Op-ed

As workplaces across the country bring workers back to the office small issues are becoming big problems and creating significant productivity concerns for businesses such as; Poor dress, Tardiness, Hygiene, Language, Physical appearance, and Inappropriate language. These issues may sound trivial, but when you are part of a team working with people day in and day out, they start to grind on people’s nerves and can cause massive implosions. Even worse, if these people are representing businesses at stakeholder, client and new business meetings, these issues can be extremely damaging for a brand. Business can be lost.

The recent 25bps hike is in line with consensus expectations and many will see it as the most palatable outcome for markets. There was talk of a pause in the lead up to the meeting, but sentiment about the financial sector has turned more positive in recently, and investors are reasonably confident that quick actions by regulators have avoided a systemic financial crisis.

Workplaces are being hit with a new kind of issue that is decimating businesses faster than the impact of COVID. It is called ‘reteam-itis’. Businesses all over the country have been operating from home remotely for the better part of three years. Some have transitioned to a hybrid model where staff come into the office occasionally for meetings and townhall events, but for the most part, workers have been doing the bulk of their work from home.

There is an old saying that the only constant in life is change, and the longer it has been since the last change, the next change or challenge is even closer. There is also an understanding in business that you can not pay someone more than the value of what they produce. Lastly, you can not charge a price for a product that is higher than people can afford as they will go to a different supplier, seek a cheaper alternative or give up the product or service completely if it is not deemed a necessity. With these three basic business principles in mind, restaurants are facing headwinds right now that need decisive action if they are to survive.

The Latitude Financial attack clearly shows that criminal groups are moving to a business model of selling Australian’s highly sensitive personal information, including biometric information, on the dark web. What’s most disturbing about the Latitude Financial attack is that at least 100,000 facial images, matched with full drivers’ license details, were stollen.

In times of economic uncertainty, every marketing dollar counts. As Australia (and the rest of the world for that matter) “flirts” with a recession, marketers have their hands full with hamstrung budgets and ever-increasing pressure to do more with less. The last thing any marketer needs is a worldwide group of fraudsters covertly siphoning away their hard-earned budgets which in essence makes the budget process even harder to justify for the next year.

Scammers continue to find novel ways to steal cryptocurrency and this time they’re riding on OpenAI’s GPT-4 launch. Tenable Research has found that a day after the eagerly anticipated launch of OpenAI’s Generative Pre-trained Transformer Version 4 (GPT-4), on 15 March, scammers began sending phishing emails and tweeting phishing links to crypto enthusiasts about an OpenAI crypto token. The only problem is - an OpenAI crypto token does not exist.

It’s been a long, hard, and sometimes lonely road for CISOs to get the rest of the company on board and recognise the value of cybersecurity. Historically cybersecurity has not been a priority due to a lack of awareness or willingness to act from the C-suite and boardroom. But the recent devastating data breaches suffered by Optus and Medicare and a general increase in prevalence of attacks, has led to significantly better awareness and recognition of the cyber risk that all firms face, big and small. The first hurdle has been overcome, but the next challenge is transforming this awareness into tangible actions and increased budgets.

AI could replace knowledge and creative experts faster than customer service personnel. Since OpenAI launched ChatGPT late last year, there has been speculation that the generative tech will enable firms to do away with people and cut costs by deploying chatbots to run the sales funnel, deliver customer service and generate marketing and communications activities.

Sapien Ventures, a pan Asia Pacific, technology venture capital firm, is calling on the Federal Government to urgently reconsider plans to alter Australia’s Significant Investor Visa (SIV) program. The Albanese Government has signalled intentions to review the program, with the Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neal saying it “isn’t adding value to the country.”