Why we need a Digital Strategy

The government wants all New Zealanders to be able to enjoy the benefits that ICT can bring. These benefits include instant access to our national knowledge resources (whether cultural, scientific, heritage, archival, broadcasting, or community); government services that are customised to our individual needs; and the economic benefits that flow from higher productivity. The richer the information that is available digitally, and the more extensive the networks that connect people to, the greater the benefits that will accrue.

The information we access through digital technologies can promote innovation, increase productivity, and enrich the quality of our lives. Content creation is not only a global business – now it can be anyone’s business. Using digital technologies to create and access our distinctive cultural content enhances our identity as New Zealanders. ICT helps us unlock our stores of national content, making them accessible to all, and it is a powerful tool for directing and expressing our creativity.

Lifting productivity is a key government goal. Investing in ICT can have a powerful effect on productivity in almost every industry, driving innovation, cutting costs, and opening up new opportunities. ICT can boost profits, help small firms overcome limitations of size, and enable even tiny enterprises to establish a global presence. But to take full advantage of the opportunities of ICT, we need to develop the skills of our workforce at every level, from front-line staff to senior management. Investing in management and business capability is a priority.

The Digital Strategy is contributing to productivity growth and is closely aligned with the government’s productivity enhancement programmes. ³

ICT also has environmental benefits, helping us achieve our goal of sustainable development. Through ICT we can manage resources better, such as improving the efficiency of energy use and supply, cutting production costs, and reducing our impact on the environment.

Transformation through information and communication

There is an international consensus on the importance of intellectual input in creating value, underlining the need for investment in education and skills in general, with a special focus on ICT skills and research and development. ICT has changed the face of modern science and technology research, requiring our research organisations to be linked to each other through an Advanced Network that is connected to the rest of the world. Ready access to a safe, secure, and affordable communications infrastructure that enables national and international collaboration is the other half of the equation to take us forward to the Knowledge Society: ⁴

Information + Communication = Knowledge Society.

Feedback on the draft Digital Strategy roundly endorsed our view that ICT is a general-purpose enabler across the whole economy.⁵  It is likely that 20 years from now New Zealand will still be a commodity producer on a global scale, but our continued success in primary industries as well as knowledge industries will depend on our ability to innovate and apply knowledge.

Digital technology is already transforming the way we manage our farms and will become more important in the future. For instance, radio frequency identification (RFID), which can be used to track food components from the farm gate to the supermarket chiller, is revolutionising agricultural supply chains.

For New Zealand to remain competitive, we must embrace and anticipate technological change. The Digital Strategy provides us with a clear view of the future we want to create, and a plan for how we will get there.

About the Digital Strategy

The Digital Strategy will set New Zealand’s direction for the next five years. It sets out key actions over the next few years where budgets have already been committed. It puts in place a structure against which to evaluate our progress and will ensure we meet our longer-term goals.

The Digital Strategy is closely linked to other government priorities, such as the Growth and Innovation Framework and the Sustainable Development for New Zealand. The diagram below shows some of the important connections.

The draft Digital Strategy was released in June 2004 for public feedback and discussion. We consulted extensively with businesses and industry groups, community and voluntary groups, health professionals and educators, researchers, and individuals. We received nearly 200 written submissions.

The feedback strongly supported the Strategy and told us we are heading in the right direction.⁶  It agreed with us on the importance of content, connection, and confidence, and on the need to develop all of them at the same rate.

Many of you asserted strongly that there is an urgent need in New Zealand for access to affordable, high-speed networking. New Zealand’s aspirations to get back into the top half of the OECD are simply not credible without it, you said. The Digital Strategy outlines what we propose to do about it.

Rather than questioning whether the proposed initiatives should be delivered, your feedback asked for detail on when and how they would happen. Overwhelmingly, you supported what we propose to do and told us to get on with it.

This final Strategy takes account of your feedback and focuses on implementation, providing detail on what the government and other stakeholders will actually do, by when, with details of how much money will be spent. We have outlined the challenges in each area, set clear targets to be achieved, and set out a plan of action.

³ See the Workplace Productivity Challenge, Report of the Workplace Productivity Working Group, Department of Labour, 2004.

⁴ The international context on the Information Society (as set out at the World Summit on the Information Society) illustrates that New Zealand’s Digital Strategy is timely and in line with current thinking worldwide, particularly in relation to the partnership approach we have adopted.

⁵ For an explanation of what this means, see the glossary of terms on this website.

⁶ A summary of the feedback we received on the draft Digital Strategy can be found on this website.

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