Support for SME’s
The Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research has focused on encouraging the sustainable growth of Australian industries by developing a national innovation system to support cutting edge science and research, knowledge creation, greater productivity and international competitiveness. It has several programs to support this initiative. One of them is the Business Enterprise Centre (BECs) aimed at funding the delivery of low cost small business advisory services throughout Australia. There is an ‘Enterprise Connect’ program to help Australian small and medium sized enterprises (SME’s) to become more efficient, innovative and competitive. There is also the ‘Innovation Investment Fund’ (IIF) to boost investment in small technology based companies in their early stages of development. Similarly there are other programs to encourage innovation and research (Department of Innovation, Industry, Science and Research, 2009).
Australia has been ranked at number 14 out of 131 countries on the Network Readiness Index (NRI) in the recently published Global Information Technology Report 2008-09. NRI is a measure of the conduciveness for ICT taking into account business environment, readiness and usage from the perspective of the government, businesses and individuals. Please refer to figure below for more details on the NRI framework:
Figure 46 - Network Readiness Index Framework (World Economic Forum)
The report highlights the Government’s initiatives at building ICT infrastructure along with the political and legal framework as Australia’s key strengths. In the previous three additions it has been ranked 15th, 15th and 14th respectively. Please refer to the following table for detailed rankings on individual parameters:
Table 42 - Hard facts about Australian IT business and infrastructure
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