Fruitbowl - Fresh Ideas from Hawke's Bay

March 12 2010

Murray Douglas - CEO Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce

Just over 2 years ago when I started work at the Chamber of Commerce, it was difficult to get a ‘pair’ for an internet connection in downtown Hastings. Indeed it was a major impediment to a number of businesses let alone the speed or band width of the connection when finally made.

How times have changed.

Soon, for at least the bulk of the urban areas and proximate rural areas, we will be awash with fibre and broad band capacity and speed. However it appears at least some of the capital investment may have been undertaken without a clear understanding of how to fully utilize the technology to create value for the adopting organizations.

Providing bandwidth to the community should be a cornerstone of our economic development strategy but are we, the business community ready for it? Regions that can attract, grow and retain firms and industries proficient at deploying information technology, in addition to producing it, have a competitive advantage. For an exporting region that is remote from markets- IT investments are vital in the global marketplace.

My impression nonetheless is that partly because of the previous Labour government’s plan, and now the national lead government’s intentions, we have a scramble for fibre going on which is way ahead of the uptake of the use of the technology. If this fibre cornucopia is just to do the same old thing in the same old way- then we are wasting the investment. Indeed we may experience a massive overhang of IT capital with underutilised fibre optic capacity resulting from this race to build the networks.

If however we are investing in the use of this backbone, then I am more convinced. Yet I see precious little of the work going behind to educate, support new Hawke’s Bay activities that will mean we will be more productive. Real productivity improvements from fibre optics deployment is a matter of hardware, training and attitude and it behoves the business community, and its leaders to step up to this opportunity. And this is where the economic agencies and organisations such as the Chamber of Commerce come in.

Improvements in productivity have to be the major driver for Hawke’s Bay and the synergy between communication network building blocks, and hardware and software is essential activity. Let’s realise this potential faster by energetically tackling the user end as fast as the Eldorado of government fibre contracts seem to be attracting the network investors.

I’m Murray Douglas and that’s my thought for the week.