The post WeWork Spreads Down Under appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>It already has a Sydney presence and is reportedly looking for a second Melbourne site
New York-based WeWork targets technology workers, freelancers and entrepreneurs who rent individual work spaces or small offices.
“It’s no secret that we’re actively scouting for new opportunities in both Sydney and Melbourne to further our expansion,” WeWork Australia’s GM Balder Tol told The Australian, adding the group aims to be a major player Down Under in a few years’ time.
In Sydney, WeWork operates out of Martin Place and the technology hub of Pyrmont. Its new Melbourne office, occupies no less than six floors of the historic London Stores building. Occupying a so-called hot-desk costs $370 a month, while starting prices for private offices range from $730 a month for one seat to $6400 for 10.
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]]>The post Retail Expert To Share Business Secrets appeared first on Smart Office.
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Tony was an organiser of Harvey Norman’s computer and communications division. And within a few years he was promoted to general manager and increased the division’s turnover from $12 million to $565 million.
Tony then left Harvey Norman and began his own venture, Smartbuy in the field of online retailing. Tony survived a ‘perfect storm’ of market trouble and emerged as the CEO of a profitable technology company, bringing nearly all of his original employees with him. In March 2002, Tony stepped down as CEO of Uniqueworld to set up a new company, Achievers Group Pty Ltd. Tony also spent one year working as a CEO of a Public listed retailer.
Tony is the co-author of “Pillars of Business Success” and “Marketing success” and has contributed as a key author to “Secrets of Tops Sales Professionals Exposed” and “Secrets of Marketing experts exposed” and has articles read by over 200,000 people every month. He is also the author of “Business Success” which has recently released in the United States. He has also starred in a number of business training products and has also created and presented a business building program on Pay TV.
Tony Gattari’s appearance has been sponsored by Nikon Australia and the session will be chaired by Nikon’s James Murray.
PMA Director, Peter Rose said, “Tony’s advice will help get our delegate’s tills jingling. So this is a session that anyone passionately involved with retailing must be sure to catch.”
The PMA Conference is held in conjunction with the PMA Australia Digital Life Expo. All in the industry, whether they are a retailer, distributor, photographer or someone with a business connection to the imaging business, are welcome to attend.
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]]>The post Qantas To Merge With British Airways appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>CNN is reporting that British Airways has said it was in talks with Australian rival Qantas that could see a merger of two of the world’s most prestigious airlines.
BA says it is in talks with Australian rival Qantas.
London-based BA said the exploratory talks would look at creating a dual-listed company but offered no other details.
“There is no guarantee that any transaction will be forthcoming and a further announcement will be made in due course if appropriate,” BA said in a statement.
BA said the talks would not affect its negotiations in Spanish airline Iberia, with which it opened merger talks earlier this year.
The tech savvy airline British Airways has a lot to gain from a merger with British Airways analysts are reporting as both airlines have significant investments in providing services between Europe and Australia.
Now under the leadership of Irishman Alan Joyce the former CEO of budget airline Jetstar the merger comes at a time when the Australian dollar is $0.63 to the US dollar.
Earlier today Reuters reported that Qantas will remain majority Australian-owned and Singapore Airlines will stay shut out of lucrative Australia-U.S. routes under a new government aviation blueprint.
A discussion paper for the industry, to be released on Tuesday by the government, would keep the existing cap on foreign ownership of Qantas at 49 percent, Transport Minister Anthony Albanese told state radio.
“The 51 percent Australian ownership is maintained under the Qantas act. We think there should be a level playing field apart from that,” Albanese said.
The Australian newspaper said the proposals also include removing a 25 percent limit on individual foreign shareholdings in Qantas and a 35 percent total limit on foreign airlines’ holdings in the carrier,
More to follow.
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]]>The post Adobe A Good Place To Work Says Survey appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>Adobe bagged 11th place, making this the tenth year Adobe has been on the list. Additionally, Adobe is ranked No. 10 among “top-paying” companies.
