Industry heads confront political upset

Australia has seen political turmoil over the last week, but the mining industry has stood strong. The Next Generation Mining Committee understand better than most that they need to prepare for whatever the outcomes of the elections may be by continuing to move forward and investing in the places that will ensure continued growth.

The meeting itself took place last week in Perth. John Nicolaou – Chief Economist at the Chamber of Commerce and Industry for Western Australia spoke of the ‘good times ahead’, he went on to discuss the strong belief that Western Australia will return to the high growth path that was seen as the norm throughout the last decade. Nicolaou believes that this will be backed by the strong links with the rapidly developing economies in Asia. Duncan Calder – President, Australian China Business Council also confirmed this when he discussed the business relationship between Australia and China. Over the last 12 months Australia has seen China become its biggest investor. Asia’s insatiable appetite for resources backing its growth means that they alone have been a major contributor to Australia’s mining boom. Calder believes it is the way that Australia positions itself in the market now that will define its relationship with the continent into the future.

Brendon Pearson – Deputy Chief Executive of the Minerals Council of Australia discussed the more contentious issue of the day, the mining taxes faced by Australia. The Australian PM Julian Gillard has already stated that the mining tax will not be scrapped, but companies such as Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton, who were in attendance at the NG Mining summit, would stand to benefit from the scrapping of a mining profits tax and carbon trading plans. Pearson discussed the current press interest in the industry, as government and politicians search for a public consensus. Australia’s Mineral exports are now paying billions of dollars in carbon costs while competitors in Europe, Asia and the United States face no such charges. The failure of emissions legislation means that the Australian parliament now has an opportunity to design a carbon pricing scheme that will work in harmony with global initiatives to reduce emissions and foster new technologies, in turn protecting Australia’s exports for the foreseeable future.

Despite the current political upset Australia’s economy grew at its quickest pace for last three years in the second quarter of 2010. These results were based on a 5.6 percent rise in export volumes generated by the mining boom. The talk among the committee was a definite appreciation for what has been achieved since the start of the year and a belief that the good times can continue. Australia is now one of the strongest developed economies in the world and the executives in attendance at the NGM summit were reluctant to put this down to a one off mining boom.

Lessons to learn for new trans-sector projects

Australia has become one of the world’s leaders in developing a trans-sector grid through the implementation of the National Broadband Network (NBN), first supported by the Labor Party.

With entrance of The Hon. Julia Gillard MP, the first woman Prime Minister elected in Australia, concerns are arising over the coalition’s plans to implement FTTN (fibre to the node) instead of NBN, which was introduced by Shadow Communications Minister, Tony Smith.

The impact a shift in trans-sector development will have for Australia is being closely watched and will be discussed by top utility companies across Australia at the Next Generation Utilities Australia Summit 2010. Such industry leaders believe that by linking smart grids with other network services like e-health, educations and entertainment, long-term goals of the country’s power grid can be met.

Smart grid technologies are concepts that are vital to utility companies across the globe when creating functional infrastructures for the transmission of user data. Smart grid development is also fraught with challenges from aging equipment and workforce to inter-state jurisdictions and other legal hurdles.

One commonality that is transparent through IT or operational differences is the need for Energy Management Systems. Reducing energy consumption, improving the utilization of the system, increasing reliability, predicting electrical system performance and monitoring, controlling, and optimizing the performance of generation and transmission system are areas that have been the focal point for utilities providing quality service to their customers. These are areas where lessons can be learned when developing new and effective trans-sector environments.

The focus of how to take the success utilities bring with developing infrastructures and translating that success to new trans-sector areas will be closely followed by Andre Botha, General Manager of Networks at Aurora Energy, Simon Middap, CIO at Energex, Peter McIntyre, General Manager of Network Development & Regulatory Affairs at TransGrid, and Mike Torr, Business Manager Meter Assets at Trust Power.

New technologies have been instrumental in enabling energy to be provided cheaply and efficiently. Strong network management in the grid is important to providing quick response times to outages and notifications, decreasing complaints and continually assessing the power delivery of the distribution system. These are additional areas that require utilities to be a major player in developing functional trans-sector infrastructure.

