In recent years, the world has had to face numerous crises – the COVID-19 pandemic, increased number of targeted cyber attacks, and more recently, supply chain disruptions caused by the global urea shortage.
These incidents, combined with changing attitudes to globalisation and geo-political tensions, have highlighted an alarming fact – Australia is heavily reliant on foreign multinationals for many critical products and services.
Is Australia prepared for a digital crisis?
A recent framework policy proposal on increasing Australia’s domestic capability from the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) highlighted threats to Australia’s critical digital capability remains significant, unpredictable, and present across multiple domains.
The report outlines the COVID-19 pandemic, natural disasters and cyber attacks, and shows that Australia needs to strengthen its domestic capability to be able to better respond in the event of a ‘black swan’ event cutting off or limiting access to overseas sources of supply.
Australia needs to look to SaaS to address key issues
Australia’s technology sector generated AU$167 billion for our economy in 2020-21, putting it as the third-largest contributor to the nation’s economy, behind mining and finance.
Given the size of Australia’s technology market, the forecasted growth, and the inherent scalability of Software as a Service (SaaS) powered technology, it’s fair to say that Australia has the homegrown capability to help boost it’s sovereign capacity.
To break the reliance on foreign technology, Australia should look to stimulate the domestic SaaS-based technology sector and leverage the inherent scalability, security and accessibility, to name just a few of the characteristics that make it such a powerful technology.
This is not a call for a revolution, but rather for actions to accelerate a trend that is already clearly evident.
SaaS is now a mature technology, according to Statista, in 2018 the size of the SaaS segment of Australia’s public cloud market was valued at US$3.8 billion. By 2023, this is forecasted to be more than double, reaching US$8.1 billion.
Australia needs to stay ahead of the curve
The threats we can see facing Australia are unlikely to diminish any time soon. Some, such as cyber security, will only continue to get worse.
The lesson of the past year is that we also need to be more vigilant in staying ahead of the curve in preparing for those disruptions, which we can see happening in the near future, that might not be an immediate threat, but which strike quickly when the time comes.
Disruption to access to core information systems located offshore is one area of risk we can foresee, and it is also a risk we can take steps to prepare for. By moving to SaaS, Australia has the opportunity to increase sovereign capacity, whilst also providing a much-needed boost to our economy by buying locally.
For more information on the economic benefits of SaaS, download the research from IBRS and Insight Economics, commissioned by TechnologyOne.
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