NZ dragging the chain

By ADAM GIFFORD

ALASDAIR MacLeod sees his new job as an excuse to stir up the business community.

The former First Electric chief executive has returned to Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu in a new role as e-business leader.

"My role is to create provocation and challenge, internally and externally," Mr MacLeod says.

"When I look around the world, I am struck by how little we are doing here.

"E-business is the biggest thing to hit us since computerisation and it's not something people can sit back and watch. New Zealand has to face up to what is happening everywhere, at a speed which is frightening or exhilarating depending on your view, and the world is going to change quite quickly."

He is still trying to work out why New Zealand is lagging, but says the capacity is here to respond rapidly.

"Many people have the basic infrastructure in place. Firms need to develop their intranet and extranet, but generally it's about confronting the business issues. Where are my competitors? Who is going to eat my lunch? Whose lunch can I eat? How do I maintain and extend the role of my business?

"A reasonable amount of strategic thinking needs to go into this."

While bigger economies may have more scale to get innovation happening, Mr MacLeod believes being small has never held New Zealand in the past.

"Look at [Sir] Gil Simpson. Linc [Simpson's development language for Unisys mainframes] grew from Christchurch and one stage was the world leader 4GL [fourth generation language]. Innovation is still there and e-business gives innovators a chance, but there is not the momentum to get a wave going at the moment."

Mr MacLeod was energy sector director for Unisys before moving to Deloitte to undertake a range of projects. These included working with the Electricity Corporation on the break-up of its asset base which led to the creation of First Electric, which he was then asked to run.

Rather than create an old-style power company, Mr MacLeod made First Electric a "virtual" electricity company.

"First Electric was similar in many respects to e-business initiatives which are taking place in New Zealand and around the world. We realised there had to be a better way to run an electricity company without facing the burden of heavy overhead cost," he says.

He learned key lessons at First Electric.

"I learned there were often better ways to do things than the established way. I learned partnering needs to be lived and breathed, not just talked about. And there was that old chestnut: in every change is opportunity."

Partnering will be a key to the new e-business economy, he says.

"People are not going to be able to be all things to all people, but with judicious selections of partners the whole will be greater than the sum of parts."

The IT industry has a word "coopetition," the idea of working with another firm on some things and competing fiercely with them on others.

"You can cooperate on one operation as long as you both understand the rules," he says.