Partially echoing his Trans-Tasmin address in Sydney on Monday, Chambers advised delegates representing government and enterprises attending the Cisco Networkers Conference in Brisbane to improve the ways they use the Internet to accelerate productivity growth.
Pointing to the US example, he said that enterprises have been slow to make the transition to the Internet despite potential gains he believes they could derive from it. He claims that US treasury statistics indicate that 48 percent of steeper productivity growth in the country since 1997 was Internet-driven.
Breaking down the transition into three “waves”, he said 45 percent of companies had surpassed the initial stage of implementing Web-based customer relationship applications. However, according to Chambers, only 10 percent had moved on to the second wave, implementing procurement, automated sales and supply chain management applications through the Net.
According to Cisco, Australia could save up to 4.6 percent of Gross Domestic Product from Internet-derived productivity increases.
Chambers was direct about the potential impact of the changes on the labour market, choosing to clarify for the audience that "right-sizing" a company meant "laying off".
“The best form of politics is a strong economy,” he said.
However, he steered the company away from recent conflicts between industry and the Federal Government over broadband slightly, warning that fattening data pipes was only part of improving enterprise efficiency.
“Infrastructure isn’t enough [enterprises] must follow through with the process,” he said.
Rather than taking a piece-meal approach to Internet services, he said that Web-applications must be integrated via a common data infrastructure.
In keeping with the theme of the presentation, the company has set 50 percent growth targets for is Australian operation over the coming year.
Andrew Colley travelled to Brisbane as a guest of Cisco
