Abstract
This chapter explores the effect of the National Broadband Network (NBN) rollout on regional businesses. Research conducted in Tasmania by Inovact Consulting on how regional businesses are responding to broadband access provides illustrations of these opportunities and challenges being played out in the context of an increasingly interconnected global economy. The first part of the chapter examines the opportunities and challenges that the rollout of the NBN presents to regional businesses. The research shows that broadband technology can increase internal efficiencies and harness business growth, grant geographically isolated businesses access to global supply chains and enable innovations that make entering the export market more viable. The second part of this chapter outlines the need for businesses to initially regard the access to high speed broadband as a shock to their operating environment, and to prepare a strategy that views its advent as having potentially disruptive effects. However, once a strategy is in place to preserve and stabilise the company, it can then adopt a forward-thinking strategy for optimal leveraging of opportunities in the digital economy.
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Notes
- 1.
Agreement between the Government and Mr. Tony Windsor MP, Member for New England and Mr. Robert Oakeshott MP, Member for Lynne, Australian Government, Statement of Expectations, 20 December 2010.
- 2.
Total capital investment in the NBN was revised down from $43 billion to $36 billion primarily due to the agreement reached with Telstra.
- 3.
Agreement between the Government and Mr. Tony Windsor MP, Member for New England and Mr. Robert Oakeshott MP, Member for Lynne, Australian Government, Statement of Expectations, 20 December 2010.
- 4.
Inovact Consulting is a specialist advisor to government, industry and commerce on organisational effectiveness. The case studies measuring the effect of the rollout of the NBN in regional Australia were conducted as part of the research underpinning New Connections Driving Innovation and Productivity: Opportunities for Rural Industry Development from Innovative Use of Broadband Services (2011). Available: http://www.inovact.com.au/index.php/component/zoo/item/rirdc-broadband-report. Inovact Consulting is committed to translating research and knowledge into valuable outcomes.
- 5.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, Transcript of Joint Press Conference with Treasurer Wayne Swan, Minister for Finance Lindsay Tanner and Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Stephen Conroy, Parliament House, Canberra, 7 April 2009.
- 6.
Simon Crean, Address to Regional Development Australia National Forum, Convention Centre Canberra, 2011. [on-line] http://www.rdamidnorthcoast.org.au/content/driving-regional-economic-development-through-localism-hon-simon-crean.
- 7.
Crean, Simon, Address to Regional Development Australia National Forum, Convention Centre Canberra, 2011 [on-line] http://www.rdamidnorthcoast.org.au/content/driving-regional-economic-development-through-localism-hon-simon-crean.
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Ramsay, B. (2013). Catalysing Regional Business Development Through High Speed Broadband: Opportunities and Risks. In: Kinnear, S., Charters, K., Vitartas, P. (eds) Regional Advantage and Innovation. Physica, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-7908-2799-6_14
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