Latest News
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Price-fixing: Using technology to raise retail margins
Virginia Harrison | October 19, 2010
At nearly eight o’clock on a Friday night a liquor-store owner scans his shelves and makes a competitive decision – time to bump the prices up 10 per cent.It’s a move many retailers execute at peak times, requiring manpower to print the updated labels and manually change them throughout the store.
Imagine if with the press of a button, you could change all the prices across your store at once.
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Invest in people and exploit digital tools to understand your customers
Virginia Harrison | October 19, 2010
Marketing guru Nicola Feeney explains how mid-size companies can brand better.‘Make sure you have a unsubscribe button’ is a key message marketing expert Nicola Feeney offers clients trying to come to grips with advertising in the digital age.
Telling potential clients to ignore you might sound odd, but with more than two decades of experience Ms Feeney’s approach of ‘communicate, don’t stalk’ has paid dividends for scores of organisations.
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Cafe OZ: OECD economist putting theory into practice
Virginia Harrison | October 14, 2010
After decades spent advising on the economy Jonathan Coppel decided to roll up his sleeves and hit the frontline. Several years ago the OECD economist launched Australian-themed bar Café Oz in his adopted home town of Paris
“We saw the emergence of Irish bars in Paris and people would always say oh Australia, we’d love to go, but it’s just too far. So we thought we’d bring a bit to Europe.”
It took nearly two years to get things off the ground, and Mr Coppel said getting investors on board was the hardest part.
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To market, to market: tips and traps in commercialising an idea
Virginia Harrison | October 14, 2010It’s every entrepreneurs dream. A killer business idea, a new product or specialised service, hits the market and finds instant success.
But the road from creative concept to genuine money-earner can be a rocky one.
Intellectual property (IP) lawyer Geraldine Farrell specialises in the commercialisation of IP and technology. As Special Counsel at Griffith Hack Lawyers, Geraldine sees plenty of ideas in their embryonic stage, along with the best and worst attempts at taking an idea to market.
She spoke to First 5000 what to look out for on the pathway to commercialisation:
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Human Capital Matters
Les Pickett | October 14, 2010Imagine you came to work tomorrow morning to find that the buildings, plant and equipment are all in place. The computer is chugging away collecting and processing data but there are no people. They have all gone.
How much would it cost to replace your entire workforce? These are people with expertise, knowledge and experience. People with an understanding of your industry and your company. People with professional competence.
Add to this the cost of lost profits and lost customers… the impact on your suppliers, shareholders and other stakeholders.
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Retail trade strengthens in August
Virginia Harrison | October 14, 2010
Retail trade rose for the sixth straight month in August but the pace of the gains has eased. Sales were up 0.3 per cent for the month compared to a rise of 0.7 per cent in July according to the Australia Bureau of Statistics (ABS).
Cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services were the best performers, up 1.5 per cent.
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OECD official on Australia’s standing in the global recovery
Virginia Harrison | October 14, 2010
JUST over two years on from the collapse of Lehman Brothers the recovery is slow, but international policy-shapers maintain economic rebuild and reform efforts are on track. “Globally we’re in a recovery phase, a very mild one. We’re seeing modest recovery in consumption with very high levels of unemployment and limited increases in wages.” Jonathan Coppel economic counselor to the Secretary-General of the Organisation of Economic Development (OECD) said.
“At the moment we are looking at frameworks for strong, sustainable and balanced growth. We are looking at what contributed to the GFC and what can create growth, including the impact of different structural policies.” He said.
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UPDATE: A merry Christmas to drive growth
Virginia Harrison | October 11, 2010
October 2010: Strong Christmas trading is expected to drive economic growth, as executive’s fears about interest rates ease slightlyThe latest Dun & Bradstreet Business Expectations survey reveals improvement in all 6 key indicators of business strength.
That includes a small lift in employment expectations which weighted on the index last month.