Australia leads the Gas Frontier

US Company Chevron Corp have just announced drilling success in the Carnarvon Basin offshore of Western Australia; this has been closely followed by Woodside Petroleum Ltd. It seems that Australia is the gift that keeps on giving and investment into exploration and production is proving itself popular among Australia’s neighbors.

Limited oil reserves mean that Australia and its leading industry executives are looking to gas for the future. In the last few years alone gas has shown remarkable growth both in domestic and export markets. With over 190 TCF (trillion cubic feet) of gas resources still untapped industry execs have stated their claim that “more investment is a guarantee not a probability.”

Dr Beverly Ronalds, the Group Executive; Energy at CISRO, has a budget of $140 million and has agreed to meet at the Next Generation Gas Australia event. Companies have been looking at the development of unconventional gas such as CSG (coal seam gas) which have been proposed as the best bet for reducing emissions. This has been backed by Westside Corporation who have just completed drilling three new appraisal wells in Queensland's Bowen Basin and will join the NG Gas Australia committee. CSG is also the best bet for Australia in their quest to become the largest LNG exporter in the Asia Pacific region.

According to the Australian Parliament, gas exports are projected to increase to around 60 percent of production by 2020. We are about to enter the next stage of a ‘gas boom’ that will enrich the economy and see Australia emerge as a key supplier of raw materials fuelling Asia’s development. The recent discoveries in both the Pluto and Wheatstone projects are just a couple of those planned around Australia to target the rising demand for cleaner burning fuel, both globally and more specifically in Asia,

With so much change on the horizon the industry needs to invest in the future. This has lead to the congregation of executives from Adelaide Energy, Central Petroleum, Amadeus Energy, Icon Energy and Santos who will be meeting to discuss their investment plans, new drilling and production technologies and how to make gas extraction from these sources commercially viable and environmentally friendly.

Across industry sectors we are seeing the growth opportunities across Australia and reaping the rewards but we must be aware of the challenges involved in such rapid growth. Organizations must overcome the potential delays in development in order not to slow the process of delivery to those continents becoming more and more reliant on Australia’s resources.

Mining Security biggest Challenge

Mine Security in Africa his becoming a growing concern over the last 12 months and this despite its risks for the country itself is a key issue for the Mining industry. Neil de Beer, Secretary General, OABD will be speaking to the leading African mining companies on the Brand Africa concept and if we can possibly achieve sustainable development in the Mining Sector without Transformation of Africa’s thinking.
The Brand Africa concept speak of the countries ultimate objectives of a so-called "New Approach" to the development of effective strategies for the sustainable growth and meaningful transformation of the South African mining sector and how the continent has “taken on a mammoth task”.
Forecasts predict that South Africa’s mining sector will reach a value in excess of US$37bn by 2014. Africa is expected to be one of the first to bounce back from the depressed levels of 2009, and is likely to be among the first to benefit when the global economy returns to strength. Mining remains a key economic sector for South Africa, contributing some 8% to GDP. What the long-term future holds for the South African mining industry depends a lot on the result of exploration activities and any future changes made to mining regulations by the government.
Urgent discussions and negotiations aimed at producing the required strategies are set to take place between major, tripartite industry stakeholders announced the NGM Committee – Government, business and organised labor. These strategies will provide a comprehensive process that has been established to arrive at a new and productive economic policy for the country. Functioning in the correct environment the business of mining in South Africa retains considerable potential to assist Government in the achievement of critical public policy imperatives which include expanded economic growth, job creation and the alleviation of poverty.
The continent's is also embracing foreign investment agreed representatives from African Diamonds Plc - James Campbell, Managing Director , Banro Corporation - Michael Prinsloo, President & CEO , Ghana Chamber of Mines - Joyce Aryee, CEO and the Xstrata Group - Andile Sangqu, CEO Africa Executive Director, the mining industry is continually expanding and adapting to changing conditions with more international companies scrambling for a piece of the continent's resources.

Although underexplored, Africa hosts about 30% of the planet's mineral reserves, including 40% of gold, 60% of cobalt and 90% of the world's PGM reserves - making it a truly strategic producer of these precious metals. Most recently Russia is ready to invest US$1 billion (R7.5 billion) in uranium exploration in Namibia, as well as investment from Brazil, Australia and China.

