Around the world we are seeing a change - economic growth is being accompanied by a growing role for services and knowledge-based industries.

In Australia, with unemployment at a record 33 year low, and predictions that skills shortages will run to half a million people by 2020, we will need to access high value, competitive skills from beyond our borders.

This year IBM released the findings of its Global CEO Study which surveys over 1300 CEOs worldwide. The CEOs interviewed from Australia and New Zealand highlighted people skills as the greatest external force impacting their business in the next three years.

We are also dealing with the emergence of the globally integrated enterprise which is allowing work to be done from anywhere, and more importantly, where the skills are available.

And the world is getting more competitive.  The globally integrated economy is going to increase competition particularly in services, which underpin our economy. And much of this competition will come from increasingly skilled labour forces in places like China and India.

Which brings us to expertise and the challenge for Australia, which is this: The country that produces the best equipped talent pool to work in the global economy will receive the cream of the world's work.

The question Australia needs to ask itself is: where will its niche expertise be? And it's important we distinguish between skills and expertise.  It takes more than just skills to harness opportunities in a world where almost everything and everyone is connected.

If we look at the growth of IBM's business here in Asia Pacific, it's not just the sheer numbers which are breathtaking - we have more than doubled our workforce in five years with more than 100, 000 employees - many of whom work on projects outside their domestic markets - either for our clients around the world or to support IBM's globally integrated enterprise. 

But the important thing to notice is the new type of work these employees are engaged in. Because most of this high value, international work cuts across multiple disciplines. This type of expertise comes from a combination of business, technical, problem solving and - often - language skills. 

There's nothing we can do to stop low value work moving out of Australia - in fact, given the current skills shortages, many companies will be actively pursuing low value work out of the country through global sourcing

What we have to realise is that it is our job - in business, in academia and in government - to make sure high value work flows in to replace it.

To develop local skills and position our companies in areas of niche expertise so Australia comes out a winner in the massive economic shake up of globalisation.

Amanda Green, Principal, Public Sector Industry, IBM Global Services Australia