By Leon Gettler

EVERY BUSINESS is now engaged in remote work. But according to a survey by Riverbed Technology, many businesses find it challenging.

John Milionis, the channel director for Riverbed’s Asia-Pacific Japan network, said working from home thrust upon business by COVID-19 just exacerbated a trend that was already out there. All COVID did was make it mandatory for employees.

He said Riverbed, which has been around since 2004 and works with 92 percent of the world’s top 2000 organisations, had undertaken a global study on the future of work in response to the changes thrust upon business by COVID-19. 

“Some of those challenges are really around ensuring that their workforce can be as productive at home as they were in the office,” Mr Milionis told Talking Business.

“Certainly another one of those challenges is around security. Networks and infrastructure were built around a certain landscape, most of us being at work, in the office, in our principle place of work and all of a sudden we’re now at home and potentially that outlines security risk.”

SORTING OUT PERFORMANCE

Mr Milionis said Riverbed identified issues around performance such as slow file downloads, buffering – and competing with one’s children when mum and dad are trying to work while the youngsters were home learning or ‘smashing’ YouTube.

The other interesting part of the Riverbed survey was that around 70 percent of companies had not prepared themselves to support employees working from home.

“In other words, their business wasn’t ready to allow everyone to be mobile and to perform at their optimum,” Mr Milionis said.

He said issues around poor quality of audio and video was also relevant to the way people work now.

“In modern day work places, there’s probably a couple of key things we do and one is we use a hell of a lot of video and the second is we collaborate and share a lot of things,” he said.

“The challenges around that have certainly been prevalent. It suggests that visibility of the IT infrastructure is really critically important for business leaders.

“When we are unable to perform at our optimum or when we do have issues around things like buffering, or slow videos, or slow files, it does impact on the economics of any business so having visibility as to why and being able to remediate that is really important.”

He said that also created a lot of stress for employees who have to work from home, impacting on employee productivity.

BUSINESS IMPACTS OF HOME WORK

Mr Milionis said the Riverbed survey had found that in excess of 20 percent of businesses now found their employees were working from home full time.

Mr Milionis said that affected a lot of dynamics like return on investment, barriers to success, and areas where the business needed to invest

“Some of those barriers involve the ability of giving their remote workers that office feel so they can work at their optimum, they can do their work and be as efficient as possible,” he said.

“So things like improving performance, improving file downloads.” 

He said Riverbed could provide businesses with software that could sit on a business lap top and make key applications perform a lot better.”

Mr Milionis said if businesses were going to move to having virtual workforces, they needed to empower that talent for them to perform.

He said there were three variables that impacted the performance of that talent: where is the talent located, what are the applications they are trying to use and where are the application servers hosted?

“Once you triangulate that, you can start building your IT infrastructure,” he said.

www.riverbed.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness. 

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BUSINESS ADAPTATION is a new category in the Brisbane Lord Mayor's Business Awards, introduced to recognise excellence in businesses overcoming the challenges of the current economy.

Lord Mayor Adrian Schrinner has called on Brisbane’s business community to nominate for the 2020 Lord Mayor’s Business Awards, featuring the new category for business adaptation.

Cr Schrinner said the 2020 awards program would recognise businesses that have persevered during the challenging economic conditions caused by the coronavirus pandemic. 

“Now in its 15^th year, the Lord Mayor’s Business Awards celebrates the outstanding achievements of Brisbane businesses and Brisbane’s business people,” Cr Schrinner said.

“In 2020, the awards will shine a light on the tough Brisbane spirit as we recognise businesses that have showed resilience, perseverance and adaptation in challenging economic circumstances.

“For the first time, nominations are open for a new Award for Excellence in Business Adaptation, which will recognise businesses, regardless of company size, that adapted their business model in response to COVID-19.”

Cr Schrinner strongly encouraged businesses of all sizes to nominate, despite the challenges faced over the past six months.

“There are many Brisbane businesses, from large multinationals to community not-for-profits and start-ups, that have overcome difficult times through determination and ingenuity,” he said.

“We want to rally around these businesses and acknowledge their integral contribution to Brisbane’s economic recovery, job creation and future growth.

“By sharing stories of businesses adapting and prevailing, we hope to encourage and inspire other Brisbane businesses during our city’s recovery.

“Being recognised as an award finalist or winner can also help businesses regather momentum, make new connections and raise their profile to achieve greater levels of success.”

Nominations close on September 11, with winners to be announced at a gala dinner ceremony at City Hall on November 26.