Adobe’s Senior Vice President for Human Resources, Donna Morris said: “Adobe is honoured to be included once again on this distinguished list. In the face of continuing global economic uncertainty, our commitment to keeping Adobe a great place is unwavering, and our ranking speaks to our employees’ enthusiasm about growing their careers here.”
Adobe has approximately 7,000 employees in locations worldwide, including North America, Europe, Japan and Asia Pacific with more than half of Adobe’s employees located in the United States.
In total, 353 U.S. companies vied for a place on the “100 Best Companies to Work For” list. Two-thirds of a company’s score is based on the 57-question survey created by the Great Place to Work Institute, a global research and consulting firm with affiliates worldwide. Fortune polled a minimum of 400 randomly selected employees at each company. The remaining third is based on a company’s responses to the Culture Audit questionnaire, which included questions about demographics, pay and benefit programs, and open-ended questions on philosophy, communication and more.
See: www.adobe.com
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]]>The post HTC Appoints New Sales Manager appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>Minh was previously Account Manager at LG Electronics where he was responsible for developing and maintaining strategies to maximise handset sales and strengthen the channel relationships. Preceding this, Minh was Key Account Manager Optus SingTel and NSW Sales Account Manager for Cellnet where he focused on managing client relationships and was instrumental in maintaining and increasing the market share of Cellnet.
In his new role at HTC, Minh will continue to strengthen the relationships with HTC’s indirect retail channels and will also be in charge of developing and maintaining go-to-market strategies to launch HTC branded accessories in Australia and New Zealand.
HTC’s Sales and Marketing Director, Anthony Petts said, “Minh’s appointment reflects HTC’s commitment to strengthening our relationships with our distributors and retail channel partners. He is joining our dynamic team at an important time in the company’s history, with HTC already launching the Touch HD and Dream in the first quarter of this year. Minh’s wealth of experience in sales and account management will be valuable in developing go-to-market strategies for our exciting and innovative 2009 product roadmap.”
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]]>The post Telstra Appoints New Group Managing Director appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>Mr Geason’s appointment to Telstra Wholesale comes after the group’s previous GMD, Nerida Caesar, was moved to GMD, Telstra Enterprise and Government, a role she took up on Tuesday.
Mr Thodey said that Mr Geason’s experience dealing with complex customer solutions in his TE&G role was perfect preparation to lead the Telstra Wholesale team.
“I have worked closely with Paul for the past three years and have seen at first hand his intellect, passion and ability to work in a multi-faceted customer environment,” Mr Thodey said.
Mr Thodey also thanked Glenn Osborne, who has been acting GMD, Wholesale, for the past month. Mr Osborne will return to his position as Executive Director, Telstra Wholesale Sales.
Mr Geason said he looked forward to the challenges and opportunities that lay ahead for Telstra Wholesale.
“Telstra Wholesale is a part of the company that has always been closely scrutinised by government, the regulator and our customers. At a time when there is a regulatory review that could lead to changes within our industry, I will be working hard to ensure our wholesale customers continue to take advantage of the many opportunities that access to our reliable, world-class networks offers them,” Mr Geason said.
Prior to re-joining Telstra in 2006, Mr Geason was Senior Vice President of Sales at Netcracker Corporation in Boston in the United States. In this role he was responsible for the sale and distribution of telecom operating software to service providers and enterprise customers in North America, Europe and Australia.
Mr Geason will continue in his current TE&G role until he starts at Telstra Wholesale on June 30. A replacement for Mr Geason will be announced in due course.
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]]>The post $100M In Fraud Fines One Day Meeting With Prime Minister Gillard The Next appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>Dell, whose minders kept him well away from most IT journalists following his massive fine by the SEC, had been involved in five years of litigation with the IT company, relating to a fraud case involving both Dell and its Chairman Michael Dell.
The SEC alleged the company failed to disclose its relationship with Intel Corporation, who was providing hundreds of millions in illegal payments to Dell in exchange for the IT Company exclusively using Intel microprocessors in Dell products.