South Africa has readied itself for a lucrative future and it seems that the rest of the world has taken heed.

Every Cloud has a Silver Lining?

The first meeting of Australia’s Leading CIOs has just taken place in Queensland. The event itself saw representatives from companies such as Adecco, Energy Australia and PepsiCo revealing their industry predictions.

The NG CIO Australia committee was formed in reaction to the skills shortage the industry had been experiencing, and the ever more affordable technology used to overcome such shortages. As previously revealed by the committee before the meeting, they had research which showed that while technical and vendor-specific skills seemed plentiful, strategic and conceptually oriented skills were in short supply. New government projects in sectors such as e-government, healthcare and education were also a driving force for organizing the NG CIO Australia summit (hosted by GDS International) where they wished to capitalize on national broadband roll out and discuss the pitfalls of cloud computing.

So what was revealed? Ovum revealed that the governance of cloud computing is too reactive, technology-centric and piecemeal and must be improved dramatically. The independent technology analyst warned the CIO Committee that cloud governance is suffering from the same flaws that are affecting other IT governance areas. They believe a new approach is needed as cloud computing, the latest in a series of disruptive trends affecting IT departments, cannot thrive without an effective governance framework that promotes and ensures coordination between IT teams.

Laurent Lachal, Ovum senior analyst and report author, said: “Most IT governance efforts are prompted by new regulations or by the need to keep up with uncontrolled SOA software services, virtual machines or public cloud services – whereby governance starts when the public cloud bill is much higher than expected.”

Cloud computing makes IT governance more difficult by introducing an additional layer of complexity that those businesses need to control in order to make the most of its benefits. Cloud governance best practices – like cloud computing itself – are still in their infancy and Ovum believes the focus should, in future, be on enabling flexibility.

“Public as well as private clouds’ ability to make it faster and easier to procure, develop, deploy and hardware and software assets will make the biggest difference. Cost and quality of service issues are critical but cloud computing governance should not over emphasize them at the expense of enabling firms to strike the right balance between effectiveness and innovation”, said Lachal.

“Cloud governance is not just about control and keeping an eye on individuals to make sure that they behave as expected. It should also be about empowerment, based on a realignment of objectives and incentives to encourage behavioral change.”

Ovum does not expect a ‘big bang’ implementation of cloud governance, but rather a gradual build-up that provides an opportunity to launch and/or reinvigorate other governance efforts.

With so much change on the horizon who will be the first to capitalize and will cloud succeed as a future technology.

iStrategy 2010; bridging the gap in Social Media Marketing

We all know that time is money and understand that Social Media Marketing is a real-time, targeted way of communicating with an engaged and active demographic, one that gives as much feedback to the company in question as it provides to the demographic. Hence its usefulness and transcendent ability.

Most companies, both on the business and consumer sides know and try to practice this, however success has not been equally quick for all enterprises. One of the reasons may be the lack of training within today’s companies. The iStrategy Sydney conference, set to take place at the Sheraton Park Hotel on the 24th-25th November, packages this expertise in a way that all marketing and managerial professionals can utilize, no matter the company size, budget, or experience.

The news that Australia is to invest US$10billion in a pan-Australian fibre-optic network will transform its country socially and economically and will set an example for economies throughout Europe. The roll out of broadband across Australia will also open a world of Social Media Marketing yet untapped by the business community within the continent.

For a company, a single tweet, blog post or YouTube video can spread in a matter of hours, naturally finding its way into the attention of potential customers and clients. Even the most traditional CEOs are accepting the power of the tweet.

iStrategy Sydney 2010 is hosted by GDS International; the company has over 15 years in some of the largest international industries in the world, Oil and Gas, Pharmaceuticals, IT and Mining to name but a few. Their C-level business to business summits and clients have given them an innate understanding of how to translate and explain the future of social media in B2B and B2C to executives who know their companies should be aggressive, but do not know how to execute. iStrategy 2010 is bridging the gap the way so many other social media conferences either haven’t, or haven’t bothered to.

