Raising the bar - Brief Article

Business Asia, Nov, 2000

Sydney has hosted the "best ever" Olympics -- and now business leaders want to keep the Games fever on track to secure deals and create jobs

THE SYDNEY Olympics juggernaut has come and gone, but for Loftus Harris and the New South Wales Department of State and Regional Development, the hard work is just beginning.

Harris, the director-general of the DSRD, is reluctant to divulge exact figures, but he is confident future business garnered from positive Olympics coverage could mean billions of dollars worth of investment -- and thousands of jobs -- in New South Wales.

A few extra billion dollars could be a conservative estimate. Harris says decisions by multinational companies to invest or expand in NSW last year pumped A$1 billion into the NSW economy and created 9000 jobs. The Olympics should generate significantly more than last year's results.

"It's that follow-up that's the important part," Harris said. "I think we have a window of opportunity that runs until the end of the northern hemisphere's summer, where there'll be really good memories of us and a terrific exposure of Sydney, NSW and Australia in general.

"And then if you do that initial follow-up well, then you hold the attention of the business community for the next three years. So there's a great three- to four-year window that comes out of the Olympics, and that's when you see the results."

The added exposure would go a long way towards boosting Australia's (and Sydney's) stocks in the race to be a regional powerhouse compared to the likes of Singapore and Hong Kong, Harris says.

"Organisations like mine spend an enormous amount of time seeking to attract people's attention. The best thing that can happen for us is for people to put us into their area of consideration for investment, regional headquarters or business dealings in general," he said.

"We saw some of this during the Asian financial currency realignments, where Sydney, because Australia had weathered the storm so well, moved further up the eligibility list compared to other cities in Asia.

"Whereas people would have looked at us as perhaps number three or number four (occasionally number one), suddenly we moved well up into the list."

Australia's move up into the Asia-Pacific elite has been evident in recent months, with both IBM and the World Bank deciding to set up regional headquarters in Sydney.

Apart from quantity of investment, Harris says another measure of Sydney's move up the regional ladder can be found in the quality of new business the NSW capital attracts.

"If you look at where the future is for Australia and Sydney, it's increasingly towards that high-value added, intellectual base to businesses. And that's why it's an important qualitative element, because we're seeing that change in the kinds of business we deal with," he said.

"Increasingly, it's the more sophisticated end -- it's financial services, it's IT, it's companies that are involved in the applications of technology.

"The advantage we have, apart from the obvious one of being in the same time zone as most of the companies we do business with, it's that we have a breadth and depth of skill."

Harris says that shift towards new-economy businesses can also be seen in the types of NSW businesses turning their eyes towards exports.

"You look at the make-up of trade missions nowadays and they're quite different, especially for someone like me who's an old trade commissioner from 15 years ago," he said. "I would look back and see trade missions 15 years ago quite predominantly based around traditional products, around primary produce, commodities, those type of things.

"You look at the make-up of trade missions nowadays and you see people selling architectural services, people selling software, people doing warehouse design, people doing building materials.

"And also the way companies do things. Companies are becoming increasingly aware of the value of the web and increasingly aware of the value of the internet."

These new-economy companies are spearheading NSW's transformation from a merchandise-based economy to a services-based one. Harris says it is this new face of Australian business that we need to show the world to maximise the Olympic Games' full potential.

So, how long before we see the Olympic dollars roll in? And how much should we expect?

"I don't know," Harris says. "I'd be pretty brave to put it out (figure estimates), to be honest -- it's a pretty lumpy business," he said.

"For example, we've been working with IBM over the last couple of years in relations to their plans. And only a few months ago, I went to New York, dealt with IBM in relation to their e-business development operations in the Asia-Pacific. That's had a two-year gestation period. And now all of a sudden, by the end of this year, they'll be well on their way to having 500 people running their e-business operations.

"So there's a lumpy element to it, sometimes they happen like that, sometimes they take quite a long time."