Author: Colin Benjamin on
12 March 2010
Last week's blog produced an all time high response from SmartCompany readers. It highlights the conundrum of all forecasting systems, posed thousands of years ago by Heraclites - the only constant is change itself.
Author: Colin Benjamin on
5 March 2010
There is a general agreement that house prices are going up dramatically, unemployment levels are coming down and casual workers are being offered permanent part-time positions as the new form of labour market flexibility.
Author: Colin Benjamin on
26 February 2010
The next six months are going to be an increasingly difficult prospect for traditional small and medium enterprises that have survived the GFC. While the mass media focuses upon the equities exchange, Parliament moves into the deficit containment sphere, smart companies will have to concentrate on what Drucker called the business of business - creating new customers.
Author: Colin Benjamin on
19 February 2010
The Australian sharemarket — which has stayed at about the same level for much of February - shows that most investors are only too aware of the Abbott debt bomb campaign and the Tanner tendency to tell caucus that its plans for more cash splash are cactus. Unemployment and under-employment is still high (Roy Morgan estimates for January show unemployment at 7.5% (up 0.7% since December 2009) and total unemployment and under-employment at 14.7% (1.720 million).
Author: Colin Benjamin on
15 February 2010
Australia's recovery and job creation, especially in Victoria, has been ahead of the rest of the world, generating concerns that the economy will grow too fast if we follow other nation's retention of stimulus packages.
Author: Colin Benjamin on
5 February 2010
As the nation heads for the silly season of an election year, it's only appropriate to recognise the wisdom of Tony Abbott and the folly of Barnaby Joyce in their respective relationships with our top public servants.
Author: Colin Benjamin on
29 January 2010
In the next week or so we are likely to have the interest rate rise that the RBA thinks we have to have, at a time when other countries are holding onto their stimulus packages and keeping rates unchanged.
Author: Colin Benjamin on
22 January 2010
Watch out for the first weeks in February for signs that Glenn Stevens and Ken Henry will enter election year with a curb on consumer over-confidence and pressures to jump all over imports.
The next few months are going to be critical for all smart companies that have weathered the global financial crisis, reviewed their 2010 business plans and started to convert part-time to full time staff.
Author: Colin Benjamin on
8 January 2010
If smart companies have not revised their business and marketing plans for 2010, now is definitely the time to visit both accountants and the lending manager of the local bank branch. Overseas currency speculators are convinced that the dollar is heading towards parity with the US dollar, as central bankers become more concerned about a global inflationary surge fuelled by continuing stimulus packages.