Archive for the ‘business’ Category

Australian online security startup inks big deal with Singapore government

Monday, May 12th, 2014
Photo credit; FutUndBeidl on Flickr

Photo credit; FutUndBeidl on Flickr

An Australian online security startup has won the backing of the Singapore government.

Singapore government-owned Assurity Trusted Solutions has entered a strategic alliance with Melbourne identity verification specialist iSignthis to provide identity verification for its OneKey two-factor authentication token. The government intends the token to be used as a national standard.

As part of the agreement it has also picked up rights to supply the tokens and its security network internationally in other markets. Assurity plans to distribute the OneKey token as a smartphone application for Android and iOS devices.

iSignthis chairman Tim Hart said the company had set its sights on south-east Asia and Europe.

“The citizens and residents of Singapore, the EU, most of south-east Asia, Australia and New Zealand will benefit from [evidence of identity] and [two-factor authentication] services being executed online. We look forward to building on our strategic alliance with other products and services going forward,” Hart said.

To read more about this story, click here.

$5 million up for grabs for the right Australian digital startup

Friday, May 9th, 2014
Photo credit; vagawi on Flickr

Photo credit; vagawi on Flickr

One Australian digital startup will be selected to receive $5 million in funding, thanks to The Big Pitch, a competition run by Melbourne venture capital fund Oxygen Ventures.

In addition to funding, Oxygen Ventures is offering mentoring and operational support to the winner. Applications close on June 5.

Five finalists will be selected to pitch in front of an audience and an expert panel that includes Dodo founder Larry Kestelman, Network Ten executive general manager Russel Howcroft and BlueChilli founder Sebastien Eckersley-Maslin.

Oxygen Ventures investment director Ilya Frolov says the Big Pitch judges are looking for digital start-ups at the pre-commercialised or newly launched phase that are globally scalable and offer innovative technology.

“The Big Pitch is a great forum for these start-ups to showcase a game-changing concept,” Frolov says.

For more information on this story, click here.

WooThemes recommends A/B testing for your WordPress ecommerce site

Wednesday, May 7th, 2014
Photo credit; David Bleasedale on Flickr

Photo credit; David Bleasedale on Flickr

WooTheme’s Tom Ewer recommends the following plugins for conducting A/B testing on your WordPress-based ecommerce site:

Ewer says using a WordPress plugin is preferable to using an outside tool for testing because these plugins are specifically designed for WordPress and are far more intuitive for people who already know the platform.

He also explains that conducting regular tests of your ecommerce site is important for knowing what parts of it are working well and what parts need improving.

To read more on this story, click here.

Australia tops countries that hire online freelancers

Monday, May 5th, 2014
Photo credit; Alisa on Flickr

Photo credit; Alisa on Flickr

Research by Elance-oDesk has found that Australian businesses are increasingly hiring freelancers online for technical skills, such as PHP, CSS, and HTML.

Australia leads the way in hiring online IT freelancers on Elance-oDesk when adjusted per capita, according to new data released by the online work marketplace firm.

The Online Work in Australia study showed 161,000 Australian companies are registered on the Elance-oDesk platforms, representing 8% of all businesses in the country. This has grown over the last three years with Australian businesses increasing their online hiring on Elance-oDesk by 235%.

The research indicated the job skills Australian businesses were after the most in the last 12 months was in IT and programming (40%), where they hired people with skills such as PHP, CSS, and HTML.

This was followed by 26% of job posts being related to design and multimedia projects, including: logo design, Adobe Photoshop, and Adobe Illustrator.

Newly appointed Elance-oDesk Australia country manager Kyri Theos said Australian businesses are turning to online for the skills they need.

“We’re seeing a shortage of IT professionals in Australia; 40% of all jobs by Australian businesses on Elance-oDesk were for IT and programming, so that’s really telling us that they have gaps they want to fill,” he said.

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Dick Smith’s sales up thanks to stronger online showing

Friday, May 2nd, 2014
Photo credit; David Jackmanson on Flickr

Photo credit; David Jackmanson on Flickr

Dick Smith reported a 1% rise in sales during the first quarter this year, with online transactions jumping by 47% to represent around 4% of all retail sales.

Australian sales of $238.4m were up 6.4% compared to the three months to the end of December.

Dick Smith’s managing director, Nick Abboud said that the strong growth in online sales was a highlight in the first three months of the calendar year.

“During the quarter, we expanded our offer into Westfield and Ebay. This expansion, combined with our existing websites and our online capability, supports our omni-channel offer and allows us to compete strongly with pure online retailers,” Abboud said.

“We anticipate that by June 2014, our store fulfilment will provide our customers with the flexibility of quicker and cheaper local delivery or click and collect in each of our 368 stores.”

To read more about this story, click here.

Guidelines for ‘Made in Australia’ packaging claims released

Thursday, May 1st, 2014
Photo credit; Marc Falardeau on Flickr

Photo credit; Marc Falardeau on Flickr

Advertising your products as Australian made can be a huge boost for your business, but you do have some obligations to follow under Australia Consumer Law if you want to do that.

Making an incorrect statement about products made in Australia can lead to fines up to $1.1 million, so it’s worth it to educate yourself about what you need to know.

To help ensure you’re making these claims correctly, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has created the Country of origin claims and the Australian Consumer Law External link guide, which you can download from that link.

