The Business Council of Australia, the Australian Industry Group and the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI) have risen up against “green tape”, asking Julia Gillard and the premiers to scrap “futile” green energy schemes and warning environmental regulations are jeopardising $900 billion in resources and infrastructure projects.The trio have presented a paper which gives an example of one company which reported that complying with the Energy Efficiency Opportunities Act required 660 employee hours with $480,000 of consultancy fees. The business groups claim over 240 federal and state policies administered through different agencies relate to energy efficiency and climate change.

Peter Anderson, chief executive of the Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ACCI), says green tape is a significant issue for businesses, “The carbon tax is not good for business, but if we are going to have a carbon tax we should eliminate all of the other costly green energy schemes which have already added to Australia having uncompetitive energy costs and soaring electricity prices. We have trashed our historic competitive advantage over low cost energy and we are adding to that problem by maintaining green energy programs at a state government level at the same time as a federal carbon tax is being introduced.”

More than 5,000,000 Australians are active card holders of the Fly Buys program which was acquired by Coles in 2011. Fly Buys is undergoing something of a relaunch by Coles and 16,000,000 people are going to receive a new FB card in the mail. What makes it different in 2012? Coles says it is offering customers more points on their everyday household spend, more places to earn points and a faster way to get savings off their groceries. This leads to the 5 Golden Rules of loyalty marketing which are being utilised by the retail giant…

1. Include as many people as possible. Instead of having to request to join the loyalty program, Coles is automatically sending customers a card which they then just have to activate.

2. Have a key selling point. Coles has come up with a key selling point called my5 which will give flybuy’s customers 10% off five products of their choice – whatever the price.

3. Loyalty programs need to be easy. The relaunch includes getting rid of the expiry date on points, increasing their dollar value, and making it easier for shoppers to claim rewards, including at the checkout.

4. The more the merrier. The original flybuys program included Coles, National Australia Bank, Target, Kmart, Kmart Tyre & Auto Service, Coles Express, Liquorland and 1st Choice Liquor. The revamped program has expanded to include Webjet, AGL, and Telstra alongside the original flybuys partners.

5. Use the data. Data gathering by Coles is likely to include information on where customers are from, the products they buy and the hours they shop.

Source: smartcompany.com.au

It is always sad news when you hear of a company forced to close its doors – especially engineering and manufacturing companies (because it is my belief that Australians are amongst the most innovative in the world but this sector has been left exposed by numerous governments).

Today Australian Envelopes entered voluntary liquidation due to the rapid demise of snail mail. Meaning…online communication is king.

Despite increasing to 45% market share the company suffered losses of minus half a million dollars. 300 people are now out of a job.

They were the largest envelope maker in the nation.

Source: smartcompany.com.au

Google, the king of internet search but not on the social front, has launched its rival to Facebook, a social networking service called Google+.

“Online sharing is awkward. Even broken. And we aim to fix it,” Google’s senior vice president for engineering Vic Gundotra on Tuesday said in a blog post about the long-awaited social networking initiative from the internet giant.

Unveiling Google+, Gundotra stressed the ability it gives users to separate online friends and family into different “Circles,” or networks, and to share information only with members of a particular circle.

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“We’d like to bring the nuance and richness of real-life sharing to software,” he said.

“We want to make Google better by including you, your relationships and your interests.”

One of the criticisms of Facebook is that updates are shared with all of one’s friends unless a user has gone through a relatively complicated process to create separate Facebook Groups.

“Not all relationships are created equal,” Gundotra said.

“So in life we share one thing with college buddies, another with parents, and almost nothing with our boss.

“The problem is that today’s online services turn friendship into fast food – wrapping everyone in ‘friend’ paper – and sharing really suffers,” he said.

Google+, located at plus.google.com, is currently being tested by a small number of people or is available by invitation only.

But Google said in a message on the site that it “won’t be long before the Google+ project is ready for everyone”.

Google unveiled several new tools integrated into Google+, including “Hangouts”, which allows for video chatting among friends, “Mobile” for location-sharing and “Huddle” for group text messaging.

Photos and video can be uploaded and shared among Circles using a feature known as “Instant Upload”, while an online sharing engine called “Sparks” delivers content from the web into a user’s feed.

Google dominates internet search but the Mountain View, California, company has failed to make inroads on the social networking front, where Facebook has accumulated nearly 700 million users and Twitter about 200 million.

Former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt, speaking at the AllThingsD technology conference last month, took responsibility for the company missing the wave when it came to making services social, saying “I screwed up”.

Google’s last major foray into social networking – Google Buzz, launched in February 2010 – spawned a slew of privacy complaints and led to a slap on the wrist from the US Federal Trade Commission.

Under a settlement between the US regulator and Google announced in March, Google is required to implement a comprehensive privacy program and will be subject to independent privacy audits every two years for the next 20 years.

Google+ makes its debut as Google and Facebook wage a fierce battle over online advertising dollars and how people navigate the internet.

Google does not send people to Facebook and vice versa, and both companies are seeking to become the chief gateway to the internet.

In May, Facebook was left red-faced after acknowledging it had hired a prominent public relations firm to draw attention to privacy practices at Google.

Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of technology blog SearchEngineLand.com, said in a blog post it was “anyone’s guess” as to whether Google+ would be successful.

“If you’re happy using Facebook, there seems relatively little to make you want to switch over to Google Plus, at the moment,” said Sullivan, who received an early glimpse of the new service from Google.

Source:AAP

Because unlike larger businesses that hire professional staff to service their ongoing content requirements, smaller business neither have the time, resources or procedures to feed the hungry content beast.

As reported here on several occasions, smaller business are more familiar with a “set and forget” approach to their promotion. They plan their activities for the period ahead, engage the professionals responsible for creating and implementing it, and essentially wait for the enquiries to roll in.

Yellow Pages captured this situation brilliantly in their “not happy Jan” advertising. If a deadline was missed it might be an awful long time before the next opportunity arose – taking with it valuable opportunity cost. But this approach is the antithesis of what is required in the online world.

Source: smartcompany.com.au

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