Eight categories are open to businesses:

• HSBC Award for Excellence in Business Adaptation
• CCIQ Award for Outstanding Small Business
• Award for Outstanding Micro Business
• Urban Utilities Award for Product Innovation
• Australia Pacific LNG Award for Business Innovation
• ISPT Award for Outstanding Social Enterprise
• ANZ Award for High Growth Business Start-Up
• Yurika Award for Environmental Sustainability in Business

Two categories are open to individuals:

• · Port of Brisbane Award for Young Business Person of the Year
• · The Courier-Mail Award for Business Person of the Year

The final Optus Business Platinum Award category, not open to nominations,will recognise an outstanding overall winner from this year's award winners.

Nominate at lmba.com.au

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By Leon Gettler >>

FROM little things, big things grow. That’s the lesson learnt from the little-known oil company, Zea Relief, and its unique range of products that are changing the way people treat arthritis, inflammation and pain at home.

The company’s co-founder and managing director Hayden Brass said he had turned Zea Relief from a family project into a company based around a unique Tasmanian oil, Kunzea. Most of the products are listed as therapeutic goods for symptoms such as arthritis, joint pain and muscle pain.

The plant for the oil grows in parts of Victoria, around Wilson’s Promontory and the only place in Australia where it is harvested and distilled is in north-east Tasmania and the Bass Strait islands. 

Mr Brass said his entire childhood had been spent working with oils and attending expos and shows with his parents, working with natural products.

“We were living down in Tassie at the time and people kept asking for this unique oil,” Mr Brass told Talking Business.

“We hadn’t really heard of it. We did a bit of research into it and decided to actually keep testing it and develop products that people could safely apply to the skin.

“We did it over a number of years, saw great results, saw there was a fair bit of research around the oil and its composition, but no one was really utilising it. So we saw a market there for something that was quite unique, that nobody was really tapping into.”

THE GOOD OIL ON BUSINESS

Mr Brass said he decided in July 2016 there was the potential to turn it into a scalable business after he completed a university course in marketing and business.

“We have spent the last three and a half years refining it, getting really good feedback, getting the products listed and really setting up the foundations for a business that could be scaled and be known in Australia and overseas eventually,” Mr Brass said.

As part of the process, his mother who is also a massage therapist, had been using Kunzea on her clients and this had produced some great results.

That created encouraging feedback to take it further and turn it into a business that was selling 40,000 of its most popular products around the country and had a mailing list of about 20,000 clients

Zea Relief products are sold in Chempro stores in Queensland and the company has partnered with Mr Vitamins in New South Wales and Nature’s Works in Tasmania.

The company’s core focus, however, is to sell online and have direct communication with its customers. 

Mr Brass said the great advantage of that is it develops a close relationship with customers.

Another big driver of the company’s growth has been to market Kunzea through Facebook and Instagram. This, he said, creates room for great conversations with customers

“We see a lot of other companies who advertise on Facebook and online and they don’t even respond to comments and questions that customers have,” Mr Brass said.

“We go above and beyond wherever we can to answer their questions, there and then, in real time and being as helpful as we can.”

www.zearelief.com

www.leongettler.com

Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.  

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MEDIA Super and Cbus Super, two of Australia’s better performing super funds, plan to join forces and have signed a memorandum of understanding to begin due diligence on a joint arrangement to come into effect next year.

Media Super oversees just under $6 billion in retirement savings for workers predominantly in the printing, arts, media, and entertainment industries.  Cbus is a $54 billion dollar fund primarily for workers in the building, construction and allied sectors.

The proposed joint arrangement will potentially manage the retirement savings of over 800,000 Australians.

The partnership will see a merging of the funds’ investment and administration operations with both the Cbus Super and Media Super branding maintained.

Media Super chair, Gerard Noonan said the joint arrangement would let Media Super members access the benefits of scale. 

“By increasing our size, we can provide access to a greater range of investment opportunities and provide a better deal through cost savings, potentially reducing the investment fees,” Mr Noonan said.

“Cbus has a strong offering with 30 percent of its investments internalised and ownership of its market-leading developer, Cbus Property.

“We believe that the merger will also continue to build on our leading responsible investment approach and have a much stronger voice with the companies with which we engage.”

Cbus Super chairman Steve Bracks said Cbus understood the importance of maintaining a strong connection with members.

“For 35 years our fund has had a strong bond with our members,” Mr Bracks said.

“This affinity with our members has built a strong level of trust in the fund. Media Super has a very similar history and connection with their members.

“This is an exciting opportunity for both of our funds and I am very pleased to see this proposal progressing.”

The partnership is conditional on a more detailed due diligence process taking place. This will provide an independent assessment proving confirmation that the joint arrangement is in the best interests of members for both parties.

A spokesperson said both funds would not be making further public comments until the due diligence process concludes. 

www.cbussuper.com.au

www.mediasuper.com.au

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