Knowledge Centre

Carsales boss blames banking royal commission for profit declaration

Jennifer Duke, The Sydney Morning Herald, Wednesday 13th February 2019, 13 February 2019 Carsales CEO Cameron McIntyre has blamed Australia’s banking royal commission for continued difficulties in the vehicle sales site’s financing division, though he expects “moderate” growth in the second half of 2019. For the first half of 2019, Carsales’ net profit was down 82 per cent to $11.1 million, which Mr McIntyre said was due to...

socio political environment

The business of saving the planet

Sean Silverthorne, Harvard Business School, Monday 11th February 2019, 11 February 2019 As businesses are beginning to become fully engaged on the issue of climate change, professors at Harvard Business School in domains such as customer service, finance, operations, and business history are coming together to explore the many facets of how sustainability and business management might mix. At the link below, you can see a sample of...

csr

Gucci and Adidas Apologise and Drop Products Called Racist

Tiffany Hsu & Elizabeth Paton, The New York Times, Thursday 7th February, 07 February 2019 Less than a week into Black History Month, Adidas and Gucci have apologised and pulled products criticized as racist. The Gucci item: an $890 black-knit women’s balaclava that could be pulled up over the lower half of a woman’s face, which included bright red lips ringing an opening for the mouth. This aspect was widely denounced on social media...

socio political environment csr

2019 Edelman Trust Barometer

Edelman, January 2019, 04 February 2019 The 2019 Edelman Trust Barometer highlights some interesting shifts in global trust trends. ‘My Employer’ has emerged as the most trusted entity, as people-to-people relationships feel more controllable. The shift is also noticed in the context of a “mass-class” divide. Trust among the informed public moved to a high of 65 per cent, while the mass...

adaptive leadership

Facebook users continue to grow despite privacy scandals

BBC News, Thursday 31st January 2019, 31 January 2019 Despite a series of well publicised data privacy scandals, Facebook said the number of people who logged into its site at least once a month jumped nine per cent last year to 2.32 billion people. Founder Mark Zuckerberg said the firm had "fundamentally changed how we run the company to focus on the biggest social issues". The company's shares have...

reputation

A ‘black eye’ for Apple: Facetime bug shakes faith in iPhone security

Julia Carrie Wong, The Guardian, Wednesday 30th January 2019, 30 January 2019 It was a “nightmare scenario” for Apple this week as news emerged on Monday that a bug transmitted audio and video to a caller despite the recipient not having accepted the call. It was triggered when the initial caller added a third person to a FaceTime call. Apple, yet to issue a software patch, has disabled group chatting on FaceTime,...

reputation

Companies can appeal to workers and consumers with liberal messages

The Economist, Thursday 24th January (Print Edition), 27 January 2019 In an advertisement released in mid-January, Gillette, a razor company, achieved its 15 minutes of viral fame by taking a stand against ‘toxic masculinity’. Its gamble was that the free publicity that came from the controversy would offset any lost sales to men who were annoyed by the messaging of the ad. A similar bet worked for Nike last year...

adaptive leadership

World leaders at Davos call for global rules on tech

Keith Bradsher & Katrin Bennhold, The New York Times, Wednesday 23rd January 2019, 24 January 2019 In a clear sign of growing international interest in regulating the tech industry, leaders of Japan, South Africa, China and Germany issued a series of calls on Wednesday for global oversight of the tech sector. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan said his country would use its chairmanship of the G20 to push forward a new international system for...

socio political environment

Journalism, Media and Technology Trends and Predictions for 2019

Nic Newman, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, University of Oxford, January 2019, 23 January 2019

The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism’s predictions for 2019 are outlined in great detail in this report, which notes that 2019 will be a ‘critical year’ for publishers and platforms in terms of rebuilding trust and credibility. 2019, it writes, will be a year of fundamental shifts. The labelling and prioritising of trusted content...

socio political environment media relations

Data, Analytics & AI: How Trust Delivers Value

MIT SMR Connections, Custom Research Report, January 2019, 22 January 2019 This report, by SAS in collaboration with the MIT Sloane Management Review, examines how to derive more value from analytics and emerging technologies like artificial intelligence. It presents a global survey of 2,400 business executives and managers to identify where recognised best practices are becoming mainstream and where they may still be...

measurement