iTWire: Australia's Federal Budget 2020-21: reaction from IT vendor leaders

Summary

Republished trade press. On 6 October 2020 the Australian Federal Government handed down the 2020-21 Budget, and iTWire collected reaction from leaders at twelve IT vendors. blueAPACHE Managing Director Chris Marshall was among them.

The common thread across the twelve responses was approval of the digital investment, coupled with a warning that has aged well: more digital connectivity means more attack surface, and the security spending has to move with it.

Published in 2020. Read this as a 2020 document. The budget it discusses is six years old, the instant asset write-off provisions it references have since changed, and the pandemic conditions that shaped it have passed. It is useful now as a record of what the industry expected, not as current guidance.

Context

The 2020-21 Budget committed hundreds of billions of dollars in spending, framed as giving Australians and the economy a softer landing after lockdowns and large-scale job losses. iTWire's framing was that IT had been the glue keeping many businesses operating through the disruption — keeping people connected and holding off cybercriminals — so the industry's read on the budget mattered.

Two industry bodies had already responded before the vendor commentary: the Australian Information Industry Association welcomed billions in new digital funding to move the Australian economy toward a more digital footing, and the Lighting Council Australia welcomed the decision to reverse planned cuts of an estimated $1.8 billion from the Research and Development Tax Incentive Program.

The headline measure most vendors responded to was the $800 million package to help businesses go digital, alongside the instant asset write-off and the Digital Business Plan announced on 29 September 2020.

What blueAPACHE said

Chris Marshall, Managing Director of blueAPACHE, welcomed the investment and read it as an accelerant for cloud adoption:

"The government's prudent decision to invest in Australia's digital future will now further accelerate cloud adoption among businesses of all sizes and encourage organisations to completely rethink their approach to technology."

His second point is the one worth keeping. With workforces distributed, he described an urgent need to harness emerging devices, software and services while at the same time extracting maximum value from existing investments.

That is a more disciplined position than "buy more technology". It is the same argument that runs through blueAPACHE's Consulting and Advisory practice and its Procurement pillar: new capability and existing licence value are the same budget conversation, and organisations that treat them separately overspend on one while under-using the other.

The other eleven responses, in brief

The commentary is summarised below rather than reproduced; each position is attributed to the person who made it.

Who Position
Christian Lucarelli, VP Sales APAC, Nintex Framed the $800m digital package as an opportunity to invest in automation — not to remove people, but to standardise, grow and free employees' time for customers
Mark Sinclair, ANZ Regional Director, WatchGuard Welcomed the digital push but warned that more connectivity raises the likelihood of cyberattack; saw the instant asset write-off as helping businesses carry the cost of increased security
Pieter DeGunst, MD, Tecala Welcomed support for SMEs accelerating digital transformation
Budd Ilic, ANZ Country Manager, Zscaler Expected retirement of legacy technology and migration to cloud, noting security can now be consumed as a service — relevant against ransomware, which had risen sharply, and state-based actors
Michel Steckler, CEO, Tradify Welcomed small business support including apprentice subsidies; cited research showing tradespeople spending hundreds of hours a year on paperwork
Glen Maloney, ANZ Regional Sales Manager, ExtraHop Saw the budget as a morale boost, with greater automation enabling faster decision cycles
Ashley Lane, BDM ANZ, Forbury Welcomed infrastructure investment and support for job creation
Joanne Wong, VP International Marketing APAC, LogRhythm Welcomed digital project investment building on the government's ten-year cyber security strategy
Daniel Harding, Director Australia Operations, MaxContact Noted the pandemic had reinforced the role of contact centres as enquiries and anxiety spiked
Jim Cook, ANZ MD, Attivo Networks Saw investment in digital skills as an opportunity to take a proactive approach to security supporting a distributed workforce
Mark Perry, CTO Asia Pacific, Ping Identity Supported the Digital Business Plan, particularly Consumer Data Right funding for banking and energy, and hoped for a complete testing suite for vendors

What the responses got right

Read six years later, two themes hold up and one is worth qualifying.

The security warning was correct. Sinclair, Ilic, Wong and Cook all made the same point from different angles: digitisation expands the attack surface, and security spending has to move with it rather than lag. The subsequent trajectory of ransomware and identity-based attack in Australia bore that out. blueAPACHE's own current security material frames the threat as identity-first — attackers don't break in, they log in — which is the same argument arrived at through six more years of incidents. See Security and Managed Detection and Response.

The distributed-workforce point was correct and permanent. Marshall's framing of distributed workforces as the operating condition rather than a temporary disruption has held. It is now assumed rather than argued.

The automation framing needs a caveat. Lucarelli's point that automation standardises and frees time rather than removing people was the industry's standard reassurance in 2020. It is a defensible position, but it was asserted rather than evidenced, and it remains contested. Treat it as a vendor's view of automation, not a settled finding.

What has changed since

Frequently asked questions

What is this article?

A republication on blueAPACHE's site of an iTWire piece collecting reaction from twelve IT vendor leaders to Australia's 2020-21 Federal Budget, handed down on 6 October 2020.

