What is important to business leaders in Australia? This was the question IBM asked when developing the agenda for the IBM Forum 05 which took place in Perth on Tuesday.
What is important to business leaders in Australia? This was the question IBM asked when developing the agenda for the IBM Forum 05 which took place in Perth on Tuesday.
To answer this IBM analysed its latest global and local chief executive and chief information officer studies which research the pressing business issues that flow from CEO, to each line of business, to the CIO and their teams.
IBM Australia and New Zealand chief executive Philip Bullock said the analysis revealed the issues to be how to achieve growth, to be responsive in a dynamic and competitive market, and to acquire and retain the best people.
Mr Bullock told more than 500 people that businesses know where they want to go, but they don’t know how to get there.
“The key is being able to be ‘On Demand’,” he said.
“Aligning business insights and IT strategy can enable you to operate ‘on demand’,” he said.
“Now more than ever, On Demand capabilities are equally important in the boardroom as the server room.”
And how businesses can become ‘On Demand’ was facilitated by almost 30 sessions and mini sessions on topics including storage, security and automation software, email security management services and simplifying with IBM TotalStorage.
And to help the forum understand how to achieve growth, to be responsive in a dynamic and competitive market and to acquire and retain the best people, guest speaker Nudie Juice Australia chief executive Tim Pethick and the Nudie story was the perfect example.
“The Nudie story started with three objectives: a brand which could be built quickly; to become Australia’s biggest provider of pure fruit beverages; and to have some fun and do some good,” Mr Pethick said. He said Nudie had succeeded because it had done everything differently to its competitors.
In one year, Mr Pethick transformed Nudie from a one outlet, two-people operation, which sold 40 bottles in its first week to 4500 distribution outlets with 86 employees selling 150,000 bottles a week across Australia (except the NT) using 30 tonnes of fruit a week.
And you can’t be more responsive than after losing everything in a fire. Nudie moved its products back on shop shelves three weeks after the fire, commissioned a new factory and turned the fire into a marketing event and launched a product called the Firefighter Nudie.
“So, how did we do it,” Mr Pethick asked.
“We made Nudie remarkable, fun and positive, gave it attitude, didn’t rely on traditional advertising and engaged consumers.”
