Australia has a flourishing tech scene, with its fair share of tech unicorns and industry disrupters. For early-stage tech companies, there is much to learn from their predecessors including how to respond to common challenges and align priorities for ongoing success.
In this article, we hone in on the main areas that top tech companies are prioritising right now to achieve growth and maintain their advantage in the current climate.
Sourcing top talent
Let’s start with a look at the state of talent in the Australian tech sector right now. The sector has certainly undergone a period of meteoric growth and expansion over the past few years and today, it is Australia’s seventh-largest employer, with a workforce of approximately 861,00 people, equating to 1 in 16 Australians. However, the sector is also experiencing a skills deficit as demand for digital and data-related jobs outpace available talent. One way the sector’s chronic staff shortages is being addressed is with the government’s pledge to generate 1.2 million technology-related jobs by 2030. This will no doubt remain a key priority for top tech companies, particularly as they continue to drive growth.
Strengthen adaptability and agility
Top tech companies operate in an environment defined by risk and instability. The uncertainty posed by growing competition, evolving technologies, market movements and global workforces can inspire a company to thrive while others flounder. Long-term organisational agility is the antidote, allowing tech companies to quickly adapt to changing environments and improve performance despite disruptions. It provides the nimbleness needed to sidestep the negative impacts, the power to absorb any damage, and the resilience to accelerate faster and more effectively than the competition.
An adaptative advantage provides top tech companies with the ability to experiment rapidly and economically across products, services, processes and strategies. A culture where operational interventions are made in real-time and where slow-moving decision hierarchies are replaced by quick, decisive action will further drive the advantage.
Meet key security requirements
As with any company, cyber security is always front of mind especially with stories abound of phishing attacks, crypto-jacking, ransomware and DDoS attacks. If you are targeted, IBM estimates that the cost per breach is $3.35 million in Australia, an increase of 9.8% year on year.
The consequences of a data breach can create mistrust among customers, and worst case scenario, can transpire into a fatal blow to a company. Infusing security into your tech-driven service or product is essential but your security measures must span out to all the tech used in your business – ERPs, CRMs and other business-critical operational tech. Ensuring your security and compliance policies are in place as early as possible will not only protect your reputation, but also provides a framework for assessing third-party software vendors. Strengthening data security will also avoid last-minute security integrations, or worse, reacting only after a hacker has broken through the defences and extracted private information.
Improve forecasting capabilities
A critical element of any forward-thinking tech company is budgeting and financial management. Sales forecasting is a crucial part of the process of accurately predicting the number of products or services you will sell within a defined period. Get it right and you can align your business strategy with actual results, present it to investors and stakeholders, and make adjustments to match demand.
But it can be difficult to forecast sales. Top tech companies can see their blind spots, know what will happen next and make the right decisions by developing methods and models that capture concrete data and provide metrics for measuring performance. For tech companies looking to expand, accurate forecasting of sales is an absolute must-have if they want to determine future growth.
How tech companies introduce capabilities to support growth
In the early stages of a tech business, founders will decide what tools to deploy that support specific tasks. This frequently involves patching together a collection of software and in-house solutions. After all, in this phase of growth, the focus is on customer acquisition and revenue growth rather than introducing capabilities for efficient business operations. But as the company steps into a Series B or C round, the time will inevitably come when the cobbled-together system no longer supports the business effectively, and the fractured operational foundation will be exposed.
The natural next step is to implement technology that provides all those important capabilities – agility and adaptability, holistic insights into operations, robust security measures and sales forecasting to predict and plan ahead for future revenues.
Cloud ERP for growing tech companies
As fast-growing top tech companies reshuffle their priorities, many are turning to cloud ERP as the foundational tech piece to fire up their growth. These systems are designed with flexibility and scalability in mind, to mould to the needs of the company – not the other way around. Plus, they deliver the accurate, automated insights needed to enable tech companies to react and pivot as needed.
Leading Cloud ERP solutions offer complete real-time, unified business management, giving top tech companies the agility, and critical business intelligence required to move a business beyond just thinking global, to actually tapping into the global expansion potential they have.
Do you have the technology you need to take your tech business to the next phase of growth? Complete our quiz to find out now!
More resources on the Australian SaaS sector:
- The SaaS businesses complete guide to selecting NetSuite >
- What your business can learn from the big players in digital >
- Key financial and other metrics SaaS businesses must track >
- 7 important operational metrics to track in SaaS >
- How customer success drives competitive advantage for Australian SaaS companies >
- How SaaS companies can gain a competitive advantage with customer success >
- Is NetSuite SaaS or PaaS? >