News

Gloria Jeans has collected two honours in the 2011 Australian Business Awards, being named alongside a number of big businesses recognised for being progressive and innovative.

Despite a slight improvement in business conditions during the June quarter, the NAB Quarterly Business Survey has found conditions remain soft and further weakness is likely in the near term.

Brad Smith’s story is a classic example of a passionate hobby unfolding into small business success. From quiet beginnings in the backyard shed with his Dad, his passion, drive and energy have helped him build a retail chain of braaap stores.

Each Friday, you can now look forward to Dynamic Business bringing you a must-read interview with a well-known or up-and-coming Australian entrepreneur.

Your Friday Entrepreneur Fix this week features Will Young, the man behind cult coffee brand, Campos.

Tim Wolfenden blogs about effective management of the multitude of business costs.

“Integrating fixed cost management into your business planning process is the key to keeping these costs down.”

Over 1 million users around the world have downloaded Apple’s OS X Lion, the operating system being hailed as a step forward in the merger of PCs and smart devices, in just 24 hours.

Australia will soon have its first carbon neutral business precinct, with the Grote Business Precinct working alongside the Energy Efficient Building Australia to become carbon neutral by 2020.

COSBOA has raised concerns about the culture of the superannuation industry, where it believes many director positions appear to be “sinecures” for people from unions and big business associations.

Allphones Retail Pty Ltd has been fined $45,000 for contempt of court orders, following action by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC).

Trend Micro has unveiled its first cloud-based productivity tool for SMBs, delivering a service that promises agility, flexibility, security and cost savings.

Poor spending looks set to continue hurting the retail industry, with the Commonwealth Bank Business Sales Indicator (BSI) falling again in June.

Edelman has launched Bloglevel and version 2.0 of Tweetlevel, two new tools designed to help companies navigate social media platforms, like blogs and Twitter, to identify which users are influential on a particular topic.

Morris Bryant offers up an alternate view about the benefits to business of the group buying market.

“The deals addiction isn’t going to keep the industry afloat, it’s only going to ruin it – but the problem doesn’t just lie with consumers.”

For the first time in its history, the NAB National Small Business Summit is introducing the Virtual Delegate – a system to allow SMBs from around the country to participate in the event.

As more and more marketing opportunities become available to businesses both online and offline, it can be a difficult task to track if your budget is being spent wisely.

Catriona Pollard delivers a checklist to ensure you’re using social media appropriately in your business.

“Before you sign up and start Tweeting or Facebooking, you should think about the social media strategy. This means taking time to stop and think about what you want to accomplish.”

Servcorp’s My Biggest Small Business Challenge competition has revealed task delegation, time management, work/life balance and isolation are the biggest challenges facing SMBs.

For the very first time, Dynamic Business is sponsoring Small Business September, a premiere event designed to assist businesses in their growth phase via hundreds of state-wide seminars, workshops and online webinars.

Brad Callaughan offers up a few tips for small businesses to survive the impact of the carbon tax.

“Consumers are going to be the first losers as they’ll have to wear the price increase passed on from small businesses, and the second loser will be small business with landlords keen to pass on any increase to their costs.”

With the News of the World scandal fresh in our minds, Julian Smith asks whether you run your business ethically.

“It’s not just enough to make a list of all the values and principles your business will abide by, you actually have to live them.”