Australia: A Strategic Global ICT Destination

The Asia Pacific economy is forecast to be bigger than North America and Europe combined. As the biggest Western country in Asia, with strong historical, trade and community ties to many countries, Australia is an ideal location for a regional base.
An in-depth study made by Invest Australia, the state-owned agency which promotes global investment in Australia, reveals that the country has in 2007 entered its 16th year of sustained economic growth averaging 3.0 percent.
Business investment is flourishing across the board, as strong corporate profits and a share market that is at record levels encourages business to grow. Australian businesses are heavy users of technology to increase efficiency and develop new markets, and companies use Australia as a global base for third generation of off-shoring, complementary to the low cost alternatives available in the region.
Testing Ground for Technologies
Australia is a natural location for R&D in the Asia Pacific and is a substantial market in its own right. International companies use Australia as a test and development market and trial location because Australia is a known nation of early adopters. As a western nation within the Asian time zone, Australia is well positioned to implement new technologies prior to release in major markets.
As early adopters, Australia is one of the first places to feel the influences in changed work practices and lifestyle changes, which makes Australia the logical choice for research and development in information and communication technologies. The Asia-Pacific region is the engine room of world economic growth. Over the next decade it is forecast that Asia's economies will account for 45 percent of world GDP (PPP*), significantly more than the United States and Europe combined. Australia, with its strong business and cultural links with Asia, offers multinational companies an excellent location to base key regional and global functions.
Resilient economy
In 2006, the Australian economy was ranked the most resilient in the world for the fifth consecutive year, providing a very compelling case for business investment. Indeed, with 16 years of uninterrupted economic growth, Australia's reputation as a highly competitive economy continues to strengthen.
The Australian economy has been ranked 6th globally in overall competitiveness in 2006 and third in the Asia Pacific region. Among the countries with a population of 20 million or more, Australia ranks second in terms of overall competitiveness, behind only the US. With forecast economic growth of 3.7 per cent in 2007 (real gross domestic product), Australia will continue to expand more rapidly than many other OECD economies.
While the resource sector is booming, Australia is now predominantly a services-based economy, with services accounting for almost 80 per cent of economic activity. The country has strong trade and investment links across the Asian region, with Japan, China, Korea and Singapore in our top five export destinations. Similarly, Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore are important sources of inward investment to Australia.
The Chinese and Indian economies strongly complement Australia's. Both have huge needs for resources and for services - technical industries in which we have strong capabilities and opportunities. The opportunities extend far beyond energy and resources, encompassing food, industrial raw materials and intellectual property. Opportunities for partnership in the higher value added areas of manufacturing are increasing as Australia participates in international manufacturing value chains. The rise of the IT services industry in India has opened up new opportunities in the Australian market, which has evolved to specialised areas of analytic off-shoring drawing on its internal expertise post deregulation of the banking and telecommunications industries.
As an advanced, modern, western country, Australia can be taken at face value as a place where employees are skilled and reliable, the costs are predictable and competitive, the regulations work and the infrastructure is of a high quality.
Skills
• Australia is internationally recognised for producing highly skilled people with exceptional productivity, innovative flair and accountability;
• Australia has a culture of lifelong learning, with its people constantly updating their skills;
• The Australian labour force is very stable, with low churn rates offering business certainty.
Multicultural Population
• The diversity of Australia's population offers companies a competitive edge people from over 200 different countries are represented in the Australian population;
• It is a destination of choice for skilled immigration - enhancing the existing base of fluent foreign language speakers;
• Cultural ties bind Australia to the rest of the world. It has a long history of immigration and educates many of students from Asia from school age;
• Students in Australia grow up surrounded by many different cultures which enhances the performance of international companies with Australian staff.
Quality
• Rest easy in the knowledge that Australian infrastructure is reliable and enables global business to operate at peak efficiency. Australia has world class telecommunications, road, rail, air and sea infrastructure and moves are underway to further improve these based on the latest technologies;
• Its research institutions and scientists have excellent international reputations and international companies operating R&D labs in Australia maintain core responsibilities and leadership roles;
• Australia's businesses are sophisticated early adopters of new technology and new processes. Their reputation as demanding customers influences international product and service development;
• Nearly 60 per cent of the country's merchandise exports go to Asia and services exports to the region are increasing dramatically based on established regional trade networks.