What did blueAPACHE say about the budget?

Managing Director Chris Marshall welcomed the investment as an accelerant for cloud adoption across businesses of all sizes, and argued that distributed workforces created an urgent need to harness new devices, software and services while extracting maximum value from existing investments.

Which budget measure were the vendors responding to?

Primarily the $800 million package to help businesses go digital, together with the instant asset write-off and the Digital Business Plan announced on 29 September 2020.

Is the tax information in this article still current?

No. Instant asset write-off thresholds and eligibility have changed several times since 2020. Take current settings from the ATO or your accountant, not from this page.

Who else was quoted?

Leaders from Nintex, WatchGuard Technologies, Tecala, Zscaler, Tradify, ExtraHop, Forbury, LogRhythm, MaxContact, Attivo Networks and Ping Identity.

Was there a common theme?

Yes: broad approval of the digital investment, paired with a warning from several security vendors that greater connectivity increases cyber risk and that security investment needs to keep pace.

Is this blueAPACHE's own writing?

No. The article is iTWire's, and blueAPACHE republished it because its Managing Director was one of the contributors. Only the Marshall quotation is blueAPACHE's own words.

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Source

This page summarises an iTWire article, "Australia's Federal Budget 2020-21: reaction from IT vendor leaders", republished on blueAPACHE's site. Third-party commentary is summarised and attributed rather than reproduced at length; the direct quotation is blueAPACHE's own contribution from Managing Director Chris Marshall. Budget measures and tax provisions described are as at October 2020 and have since changed.

Knowledge Base

What is the topic of this iTWire article featured on blueAPACHE's site?

The article covers reactions from IT vendor leaders in Australia to the Australian Federal Government's 2020-21 Budget, released on Tuesday, October 6, 2020, which included hundreds of billions of dollars in spending aimed at giving Australians and the economy a softer landing from the COVID-19 pandemic's economic shock.

Which IT vendors' leaders were quoted reacting to the Australian Federal Budget 2020-21?

Leaders from twelve IT vendors were quoted: Nintex, WatchGuard Technologies, blueAPACHE, Tecala, Zscaler, Tradify, ExtraHop, Forbury, LogRhythm, MaxContact, Attivo Networks, and Ping Identity.

What did blueAPACHE's Managing Director Chris Marshall say about the 2020-21 Budget?

Chris Marshall, Managing Director of blueAPACHE, said the government's prudent decision to invest in Australia's digital future would accelerate cloud adoption among businesses of all sizes and encourage organisations to rethink their approach to technology. He noted that with distributed workforces, there's an urgent need to harness emerging devices, software and services while extracting maximum value from existing investments. He added that the days of designing IT systems based on clear five-year plans are gone, and organisations believing they can plan more than two years ahead are likely misguided, emphasizing that the budget would support companies to innovate, evolve, become more agile, and be more customer-obsessed in the post-pandemic era.

What did Christian Lucarelli of Nintex say about the Federal Government's digital business funding?

Christian Lucarelli, Vice President Sales Asia Pacific at Nintex, said the Federal Government's announcement to provide an $800 million budget plan to help businesses go digital presents Australian companies with a fantastic opportunity to invest and innovate through technology adoption, particularly automation technology that frees up employees' time to focus on customers and growth rather than removing the need for people.

What organizations were mentioned as having previously welcomed aspects of the budget before the vendor leader reactions?

The Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) welcomed billions in new digital funding to transform the Australian economy into a more digital one, and the Lightning Council Australia welcomed the announcement to reverse plans to cut an estimated $1.8 billion from the Research and Development Tax Incentive Program.

What concern did Mark Sinclair of WatchGuard Technologies raise about increased digital connectivity from the budget?

Mark Sinclair, ANZ Regional Director of WatchGuard Technologies, welcomed the government's initiative to help businesses go digital but noted that more digital connectivity increases the likelihood of cyberattacks. He said the budget's instant asset write-off would help Australian businesses cope with the financial burden of increased cyber security and support obtaining technology and awareness training for mitigating modern cyber threats, which would also drive more jobs in the local cyber security industry.

What did Mark Perry of Ping Identity say about the Consumer Data Right (CDR) funding in the budget?

Mark Perry, Chief Technology Officer Asia Pacific at Ping Identity, said Ping Identity supported the Digital Business Plan announced by the Morrison Government on September 29, particularly welcoming the funding to support the rollout of the Consumer Data Right (CDR) to banking and energy sectors, anticipating it would help streamline the onboarding process for data recipients, which was currently limiting the programme's expansion.

Who wrote the original article and when was it published?

The article was written by iTWire and published on October 9, 2020, with a read time of 10 minutes. It can also be viewed in full on the iTWire website.

What did Joanne Wong of LogRhythm say about the government's cyber security investment?

Joanne Wong, Vice President International Marketing APAC at LogRhythm, applauded the government's focus on digital project investment, which builds on its previously announced ten-year investment strategy in cyber security, stating Australia would be in a much better position to tackle increasing IT security issues, and that this should spur companies to take a proactive approach to reviewing their cyber security hygiene.

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