Check out some of the amazing Datacom highlights from 2022 in each of the sections below – or keep scrolling to hear from our CEO Greg Davidson and Chair Tony Carter about their thoughts on the past year.
Thrive together
Our team, customers and collaborators have been the driving force behind our success this year.
Check out some of the amazing Datacom highlights from 2022 in each of the sections below – or keep scrolling to hear from our CEO Greg Davidson and Chair Tony Carter about their thoughts on the past year.
Looking back over 2022 and the work of our Datacom business gives me two very clear impressions. The first is that we have achieved an enormous amount together with our customers and our partners over the past year and the second is that genuine connection, collaboration, creativity and culture is a powerful foundation for success. As we head into next year, this understanding needs to guide the way we work with our colleagues, our partners and our customers to make a real difference.
In our 2022 Year in Review you’ll read about some of Datacom’s projects of impact and successes across the business. We’ve helped organisations across Australia and New Zealand tap into new opportunities, optimising their operations to keep pace in an increasingly competitive market. We’ve enabled organisations to implement better security practices amid growing threats. And, as you will read in our chair Tony Carter’s article, we have taken tangible steps toward greater sustainability in our own business and ensuring we can support our customers in achieving their sustainability goals.
Our growing software product businesses Datascape and Datapay, and our private cloud and data centres continue on a path to growth and serve as another great example of our willingness to invest in expertise and build in products that meet the needs of our Australian and New Zealand customers. Datascape is a platform geared to the needs of councils and it is our understanding of local government requirements and of the communities they serve that have helped us create a solution that supports citizen access and engagement. Our Smartly and Datapay products help tens of thousands of businesses pay and support their employees, simplifying compliance. To give some context of the role these products are playing in our communities – in New Zealand about 75% of councils rely on us for technology that helps them serve their residents and stakeholders, and we pay about 15% of New Zealanders and help 25,000 businesses look after their employees.
My second observation is around the value of connection, collaboration, creativity and culture. This is not a new revelation, but 2022 served as a powerful reminder of its importance as many of our teams came together in person for the first time in two years. While being in the same room is not a prerequisite for collaboration, our annual innovation competition Datacomp brought together hundreds of our team members on a quest to solve some big challenges for our customers, and the energy was incredible. In less than 72 hours these teams came up with solutions to help young people navigate mental health resources, to simplify access to basic items for people in prison through the Ngā Mihi project which has now received a $50,000 GovTech grant, and to motivate businesses to engage with climate change initiatives.
That Datacomp weekend was a great reminder of what good collaboration looks like: open sharing of ideas and information, two-way communication with plenty of listening, diversity of skills, perspectives and backgrounds, and a desire to work together to challenge the status quo, identify new opportunities and solve problems. It was fitting that our theme for Datacomp this year was “Together” and focused on the idea of harnessing the power of tech to build ecosystems that contribute to positive economic, social and environmental outcomes.
My belief is that as a local business, we have a responsibility to use technology as a force for good and I see us at our most impactful when we are working closely with our customers and helping them find smart ways to change things for the better, to address challenges and create opportunities. This is when we are truly able to help people thrive and shape their own futures.
To everyone who has worked with us this year, thank you. We look forward to collaborating with you again in 2023.
Solving challenges and finding new and better ways of doing things is essentially the job description for Datacom’s nearly 7000 employees. Now, as we look ahead, one of the biggest challenges we need to address is how to build a more sustainable future – for our business, our customers and our communities.
When the Datacom team tackle a new project their approach is always to get a full understanding of the issue before they begin developing solutions, and it has been the same approach for our environmental sustainability journey.
Our first step was to ask Toitū Envirocare, an independent carbon certification company, to audit our entire business and calculate our emissions footprint. With this information in hand the Datacom team had a baseline to work from and have set about actioning a number of initiatives to support more sustainable practices across the business.
To date, these actions include reducing freight emissions from the PSG business supported by work with our supply chain, implementing policy to capture all flight and travel data for the business and to reduce air travel by 40%, reducing our property footprint where possible and improving energy efficiency in new office builds, and powering our data centres with 100% renewable energy.
The team has now successfully achieved Toitū carbonreduce certification and our goal for the future is to be net carbon zero by the end of 2030.
Datacom takes a very wide view of sustainability and there is a continued focus on finding ways to strengthen the business and build resilience for the future. As well as investing in key infrastructure and product development to support the companies we work with and the countries we live in, Datacom is investing time and resources in attracting more people to careers in tech and growing the skills of those already working in the sector.
We’re also looking beyond our own business at the role we can play in supporting our customers and communities to achieve their sustainability goals.
As a technology company, we don’t have a massive carbon footprint, but we see a huge opportunity to be part of the solution for other sectors and organisations that are looking to reduce their impact.
Some of the sustainability projects that we’re already involved in include helping companies use their own data to plan more energy-efficient routes and processes for their fleets, or to manage resources more effectively to reduce waste. We’re also supporting agencies to access, capture and share their data in new ways to create a foundation for vital environmental research.
There is no magic bullet to create a more sustainable future but we are playing our part by working collaboratively with our customers and partners to find new and better ways of doing things.