The issue was that the payments that were made by Intel over several fiscal quarters distorted the true operational earnings of Dell and that Michael Dell mislead investors into believing that the company was more profitable than it really was.
Michael Dell, the company founder and current chief executive, agreed to personally pay a $4-million as part of the total settlement.
Unlike previous visits where MD, as he is sometimes called, has held court at venues like the Sydney Hyatt, this time only two members of the press seem to have been permitted to interview the Great Man: Fran Foo from The Australian and Brian Corrigan from the Financial Review.
Neither was able to draw much headline news from Dell, though he did tell both journos the company had plans build a datacentre in Australia.
He did not reveal any details like timing, size, location, price or likely partners, though he did say it would be one of 10 around the globe and made it plain it wouldn’t offer public cloud computing.
Customers, quoth MD, “don’t really want a public cloud … what they want is a private, secure cloud that has a level of assurance and security with it.” He said further details would be announced in coming months.
In Canberra he had a brief meeting with PM Julia Gillard and Health Minister Nicola Roxon: the latter possibly the real target of the visit, given subsidiary Perot Systems’ – now renamed Dell Services – interest in e-health systems.
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]]>The post Narta Buying Group On A Roll In OZ appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>Australian appliance and consumer electronics buying group Narta is on a roll and growing at three times the industry average executives at their annual conference in whistler Canada have been told.
During the past 12 months Narta snared 26 per cent in side by side refrigeration 30.7 per cent share in plasma, 28.9 per cent in LCD, 26.2 per cent in imaging, 32.0 per cent in cooking and27.5 per cent in dishwashers.
The group that is responsible for the purchase of goods for the likes of JB Hi Fi, Clive Peeters, David Jones, Bing Lee, and organisations like Winnings believes that they can grow even further however it will be tough in the current economic climate Narta chairman John Wipfli told a packed audience of industry heavyweights.
In his opening address Wipfli said that the group achieved growth of 13 per cent in 2008 compared to the industry average of just 4.3 per cent.“Our industry is not going to disappear, however growth may not be the same as it has been in the past. We should be optimistic, not pessimistic.”
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]]>The post HP Cuts Deal Over Kickbacks For Government Contracts Claim appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>The post HP Cuts Deal Over Kickbacks For Government Contracts Claim appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>The post David Thodey New Telstra CEO appeared first on Smart Office.
]]>David Thodey the former boss of IBM and of late Telstra Wholesale is set get the top job at Telstra to replace Sol Trujillo who is due to depart on June 30. . The decision was made at a Telstra board meeting yesterday.
Thodey who lives in NSW appears to have topped a short list of four, including one unnamed British executive – and close rival John Stanhope, Telstra CFO and a 40-year veteran at Telstra.
It’s the second time Stanhope has been turned down for the top job: he was pipped by Trujillo in 2005 after the board showed Ziggy Switkowski the door. As late as Wednesday, some news sources were still tipping Stanhope to emerge as the board’s choice.
Others who missed out this time included Sensis (Yellow Pages) CEO Bruce Akhurst and consumer marketing group MD David Moffatt.
At 54, Thodey is four years younger than Stanhope. He has been MD of Telstra’s enterprise and government division, as well as heading up the Kaz services business, and is widely seen as seen favouring a more stable relationship with the government than Telstra pursued under the prickly Trujillo.
His major task – apart from attempting to repair the Telstra share price, which has slid 36 percent under Trujillo – will be to steer a voluntary separation deal ahead of the NBN rollout: something that Trujillo plainly could never have embraced. That course could also see the departure of Telstra chairman Donald McGauchie, who has been closely aligned with the Trujillo view.
Thodey joined the telco from IBM in 2001 as group MD of Telstra Mobile, and has also served as chairman of TelstraClear, the NZ subsidiary. In his enterprise and government role he has been drawing an annual paycheque of around $3.9 million – if the board reward him as they did Trujillo he can expect something more like $13-14 million.
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