By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

HOW DOES a company future proof itself in the wake of the climate crisis?

Robert Lockyer, the CEO and founder of Delta Global, a leading supplier of luxury sustainable packaging globally, said it’s a major question now that companies everywhere are asking.

He said businesses could only do that by evolving around the sustainable needs of consumers.

“It used to be an agenda point, and now it’s the agenda,” Mr Lockyer told Talking Business. 

“I’ll give you an example. If somebody said very plainly to me ‘Can you come along and give us a quote for our packaging?’,  I’d probably say ‘No’ because that’s not really what we’re about.

“Ultimately what we want to do is create less packaging for brand globally.”

Data helps creative decisions

Mr Lockyer said one of the key ways Delta Global does this is by looking at data.

“Data is one of the biggest drivers of our business now, particularly around managing [the] supply chain and we’ve implemented a platform called Delta Global Intelligence which tracks the entire supply chain from the very beginning all the way through when it lands in a client’s DC (distribution centre),” he said.

“We’re actively trying to be smarter, use that data to drive decisions, as opposed to using legacy decisions

“We are able to provide the economies of scale in the businesses we deal with and, therefore, you don’t need to hold as much stock.

“Our growth strategy is trying to work with more brands to make less packaging for each of them.

“That’s the best example of how businesses need to evolve, because ultimately if you end up with a price-based decision model, you end up with a race to the bottom and there’s only one way that ends up.”

Intelligence pays off

Mr Lockyer said when the company first looked at Delta Global Intelligence, he could see that would become the biggest areas of investment for the business.

“I was very much of the opinion that if we’re going to do this, we’re going to do it properly,” he said.

“We’re going to build it right and we’re going to make sure it’s customer intuitive from our perspective, and also from the client’s perspective. “

He said there was a problem with companies greenwashing today “and governments everywhere are bringing in laws to control it”.

Truth telling beats green-washing

Mr Lockyer said there was a way businesses could avoid greenwashing.

“Don’t make claims you can’t substantiate,” he said.

The best way for businesses to do this is not to ‘shoot for the stars’ but to try and do it in smaller steps.

“If you do it in smaller steps, you are more likely to achieve those goals as you move forward,” Mr Lockyer said.

“If you come out and say, ‘We’re going to be sustainable’ and ‘We’re going to use this product’ and ‘We’re great’, the first thing that will happen is you’ll get called out.

“There are many activists looking for people that are making claims that are unsubstantiated.” 

Mr Lockyer said businesses needed to be open to embracing technology. 

“It’s being open to having broader conversations and getting businesses, and particularly individual apartments within businesses, working together and removing siloed ways of thinking,” he said.

www.deltaglobal.co

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

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-12-interview-with-robert-lockyer-from-delta

ends

DATADOG Inc, the monitoring and security platform for cloud applications, has plans for a new data centre to be located in Australia and it is getting the ‘thumbs-up’ from major Australian clients including Flight Centre Travel Group and the employment platform Seek. 

The data centre, which will be built on AWS, will be Datadog’s first in Australia and adds to existing locations in North America, Asia, Europe and AWS GovCloud. The Australian data centre will store and process data locally, creating sovereign capacity to help Datadog’s customers meet local privacy and security requirements and preferences. 

“As the ANZ chief technology officer at Flight Centre Corporate, I am watching Datadog unite our entire technology ecosystem into a single pane of glass — transforming us from reactive to proactive and elevating outcomes for every level of the business,” Grant Currey said.

Datadog currently works with more than 1,000 organisations in Australia and New Zealand. This includes companies in the banking and financial services, retail and ecommerce, software-as-a-service and technology industries, with public sector, healthcare and higher education representing key expansion verticals.

“With Datadog’s end-to-end observability, we can detect and address service quality across multiple business units. Ensuring we are proactively resolving issues before they become business critical for us,” Seek technology division group executive, Lisa Tobin said. 

The new data centre will have Datadog’s full range of services available and is expected to open mid-year.

“Australia is a high-priority market for Datadog; we already have a strong employee base in-region and aim to create new jobs across various practices this year,” Datadog vice president for Asia-Pacific and Japan, Rob Thorne said. 

“Datadog has experienced surging demand in Australia and New Zealand. Analysts forecast IT spend will reach A$147 billion this year, with cybersecurity, generative AI and cloud services to receive significant attention. We are poised to support this appetite for advanced digital capabilities across the private sector, alongside the Australian Government’s ambitions to become a top three digital government,” Mr Thorne said. 

Datadog chief product officer, Yanbing Li said Datadog was continuing to invest in Australia and New Zealand, with the recent opening of the Melbourne office and the expansion of teams there “as well as in Sydney and Auckland”. 

“Australian companies are innovating rapidly and rely on Datadog to support their continued cloud investments, digital transformations and AI projects. For businesses in highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial services, hosting data locally is critical—a need we’re addressing with this new data centre.”

Ms Li said Datadog was used by organizations of all sizes and wide-ranging industries to enable digital transformation and cloud migration; drive collaboration among development, operations, security and business teams; accelerate time to market for applications; reduce time to problem resolution; secure applications and infrastructure; understand user behaviour; and track key business metrics.

www.datadoghq.com

ends

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

SOCIAL ANXIETY is now a great problem. It happens to about 10 percent of the population globally, particularly younger people.

Social anxiety or social phobia is a persistent fear of social and performance situations.

The most common form is fear of public speaking.  It is typical for children, adolescents and young adults.