Already confirmed are representatives from Disney, HSBC, Pfizer, AMD and Coca-Cola eager to see the B2B and B2C capabilities of the right social media marketing package. They will be working with the leading social media experts from companies such as Adidas, Cisco, MTV, Allblacks.com, Commonwealth Bank and PepsiCo .

The success of these companies is obvious; their brands are synonymous within their relevant sectors; the Pepsi Refresh Project allowing the customer to interactively distribute profits, Evian’s Roller Babies viral spread on YouTube and Cisco’s winning the People's Choice award in the tech company’s category for its myPlanNet campaign - a downloadable simulation game.

Despite the simplicity of a social idea, the impact is incomparable; creating brand awareness money can’t buy. Their relationship with iStrategy Sydney 2010 means that the power of social media marketing is now available to all, from the minds of some of the sectors best innovators and architects.

CIO’s at Match Point in Australia

The economic volatility of the past few years has undoubtedly transformed the scope of technology for business, creating enormous pressure for CIOs globally. While market giants in the US and Europe struggle to weather the storm, Australia is in an enviable position, with forecasted growth significantly higher than other regions. Executives from across the technology industry believe now is the time to act and plan for the future. Opportunity is rife and the time to invest is now.
A study released last week of CIOs around Australia and New Zealand, found that while technical and vendor-specific skills seem plentiful, strategic and conceptually oriented skills were in short supply.

According to the report, the shortage for these particular skills has grown out of reinstated projects following the economic downturn, and has led to some companies offering up to 100 per cent increases on contract rates in order to attract required personnel. The growth within the CIO sector of Australia has meant that company projects are becoming more diverse which has lead to the need for more integral systems to take the strain in the countries expanding businesses.

The role of IT in the next few years is crucial for any organization seeking to gain strides over the competition. CIOs in Australia recognize 2010 as an opportunity to explore IT best practices, which will not only optimize infrastructure in a cost-effective manner, but create opportunities for innovation and growth within the organization.

Within Australia, IT spend is anticipated to surpass 4% growth overall, with some technology areas like CRM and Virtualization catapulting to over 15% increase in sales. Initiatives such as the National Broadband Network in Australia will provide tremendous opportunities to organizations within the region looking to bring innovative platforms to their businesses and this has not goes unnoticed by the NG CIO Australia Committee.

Representatives from Adecco - Dominic Panzera, CIO, Australia Department of Immigration - Peter McKeon, Head of IT, Kiwi Bank - Ron van de Riet, GM IT, PepsiCo - Jackie Montado, CIO and Energy Australia - Sharron Kennedy, CIO expect a boost in Q3 and Q4 of 2010 and government tenders to drive considerable spending over the next 12 months. Key focus areas will include Regulatory compliance and the to need spend as a result of intense competition in the retail sector, spurring spending on customer relationship management (CRM) and back office systems.

New government projects in sectors such as e-government, healthcare and education are also a driving force for meetings such as the NG CIO Australia summit offering significant opportunities for IT vendors. In mid-2010, the Australian government is expected to launch a standardized reporting system scheme. Australia's National E-Health Transition Authority has the goal to create a paperless environment in Australia's health sector, including public hospitals and influenced the NG CIO committee to set their next meeting date for the end of July.

With so much change on the horizon who will be the first to capitalize and will the staffing deficite of skilled staff limit growth?

Australia’s Green Supply could be the Envy of the World

Despite the global recovery, sixteen countries have had their ratings downgraded since the start of 2010 showing a prevalent commercial risk. However, Australia has bucked the trend with its risk grade being upgraded and even championed as the “safest country to invest”.

However, to maintain strong trading relationships and to continue to attract foreign investment to their shores, Australia must at the very minimum be building a secure supply chain that matches their inevitable growth. So Australia’s business leaders are uniting with their global partners with this in mind at the illustrious Next Generation Supply Chain congress scheduled to be held in Queensland. The closed private committee, which includes thought leaders from Australia’s Divisions of Coca-Cola, McDonalds, Bayer, BlueScope Steel and Quantas are set to re-evaluate existing processes to ensure that their infrastructure can not only open up further distribution channels to Europe/US for their growth in product output, but to also give the world a competitive route to a burgeoning consumer market.

