The reason for surprise wasn’t that 50 percent seemed like a low figure based on my experience. Rather, it emerged that it was less than any other region surveyed, and that included ASEAN, Benelux, Brazil, China, Finland, Poland, Scandinavia and the USA.

On average, the global figure was 60 percent and in some regions, like Scandinavia, it was around 66 percent.

My perception had been that, amongst the industries surveyed (ranging across industrial manufacturing, construction, retail, oil and gas, automotive, energy and utilities and some others) ANZ was relatively advanced from a technology perspective. After all, conventional wisdom has it that Australia is one of the world’s most advanced users of technology, even though we may not have a big tech industry.

But I’m beginning to question this assumption as the pace of technological change picks up around the world.

While IFS is seeing tremendous innovation in a range of local industries the burning question is: Is it enough to remain globally competitive in this era of disruptive change?

The concerns increased when drilling down into some of the other comparative breakdowns of the IFS Digital Transformation Survey, particularly where respondents were asked to rate various disruptive technologies’ importance in driving digital transformation in their industries.

There was only one disruptive technology that ANZ respondents rated higher that the global average. That was cloud computing, which locals rated 60 out of 100 in importance compared with a global average of 59.

But in every other category, the figures were down on the global average. For example, we rated the Internet of Things 53 out of 100, vs 59 globally; Machine learning 44, vs 53 globally; and Wearables 38, vs 48 globally.

While the differences weren’t enormous, a clear pattern emerged. A lower proportion of ANZ companies in the surveyed industries appear to have seriously evaluated these disruptive technologies and included them in their digital transformation strategies.

So, what should we do about it?

Firstly, we should all be aware that we can’t take the performance of any of our industries for granted, no matter how well it has performed in the past, and how sophisticated we may think it is. And this includes industries like mining and energy, which benefitted from huge levels of overseas investment during the boom, and more recently construction.

And secondly, we need to take technological disruption more seriously and work together at the national, industry and enterprise level to develop innovation strategies that enable digital transformation.

The recent Australian election campaign was a missed opportunity to debate these issues, in my opinion. The innovation debate has been far too narrowly focused around things like funding for start-up companies, collaboration via innovation hubs, better STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) education, and improved access to government procurement contracts.

I remain a big supporter of efforts to kick-start new innovation-based industries and support growth in start-ups.

But what is more urgently required are strategies that would have an immediate impact in helping existing Australian enterprises to innovate and compete globally.

Download the IFS Digital Transformation Survey which polled over 500 senior decision makers in 20 countries.

ABOUT ROB STUMMER//

Rob Stummer is managing director, Australia & New Zealand, for global enterprise applications company IFS, achieving significant growth over the last five years. He holds a Masters in Information Technology from Melbourne University and has consulted to many of Australia’s Top 500 companies.