Credit: Photo by Jorik Kleen on Unsplash
Technology industry umbrella group NZTech is trying to raise awareness within government that there is no need to call a halt to ongoing IT projects during the Covid-19 lockdown.
In a blog post yesterday, NZTech CEO Graeme Muller said government has the ability to support the country’s fastest growing sector without any handouts.
"Most New Zealand tech firms can continue to resource these projects from home so our lockdown doesn’t have to mean stopping IT projects," Muller wrote.
NZTech has also asked for industry feedback on the impact of Covid-19 for tech firms. So far, three different sorts of impact have been noted, Muller wrote.
Firstly, tech firms providing cloud services and remote working solutions are saying their workload has skyrocketed.
"However they can see their customers are under increasing financial pressure, so they are expecting work to taper off over time."
Secondly, tech firms that provide traditional IT services or where they have staff going to customer’s sites have seen a sudden decline of up to 80 per cent of business.
Finally, while software firms continue to benefit from license fees they have seen their pipelines disappear overnight.
"Many were in a growth phase and now have to start letting staff go," Muller wrote.
NZTech’s team is now working from home and converting its events to digital delivery.
"We are working through our planned content as we reformat the member event calendar to ensure that as we pivot our events to digital we are bringing new and relevant content in these tough times," Muller wrote.
"Stay at home, stay safe and together we can get through this."
