A bright, but not very green, future is on the cards for Australia’s SMEs. That’s the message from new study by global business coaching company Shirlaws.
“Opportunities and challenges for SMEs: the next five years” paints rosy picture of innovation (55 percent of Aussie respondents reckon SMEs will be key source of innovation for larger and less agile partners) and talent (53 percent of them say SMEs will be seen as the preferred option for talented individuals seeking early opportunity and responsibility).
On the darker side of the ledger, only 2.5 percent of Australian SMEs saw reducing environmental impact as key challenge for the next five years.
•See Management magazine’s May issue for an interview with Shirlaws New Zealand director Michael Ahie.
AI uptake rises but leadership gap a barrier to AI at scale
Management Editorial Team
September 3, 2026
New research from Datacom has found AI is now firmly embedded in New Zealand workplaces; however, most have yet to translate that adoption into organisation-wide transformation, with 81% still in the exploratory or implementation stages of AI maturity.