“As the rest of the world recovers, global competition will intensify. Therefore, we need to ensure our focus on reform, and strong economic management through global supply and demand channels must continue, and that is why a meeting such as the NG Supply Chain Summit (run by GDS International) is vital to our development,” said a source from the NG Supply visionary committee.

Such reform obviously comes at a cost so the consortium wants to ensure that the right processes are in place for the “long-term” focused discussions on sustainability.

“Sustainability is more than just a hot topic in the world of supply chain: it’s a standard of practice that can be used to not only differentiate oneself from the competition, but become more lean and efficient in the process.”

Such analysis into various sustainability techniques and processes can create a whole new factor of competitive advantage for supply chain in the enterprise and such a meeting could allow for Australia’s Green supply chain model to be the envy of the world.

“The critical factor now is how Australia’s executives respond to this improving environment. We need to maintain our growth momentum in the quarters ahead if we are to continue to perform, it has been a pleasure to be invited to oversee this meeting which will lead to further growth in the region,” Summit Director Australia Tyron McGurgan.

Australia’s Smart Grid Opportunity

Australia is now considered to be one of the world leaders in a technology, comparable only to the United States in terms of smart grid innovation. Last year received the Federal Government for a National Energy Efficiency Initiative granted AU$100 million to develop a smart-grid energy network.

A recent study, conducted by IDC, polled utility leaders from Australia, about their major initiatives, objectives, expected payback, readiness and challenges.

The study noted that smart utility technologies are generating vast amounts of data and analytics, although less than half of the top 20 utilities are applying analytics to energy consumption. Even so, utilities executives worldwide believe that with the proper organization, companies can reach profitability goals in a relatively short amount of time and with the coming together of some of the top names in the utilities industry across Australia the future is looking bright.

Key to the debates will be representatives from Horizon Power, Ergon Energy, Western Power, Energy Australia, and Power Link focusing on key topics such as Distribution Management which is currently one of the most crucial elements to smart grid implementation, what have been the primary innovative achievements in the Australian smart grid sector since investment has begun to roll in and where they expect to have developed by the end of the year.

With huge investment and endless possibilities are the industry Ready?

From Challenge to Opportunity

The economic volatility of the past few years has undoubtedly transformed the scope of technology for business, creating enormous pressure for CIOs globally. While market giants in the US and Europe struggle to weather the storm, Australia is in an enviable position, with forecasted growth significantly higher than other regions. Executives from across the technology industry believe now is the time to act and plan for the future. Opportunity is rife and the time to invest is now. So the NG CIO summit (hosted by GDS International) has been set in Queensland at the end of July to discuss who will be leading the way in shaping Australia’s technology future.

The role of IT in the next few years is crucial for any organization seeking to gain strides over the competition. CIOs in Australia recognize 2010 as an opportunity to explore IT best practices, which will not only optimize infrastructure in a cost-effective manner, but create opportunities for innovation and growth within the organization.

Within Australia, IT spend is anticipated to surpass 4% growth overall, with some technology areas like CRM and Virtualization catapulting to over 15% increase in sales. Initiatives such as the National Broadband Network in Australia will provide tremendous opportunities to organizations within the region looking to bring innovative platforms to their businesses and this has not goe unnoticed by the NG CIO Australia Committee.

Representatives from Adecco - Dominic Panzera, CIO , Australia Department of Immigration - Peter McKeon, Head of IT , Kiwi Bank - Ron van de Riet, GM IT , PepsiCo - Jackie Montado, CIO and Energy Australia - Sharron Kennedy, CIO expect a boost in Q3 and Q4 of 2010 and government tenders to drive considerable spending over the next 12 months. Key focus areas will include Regulatory compliance and the to need spend as a result of intense competition in the retail sector, spurring spending on customer relationship management (CRM) and back office systems.

New government projects in sectors such as e-government, healthcare and education are also a driving force for meetings such as the NG CIO Australia summit offering significant opportunities for IT vendors. In mid-2010, the Australian government is expected to launch a standardised reporting system scheme. Australia's National E-Health Transition Authority has the goal to create a paperless environment in Australia's health sector, including public hospitals and influenced the NG CIO committee to set there next meeting date for the end of July.
With so much change on the horizon who will be the first to capitalize.