It is also prevalent because of social media. It affects people in their jobs, family gatherings or even going out shopping.

US based CEO of Bionomics, Spyros Papapetropoulos said if it’s left untreated, it will lead to a lot of complications down the road.

“It leads to social isolation, morbid depression, suicidality and even addiction,” Dr Papapetropoulos told Talking Business. 

Stepping away from ‘antidepressants’

He said there were approved treatments for social anxiety. These are typically antidepressants.

“These medications have a very slow onset of effect,” Dr Papapetropoulos said.

“It typically takes about 30 days for these medications to start working and they have to be taken on a daily basis.

“Most patients do not experience long term benefits from these treatments. Only 30-40 percent respond to these treatments.

“Another important element I need to mention is the increased risk of suicidality while you are on these treatments if you are a young individual, particularly an adolescent.”

Bionomics specializes in mental health disease drugs especially anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and dementia.

Seeking ‘non-addictive non-sedating’ solutions

Dr Papapetropoulos said the ‘holy grail’ for pharma research in this area would be to find medication that was non-addictive and non-sedating.

Bionomics is now developing this sort of medication with its BNC210 product, which modulates the activity receptors that cause anxiety.

“How do we know that? We know through clinical trials,” Dr Papapetropoulos said. “There are imaging methodologies using functional magnetic imaging.”

This is done in an MRI machine.

“There is no evidence that it causes sedation, drowsiness, somnolence, fatigue and there is no evidence from the current work that it has an addicting potential.”

Dr Papapetropoulos said clinical tests of BNC210 showed it was not only effective in dealing with stress associated with public speaking but also in anticipation of the task.

“So if you look at the anxiety level of patients who participated in our trials, across the board, you see a reduction both in the anticipation of performing but also during the anxiety producing task,” he said.

Bionomics, Merck work on Alzheimer’s treatment

Bionomics also has a licensing agreement with Merck and Company for producing medication dealing with Alzheimer’s disease. It is aimed at improving cognition.

Merck funds all the research and clinical development costs and is responsible for any commercialization of any potential therapeutics.

“We have received $30 million so far in milestone payments,” Dr Papapetropoulos said.

“The total package can be up to $506 million over the years, both in milestones and royalties.”

Importantly, Bionomics now has new management – which Dr Papapetropoulos said could be totally transformative.

“We have plans to transform the company into being a leader in the anxiety space,” he said.

“We’re focusing on social anxiety disorder.

“We’re in the process of drafting a package to discuss with health authorities in the United States of the content of our late-stage program.” 

www.bionomics.com.au

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

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-1-interview-with-spyros-papapetropoulos-fro

ends

By Leon Gettler, Talking Business >>

MOST PEOPLE don’t talk about problems they have with incontinence. They’ll talk about other mental or sexual health issues, but incontinence is just never mentioned.

Which makes Confidence Club such a fascinating service. It’s online and it’s subscriber based. About 40% of Confidence Club’s business comes from subscribers and they make repeat orders.

Confidence Club also works with a lot of government programs like the NDIS and home care packages that don’t support subscriptions.

Extraordinarily, the business revenue has grown 900% since it was set up in 2020.

That’s just in Australia. It doesn’t include the company’s expansion into the United Kingdom (UK).

The incontinence products are not only for adults but also for kids aged between 4 and 15.

One million-plus products sold per year

“We have 60,000 customers who purchase from us in Australia,” Confidence Club co-founder Gavin Bessarabie told Talking Business. “We probably sell about a million pads at the moment. 

“The statistics show there’s over 5 million people in Australia who use incontinence products.”

He said it’s a condition that not only affects older people.

“It very much affects people of all ages and there are lot of different conditions that give rise to using incontinence products, including childbirth, menopause, a myriad of different co-morbidities.”

The interesting part about this is that these products often cannot be found in shops.

Personal service is the key

Mr Bessarabie said most people looking for incontinence products did not get the same level of help in a store, a supermarket or a pharmacy.

“The range is generally quite limited and the product quality is quite varying,” he said.

“It’s very hard to choose one from the other, there’s no standard scale.

“You can find a product but most of our customers tell us that nobody helps them choose a product. You can imagine if you walk into a pharmacy or a supermarket, nobody is going to help you choose the right product for your needs.

“It’s awkward. Certainly you know you’re not going to get help. If you ask, they’ll say ‘Try Aisle 5’. That’s about as much help as you’ll get.

“It’s a difficult product to buy a retail store,” Mr Bessarabie said. “Also, it’s very bulk. So if you’re not driving, and you have to catch a train or a bus, it’s a lot to lug home.

“A lot of our customers tell us they have mobility problems as well as incontinence problems. It’s challenging to buy in retail.”

Fulfilling international need

Confidence Club has now expanded into the UK. It’s an interesting model because the company it has no staff in the UK.

It has a warehouse partner but most of the product comes from Europe, so it’s easier to get there than it is in Australia.

Confidence Club is also planning to expand into France and other parts of Europe.

“If you look at the statistics, they have similar levels of obesity, levels of Alzheimers, levels of diabetes, all these conditions which play into incontinence and also an ageing population as well,” he said.

Mr Bessarabie said the business was built around customer service with 14 of the 20 staff members working in customer service.

“Our customer service people are friends with their customers,” he said.

www.confidenceclub.com.au

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

https://shows.acast.com/talkingbusiness/episodes/talking-business-46-interview-with-gavin-basserabie-from-con

ends