News

Thinking of reasons to switch to the cloud? I bet risk of flood wasn’t top of your list. Brisbane’s Gilkatho Coffee used cloud computing to keep operating when their business was 2.6m underwater.

Social media users are a diversity asset to businesses, according to Nareen Young, CEO of Diversity Council Australia (DCA). She said that while there were risks in allowing social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter in the workplace, with sensible risk management policies this connectivity could be beneficial.

Australian registered training organisation Upskilled has launched a $250,000 initiative to provide individuals with career help. Upskilled developed the offer after noting survey results showing that more than half of working Australians are unhappy in their careers.

Figures recently released by National Credit Insurance (Brokers) showed that the number of bad debt claims in February 2011 is almost 80% higher than claims for the previous month. The spike has caused cash flow finance specialist Oxford Funding to warn businesses to keep an eye on their debtors.

Business owners using Google operating system Android on their smartphones need to beware that the open source apps may contain malware.

Website filtering, as part of a greater online security plan, is one step businesses can take to boost staff productivity, according to security software firm Veritech Corporation.

Small businesses on the market worth up to $100 million are not finding the right buyers to maximise their sale value, says Lindsay Karathanassis, founder of Linkara Capital.

Independent public relations professionals Shuna Boyd of BoydPR and Christine Kardashian of Dash PR celebrate their business anniversaries today.

HP today announced that Google Cloud Print users can print directly to any HP ePrint-enabled printer from any Google Cloud Print supported app on any computer or smartphone. HP’s portfolio of web-connected and cloud-aware printers for home and business are the first to support Google Cloud Print out of the box.

Research jointly conducted by Google, Salmat and the Australian Centre for Retail Studies (ACRS) shows that online retailing will explode with growth this year as consumers demand multichannel sales points. Online and mobile-accessible sales channels will be the growth areas for businesses.

Business-to-business lending rates have declined as creditors get strict about payment terms, according to trade credit analysis conducted by Dun & Bradstreet. It revealed that during the GFC many organisations relied on extended credit terms from suppliers to stay in business but these terms have since retracted.

Australians are more stressed about losing their job than they are about getting divorced, according to results of a survey conducted by Newspoll on behalf of Suncorp Life. Losing a job ranked third on a list of seven events Australians found most stressful.

In this video, Dynamic Business blogger Jack Delosa interviews Dean McEvoy, founder of Spreets. The group buying site was sold to Yahoo!7 for $40 million in January, just 10 months after the business was started.

As of 1 July, it’s up to you, the employer, to provide payments to eligible employees. This quick Q&A tells you what you need to know.

Former Dynamic Business Magazine entrepreneur of the year Matt Barrie has taken out the number one spot in BRW’s inaugural Entrepreneur of the Year competition. The founder of Freelancer.com said he was honoured.

Slowing population growth and rising demand for skilled labour will negatively impact SMEs’ ability to expand, according to the latest Business & Population Monitor.

Three-quarters of Australians are willing to uproot and move across the world for the right job, the Kelly Global Workforce Index survey has found.

It’s the last week to get your entry in for the Telstra Business Awards (entries close midnight AEST Monday 4 April 2011) and that got me thinking… it’s not every day that you enter an awards program, so I thought I’d share a few tips to help you with your entry.

More than half of the Australasian workforce hates their job or have an indifferent attitude to it, according to a survey conducted on behalf of Leadership Management Australasia (LMA).

LMA’s L.E.A.D. (Leadership Employment & Direction) Survey for 2011 found the almost 60 percent of staff that gain no real satisfaction from their job was a contributing to factor to Australasia’s languishing productivity.

The recent news that the Federal Government is pushing the National Tax Summit to October and will not be covering key tax issues such as GST, the proposed carbon tax and the mining tax is worrying.