At the BlueChip-sponsored CEDA event last month, attendees and panellists, including event MC, BlueChip MD Carden Calder, pondered the question: ‘Australian business credit – are we prepared for the cost of under investment?’ Causes of concern canvassed by Carden and others included businesses firing, rather than hiring; saving rather than spending and paying down debt rather than borrowing … all leading to historic low levels of business credit.
Joseph Healy, Group Executive Business Banking with NAB, believes it comes down to the current market confidence (or lack thereof) and the so-called ‘animal spirits’ that perhaps have Australian business owners more spooked than they need to be.
The Hon Patricia Forsythe, Executive Director at the Sydney Business Chamber, addressed the difficulties business are having accessing loans and stated that the government has a central role in supporting businesses and sectors that are in need of investment support.
Both panellists agreed, as does BlueChip, that Australian businesses need to focus on digital opportunities and embrace the movement into this space.
The bottom line is this: If we get carried away by gloom rather than looking, carefully, for boom opportunities we actually risk creating a self-fulfilling (and negative) prophesy.
To read the entire blog from this event, please click here.