It seems rather trite to say that we live in a time of incredible change, particularly since, I suppose, those from our previous generations would probably report something similar. My grandmother would have talked about the amazing changes from her first trip to the UK on a steamer compared to her last on a 747, all in the space of a life time. But I do think the pace of change has accelerated almost to the point where we and our institutions struggle to keep up with it.

Certainly, the organisations which comprise TUANZ have seen tremendous change over the quarter century we’ve been in existence. We were founded to take on the might of a monolithic telecommunications industry which essentially comprised one organisation: Telecom New Zealand, a huge vertically integrated telco. At the time, we were dealing with accessing simple services such as calling and low speed data circuits. Oh how it has changed! Telecom no longer exists, at least not in that form, and we have a vibrant telco market with new, world-class access networks being built. And the discussions have moved on from those of the old voice world, to questions of broadband, mobility and content.

Over the last few decades, our world has also become increasingly smaller. Last year, on our first travels in the USA in 20 years, my wife and I were surprised at how much better known New Zealand has become – blame Lord of the Rings and the internet for that.

All this drives me to the conclusion that change will keep on happening, and it’s becoming increasingly more disruptive to the way we do business and live our lives. Witness the latest legal stouches over access to Netflix content here in New Zealand. We have four large media players (one of which is a telco, don’t forget) taking on an innovative and disruptive technology which has broken existing business models. It doesn’t matter which side you think is right or what the exact outcome will be; the result will still be further disruption.

What probably concerns me the most about change, however, is that New Zealand businesses are ill-equipped to make the most of disruption. As the new, faster and more reliable networks are rolled out, I’m concerned that we get stuck looking at them merely as cheaper ways to do the same things, rather than being clever and looking at how to use them to improve, increase and innovate within our organisations.

All this has big implications for TUANZ as well: the simple act of defining telecommunications in this day and age is increasingly difficult. In our home, we use our telco service to receive calls, surf the internet, watch movies and TV (legally), find answers to trivia, book tickets to events, find out sports results, and keep in touch with families. The telco service is called broadband and it opens up the digital world to us. And that’s the challenge for my organisation: How do we remain relevant in these days? We are all now more than telecommunications users – we are all digital users.

ABOUT CRAIG YOUNG//

Telecommunications Users Association of NZ CEO Craig Young is passionate about advocating for the innovative development of the telecommunications industry in TUANZ’s role as the users’ voice. He brings to the role over 15 years in the ICT sector, with the last 10 years specifically in the telecommunications industry.