businesses can use to find
relevant courses and upskill their workforce
ü Be
Connected Program that would help Australians above the age of 50 to enhance
their digital literacy and participate in the economy
· E-Invoicing
Invoicing takes up a great deal of time and effort.
However, when managed manually, it can cause a whole bunch of other issues like
fraud, embezzlement, and whatnot. So the government would be facilitating
adoption of e-invoicing under the plan. There will be a review of how
Australia’s domestic payments system is governed and regulated and digital
invoicing will be then pushed.
· Digital
Identity
Another cornerstone of the government’s digital
economy vision is digital identity. It is imperative to accelerate the growth
of government’s Digital Identity Program so that access to government services
and online payments can be made easy. Hence the program would be getting a cash
injection of AU$256.6 million over the next 2 years.
This cash injection is expected to help complete
biometric verification, integration of myGov services, develop legislation to
drive the use of digital identity in private sectors, etc.
Creditworthy
Mention of Digital Business Plan
While the above-mentioned highlights are definitely
the showstoppers of the Digital Business Plan there are a few other initiatives
and plans that warrant a mention here:
· AU$22.1 million will be earmarked over a period of 3
years to establish and grow the Australian 5G Innovation Initiative. This will
further accelerate the 5G infrastructure deployment which will be crucial for
the digital economy.
· AU$28.6 will be set aside to roll out Consumer Data
Right in the energy sector.
· AU$11.4 million will be handed out to Regtech
Commercialization Initiative which will streamline and simplify regulatory
compliance.
· AU$9.6 million will be used to bolster the Australian
fintech startups that can get a foothold in the international market.
· The government is also going to financially support
two blockchain applications that are expected to reduce the cost of regulatory
compliance. If successful, these initiatives would further courage private
sector to adopt blockchain technology which has tremendous gains.
· Measures to make changes to Corporations Act 2001 so that
companies can call and conduct meeting using digital channels.
· Funds will also be used to strengthen Australia’s role
in international standard setting process.
Right
Time Right Move
Although difficult, the COVID pandemic has taught us a
lot of lessons. One of the most important one is this realization that we
cannot go on doing business the way we have done so far. Our methods, approach,
and planning has been outdated. We need to change and we need to change fast.
Digital is the way forward for any business or economy
to survive. It is the only way to achieve sustainable growth in the future that
awaits us. And the time to prepare for that future is now.
Announcements of such stimulus packages will further
encourage SMEs to create a digital footprint for themselves. It will also make
it easy for them to deal with government bodies and improve the ease of
business.
The latest stimulus package will aid in economic
recovery, boost growth opportunities of SMEs, and accelerate digital technology
adoption across the country which is the need of the hour.