Location
• Companies can be secure in the knowledge that Australia is a model western democracy, offering sound institutions, a robust economy, freedom of the media, impartial courts, honest police and a business friendly government;
• Australia is in the Asian Time Zone and bridges the closing of the US and the opening of the European business days;
• A culture of early adoption of technology, location in the southern hemisphere and cultural diversity make Australia a suitable location for technology and clinical trials. Establishing operations in Australia makes economic sense as it increases time to market and decreases cost;
• Australia is a wealthy country with a high standard of living. The combination of modern services, healthy environment and recreational options makes Australia a highly desirable location for skilled executives.
Regulatory Environment
• Australia's regulations are designed to be low cost to business and reduce operational risk for companies;
• Transparency enables companies to take all costs at face value there will be no surprises.
• A modern Industrial Relations regime is in place across Australia;
• Intellectual Property Protection regime is among the best in the world and provides security for companies undertaking R&D.
Cost Competitive
• Office costs are competitively priced and infrastructure is reliable and inexpensive;
• The country's corporate tax rate of 30 per cent is equivalent to the UK, and compares favourably with China and India;
• Comparative salaries for executives in different locations demonstrate that Australian wages are competitively priced;
• Companies based in Australia have an added benefit of a long-term trend of rising productivity with falling labour costs.
Putting ICT to effective use
Widespread use of ICT, a multicultural and socio-economically diverse population and first-rate infrastructure make Australia an ideal location to test new technologies. International companies have chosen Australia for the first live trials of a wide variety of ICT applications. As well as providing test markets and test-infrastructure, Australia offers the capacity to take this knowledge and amend the prototype technology, product or service for delivery to market.
Australia has the most multilingual and culturally diverse workforce in the region, with citizens from over 200 countries.
Of Australia's population of 20 million, over 99 percent speak English, more than 2.6 million are fluent in another language, and a high proportion of these are tertiary-educated Asian and European language speakers offering an unrivalled source of educated staff with multiple language skills.
Australia's linguistic diversity is nationwide, ensuring a ready supply of personnel with foreign language skills in all major centres. Linguistically, Australia provides a gateway into Asia and a strong cultural link to Europe an ideal mix for multinational organisations.
With a particularly wide range of Asian languages on offer, Australia also has a high-number of Australian-educated native speakers from some of the major ICT markets in the region.
The high standards and reputation of the Australian education system have lifted annual enrolment of overseas students to 18 per cent of all students studying in Australian universities.
A large ICT market in its own right, international companies include Australia in their global business strategies as both an excellent opportunity for new sales and to site regional headquarters serving Asia Pacific markets.
Operating within a western-style legal and business framework, Australia's multilingual and highly skilled labour pool has a cultural affinity that enables easy communication with colleagues and clients around the world. This means inherent time saving in transactions between Australian operations and European, American and Asian based headquarters and satellite operations.
This skills base, the sophistication and maturity of the Australian ICT market, a supportive business environment and ease of doing business has attracted a significant number of ICT companies to establish regional and/or global customer interaction centres and technical support operations in Australia.
Australia has established itself as a leading centre for Information and Communications Technology (ICT) in the Asia Pacific, offering:
• a sophisticated and attractive market
• a dynamic low risk business environment in a strong, competitive economy
• a proven, innovative, multilingual and cost-effective workforce
• exceptional technological infrastructure
• world class research and development facilities
• a 24-hour seamless service to global markets with Australia's time zone overlapping North America, Asia and Europe.
The capacity to innovate and adapt is one of Australia's strongest qualities and has made the Australian market for information and communication technologies (ICT) a sophisticated, internationally recognised place to invest.
As well as contributing to a strong test environment and driving productivity growth across vertical segments quick to look for relevant ICT applications, high levels of ICT penetration have ensured Australia has a technologically savvy population. The resulting pool of ICT specialist labour is known for its ability to develop efficient products and solutions that meet and anticipate immediate and future business needs.
Australia has made considerable investment in communications infrastructure, research and development (R&D) facilities, and advanced skills and training. This is reflected in the ICT market's strong growth in recent years.
A number of programs are offered by governments in Australia to encourage companies to contribute to the economy by investing in R&D and manufacturing operations. State governments also offer a range of initiatives that support R&D activities.