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The good, the bad and the ugly: getting to know your business
Virginia Harrison | October 1, 2010
Getting to know the ugly side of your business might just be the trick to move things up a gear. Virginia Harrison spoke to Phil Doyle from Curtin University. They’ve been running hands-on business development programs for small and mid-size businesses as part of the Curtin Growth Owner program for the past 15 years.
The so-called “pocket MBA” delivers practical lessons from business people, rather than academics.
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The Outlook for Australian Trade in the 21st Century
Andrew Leigh | September 20, 2010Transcript of the address delivered by the Hon. Andrew Leigh MP to the Global Access Partners National Economic Review: Australia’s Annual Growth Summit on 17 September 2010.
I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional owners of the land on whom we are meeting today. I would also like to thank Peter Fritz, Catherine Fritz-Kalish, and Lisa Middlebrook for involving me in this really stimulating discussion.
As I understand my role, it is to provide a relatively high-level overview on trade to kick-start discussion with the other speakers, who will focus on more direct policy-relevant topics.
My interest in trade comes about partly as an economist – it’s almost a stamp of entry into the profession that one must be a free trader. But also then having a policy interest through having worked for 18 months for the later Senator Peter Cook.
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SPEECH: Building on our Strengths
Wayne Swan | September 20, 2010Following is a transcript of the speech delivered by The Hon. Wayne Swan MP, Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer to the opening dinner of the Global Access Partners National Economic Review: Australia’s Annual Growth Summit, Sydney, 16 September 2010.
Thanks very much for having me here today and thanks Lisa [Middlebrook] for that introduction.
Can I welcome Jonathan Coppel, Senior Economic Adviser to the Secretary General of the OECD – who’s sitting over there at my table. Jonathan I hope you enjoy your time in Australia.
It’s great to be involved in marking the opening of Global Access Partners’ National Economic Review, which focuses on “how to boost Australia’s global competitive advantage and drive sustainable growth”. This is the essence of the Government’s mission and I’m looking forward to stepping through some of that for you tonight.
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SPEECH: A Prescription for Australian Innovation
Martin Duursma | September 20, 2010The following is based on the speech delivered at the Global Access Partners National Economic Review: Australia’s Annual Growth Summit, 17 September 2010, by Martin Duursma, CTO Office Chair, Vice President of Citrix Labs, Citrix Systems.
Let me frame the discussion with a couple of statements:
- The greatest barrier to success is the fear of failure.
- Failure is good.
Today all of us find ourselves in an Australia that is one of the leading economies in the OECD, in large part due to our good fortune with our resources boom. But, is this a long term condition? Indeed if you think about the word ‘boom’, isn’t it usually followed by the word ‘bust’?
Do we want to tie the long term success of Australia, our people, our society to such dependence on one type of economic activity?
I think Australia needs to broaden its economic base.
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Managed Accidents
Peter Fritz | September 8, 2010Along with my colleague Jeanne-Vida Douglas, I have just finished writing a new book titled “The Profit Principle”.
The book is due for release in November but the whole hook of it, which I wanted to share here, is that the most common mistake people make in business is falling for the adage that you have to “spend money to make money”.
That’s simply not true; you need to invoice to make money!
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Call for affirmative action on government purchasing from Australian MEs
Virginia Harrison | September 8, 2010
The government will stunt Australia’s economic growth by ignoring SMEs and failing to support innovation in this highly productive business segment, warns the boss of a growing mid-size tech-company. Leo Silver is the CEO of Integrated Wireless which delivers emergency wireless communications solutions to large institutions like hospitals and prisons.
He argues medium-sized companies like his are being sidelined by the government, which prefers to buy from larger, more established foreign rivals.
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Time to turn off the Simpsons
Lisa Middlebrook | September 8, 2010Why do Australians take the worst and leave the best of what the USA has to offer?
Having a Mum from Sydney and a Dad from Texas, over the course of my life, I’ve lived, studied and worked in both Australia and the USA. It’s an interesting perspective from which to view the way the two cultures regard one another.
