Bunnings CEO Mike Schneider says governments need to encourage a greater take up of IT, tech skills
Bunnings is finding it ‘harder and harder’ to secure key cybersecurity staff as the global bidding war for workers heats up.
One of Australia’s most powerful chief executives, Bunnings’ Michael Schneider, has called on federal and state governments to direct more funding into tertiary education around crucial digital, cybersecurity and computer science courses to ensure Australia doesn’t fall behind other nations.
And he conceded it was getting “harder and harder” to secure much-needed IT and technology workers as more companies around Australia continue to ramp up their own e-commerce operations and trigger a bidding war for workers.
Mr Schneider, addressing The Australian’s E-Commerce Summit on Thursday, said a recent study trip to Israel he led a Bunnings executives team on sheeted home to him the importance of ensuring there was a strong supply of technology savvy employees companies could draw on.
“I think state and federal governments are racking with these sorts of challenges all the time and there are great partnerships between government and industry on things like cybersecurity, and I think this is a reflection so freshly back from an overseas trip is that it’s access to talent,” he said.
“Not enough people are graduating from Australian universities with technology degrees, data science degrees, data engineering degrees, these are very specialist roles and it would be fantastic to see investment in time, to bring more people through so more younger and older Australians can learn the skills and the capabilities that will be needed for jobs that haven’t even been invented today.”
It’s something that Bunnings, which is owned by conglomerate Wesfarmers, has encountered itself as the hardware retailer was late to the e-commerce party when it launched its online retail platform in 2018. But has since rocketed ahead to now have a state-of-the-art online retail site, a strong presence across social media and mobile apps.
This has been fuelled by a hiring spree at Bunnings that has seen it build one of the biggest IT teams outside of traditional technology companies and the banks with a 500-strong in-house tech team.
But Mr Schneider said a challenge would be to keep key technology and e-commerce jobs within Australia, rather than losing them to offshore tech hubs where the reservoir of skills and talent is wider and deeper.
“One of the challenges in keeping your jobs in-house and onshore is: where is that talent coming from? We have not had skilled labour coming into Australia for a couple of years, that’s going to the challenge we face in the months and years ahead and to get that pipeline coming through will be I think exciting for all businesses.”
The Bunnings boss said the hardware giant had found it a challenge to secure IT and technology staff but that its brand power and leadership within the retailer had acted as a “magnet” to draw in new employees.
“But it is getting harder and harder because everyone is wanting to do a lot of things and everyone is looking at the same talent pool.”
Mr Schneider was in Israel last fortnight with senior Bunnings executives to meet with hardware suppliers, look at new e-commerce technologies and conduct some “speed dating” with tech companies.
He said as travel reopened “the world is moving on” and there were enormous opportunities in e-commerce, with Bunnings particularly interested in new technologies around customer data and cybersecurity which the hardware retailer could bring to Australia.
“The way capital is being deployed in Israel is significant and it is a fantastic environment for us and I think probably some technology over the next six to 12 months that we will be able to bring in and integrate into some of our operating systems.”
Mr Schneider and his Bunnings team were becoming increasingly interested in cybersecurity with the retailer believing protection of customer data was a core e-commerce competency, even for a hardware chain.
“It is really important, Bunnings are a well known brand, a trusted brand, customers choose to give us their information, their data, whether that’s through our PowerPass account program for our trade customers or our new implementation of FlyBuys.
“And these are big flows of customer information and along with product information, supplier information and team member information and keeping that secure is really important.
“I think that is a challenge that all businesses that operate using technology face in today’s business world.”
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