Australian businesses are fast-tracking technological change in an effort to secure profits and stay competitive in a high-tech “space race” that shows no sign of abating.

First we had the Covid-19 pandemic in which companies had to change their workforce dynamics literally overnight.

It is estimated that the digital evolution of companies was fast-forwarded by six years in the two core years of the pandemic. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that, at one stage during this period, two years’ worth of digital transformation happened in two months.

The pace of change was breathtaking, and unprecedented. And it did not end there.

Speeding up behind was another challenge. Inflation, which had been locked away in a box for decades, escaped and started attacking and eating away at corporate margins.

According to the just-released Australian Industry Group 2023 CEO expectations survey, companies are attacking the inflation monster through further technology investment.

While the digital conversion during the pandemic was probably centred mostly on behavioural change around digital technology already available, this next wave is focussed on new investment in core process improvements and efficiency.

Technology has moved to the top of the business investment list for CEOs. This must be good news for an economy starved of productivity improvement for many years.

The other welcome news is that, despite some dark economic clouds on the horizon, the mood of our business leaders is fairly upbeat, and companies are getting on with structural reform to counter the rising storm.

While slower economic growth could be expected to take the edge off the employment market, 55 per cent of CEOs are expecting to lift employee numbers this year and 90 per cent are expecting staff shortages.

This tight labour market is driving big lifts in in-house staff training, which is now the second-highest investment priority (after technology), sitting at the highest point since the annual CEO survey was launched a decade ago.

Business has also entered a more pragmatic zone on securing supply chains after Covid, and some other international forces, messed with the comfortable flow of inputs.

Around 88 per cent of companies will invest further in supply chain resilience in 2023, including product changes, finding new suppliers and improving logistics practices.

The sentiment in the survey suggests the Australian economy’s remarkable resilience is continuing. In all, almost half of businesses expect 2023 to be stronger than 2022 and a further 21 per cent are forecasting stable conditions.

These numbers come as many areas of the world are staring down the barrel of recession and battening down for a very rough ride. The situation also underlines the speed of structural reform over the past three years. Covid threw the corporate world a little off its axis, but it has every chance of stabilising in better shape.

Greater workplace flexibility is now deeply enshrined in our business ethos. We have become far more adept at using technology to overcome the physical barriers of doing business and investing transport time back into productive output.

This latest survey suggests we are approaching technological change with greater vigour and urgency, which will be vital to our global competitiveness.

Winston Churchill said that if you are going through hell “keep going”.

Thankfully we seem to be well out of the pandemic hell-zone and we are still going. And going. Who knows where we might end up.

Shane Rodgers is a business executive, writer, strategist and marketer with a deep interest in what makes people tick and the drivers of change. He is also Chief Operating Officer of Australian Industry Group.