Ladbrokes buys Australian online company Betstar

Saturday, April 12th, 2014
Photo courtesy of Play Among Friends Paf on Flickr

Photo courtesy of Play Among Friends Paf on Flickr

In the battleground that is Australian online betting, Ladbrokes has made a major move by purchasing Betstar for 12.4 million pounds.

This marks the second foray into Australia for the company, which bought online company Bookmaker.com.au and launched a website in Australia last September. Ladbrokes is Britain’s second-biggest bookmaker.

Rival European bookmakers including Paddy Power and William Hill have also been expanding in Australia.

Betstar has around 40,000 registered customers and generated earnings of A$12.9 million in the year to March.

“Australia represents one of the most vibrant regulated sports betting markets in the world and today’s announcement will see us add new customers to our growing presence,” said Damian Cope, managing director of Ladbrokes’ international arm.

To read more on this story, click here.

Many Australian businesses live with false sense of security

Thursday, April 3rd, 2014
Photo credit; elhombredenegro on Flickr

Photo credit; elhombredenegro on Flickr

Australian businesses are living with a sense of security about the safety of their sensitive data that just isn’t true, according to the latest report from McAfee.

The report found 94% of organisations globally think their company is protected against Advanced Evasion Techniques (AET).

AETs are methods of disguising malware so it is able to penetrate business networks undetected by splitting the components of a malware attack into pieces, allowing it to bypass a firewall or IPS appliance. Once it is inside the network, the code reassembles itself and continues its mission of collecting data, destroying networks and exposing company IP.

There are more than 800 million known types of AET and the number is growing.

McAfee APAC CTO, Sean Duca, said businesses need to ensure their security solutions provide visibility into whether the business is protected.

“Australian businesses should expect more from their security provider, and demand more from the technology they already have,” he said. “If their security solutions are not able to detect all types of attacks which disguise themselves and attempt to penetrate the network, or fully visualise the threat landscape, their data is at risk.”

The report, entitled; ‘Security Industry’s Dirty Little Secret,’ surveyed 800 CIOs and security managers from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Brazil, and South Africa, revealing that 15% of Australian respondents said their company had experienced a breach in the past 12 months, while the global average is 22%.

More than half of global respondents said that AETs posed an immediate and serious threat to their company and 69% said AETs can already exploit known vulnerabilities, while 59% of Australian respondents said AETs can already exploit known vulnerabilities.

Globally, nearly 40% of those breached believe that AETs played a key role in breaches over the past 12 months.

To read more on this story, click here.

Sydney Morning Herald gives overview of online product safety guidelines

Monday, March 31st, 2014
Photo credit; SEOPlanter on Flickr

Photo credit; SEOPlanter on Flickr

If you sell products online to Australian customers, you have to meet certain product safety requirements under Australian Consumer Law.

To help you with this, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) has written a guide for businesses that outlines the steps you can take to meet safety requirements in your business. It also provides great tips for selling online, including:

  •     use good quality photos of your products
  •     give clear product descriptions and instructions for use
  •     provide an age-grading on children’s products
  •     check Australian safety standards and bans before listing a product for sale on your website.

Meeting the ACCC standards helps you to avoid:

  •     the costs of recalling unsafe products
  •     damaging your reputation
  •     exposing your business to legal action or formal complaints
  •     losing customers.

Download the Consumer product safety online guide now from the ACCC website.

To read more about this story, click here.

 

Australian businesses getting serious about online sales

Friday, March 28th, 2014
Photo credit; Timothy H on Flickr

Photo credit; Timothy H on Flickr

Myer boss Bernie Brookes and his counterpart at David Jones, Paul Zahra, believe they will both get to 10% of total sales done online over the next three to five years.

Australian retailers are crawling to 10% online penetration slowly, while their retail peers in the US and Britain have already met and surpassed that benchmark and are well on their way to 20% of all sales done online.

Analysts agree that Australian retailers have been slow to get online, and that hesitation and lack of investment going back to last decade have meant we will probably remain behind the pace of the US and western Europe.

”The Australian department stores in particular and retailers in general have copped a lot of flack for being slow to move online,” said Caroline Finch, senior analyst at research group IBISWorld.

”Myer and David Jones in particular have been slow when compared to their international counterparts, and the department store industry has gone backwards over the last five years largely as a result of losing market share to other players who have jumped into the online space.”

Brookes says the current trajectory of online sales in Australia is similar to what was experienced in the US and Britain, which augurs well for stores such as Myer matching the online sales rates booked by the likes of Neiman Marcus and John Lewis.

”If you look at the growth of online for John Lewis, Debenhams, Macys, Nordstrom and Neiman Marcus and you plot it – it’s almost identical to us.

”It’s start at zero, goes to 1 per cent, doubles to 2, then doubles again to 4, double to 8 and that’s exactly the game plan we are seeing from a Myer point of view. So it’s happening at the same rate.”

The key game-changer, experts agree, is the proliferation of hand-held mobile devices, such as iPhones and tablets, that liberate shoppers to be able to make on-the-spot purchases as they walk through a department store, ride on a train or like what they see in a magazine as they sip a coffee at their favourite cafe.

”And this is what we see in the banking sector,” said NAB retail sector head Tiernan White, ”where mobile connectivity is extremely important to us.

”Access to quick transactability is certainly helping online sales.”

To see more on this story, click here.