29 June 2012: Google Nexus 7 tablet and Law firm gender equality

Analysts weigh in on Google Nexus 7 tablet: Nexus 7 seven-inch screen, costs half of cheapest iPad, more a rival to Amazon’s Kindle Fire (not yet in Australia). Nexus 7 in Australia mid-July, 8-gig version is $249, 16-gig is $299, comes with $25 Google Play voucher. Telsyte research director Foad Fadaghi: No 3G connectivity, consumers and content producers want bigger screens. Gartner analyst Carolina Milanesi: Only available through website and Google Play store, likely impact on sales. Kind Fire estimated sales of 4.8 million devices December 2011 quarter before sales dropped 80% Q1 2012.Gartner estimates global tablet sales to double 2012 to reach 118.9 million, Apple iPad expected to retain 61.4% market share.

White collar salary reflecting economic challenges: Mining industry top at $2,173 per week, up 35% in past 5 years; nearest white collar industry is financial services at average $1,375 per week. Executives in the $150k to $300k laid off last year who took “gardening leave” finding it difficult to get a job at same calibre or salary. Likely survival solutions for “GFC mark 3” of restricted pay, shorter working weeks, and taking leave. [CR: How much of your job satisfaction is based on your own perceptions and relative availability of work?]

List of recent job cuts: Fairfax Media (1900), News Ltd (1000), ANZ (1000), First Fleet (1000), Macquarie Group (885), Westpac (560), Qantas (500), Toyota (350), Telstra (325), Perpetual (295), PWC (211), Reckitt Benckiser (190), Norsk Hydro (150), Holden (100). [CR: What do you do with 8,466 people? Who’s hiring?]

 Memorandum of Understanding between CommBank and China’s UnionPay: Allows use of Chinese bank card in taxis, at Eftpos terminals, and to pay tuition fees.  UnionPay is China’s only bank card provider, has 3 billion cards on issue. China is Australia’s third largest source of inbound tourism, over 500,000 Chinese visited Australia year to March 2012. China is largest source of overseas students for Australian universities, injecting nearly $4 billion in Australian economy in 2011.

Housing less affordable, government programs ineffective: Council of Australian Governments report on affordable housing. In 2009-10, 45% of poorest households in capital cities (lowest 40% by income) were paying more than 30% of income towards rent. Up from 2007-08, where 38.1% were paying more than 30% of income towards rent. Among poorest 10% of households, 60% were paying more than 30% of income towards rent. Report found no progress towards National Affordable Housing Agreement’s 2008 commitment to providing affordable, safe, and sustainable housing. Reform Council chairman Paul McClintock “The ability of governments to impact general housing affordability is very limited”, citing economic management issues of setting interest rates and general income growth having greater affect than specific housing programs like first home owner grants and rental assistance. OECD figures show ration of house prices in Australia 28% of long term average, house prices unlikely to rise in real terms for many years.

Japan quake and nuclear: Tokyo Electric Power Co. Committed to restarting world’s largest nuclear power plant. Only 2 of 50 reactors are back online after the quake. Radiation and public cost of over $138 billion sparked anti-nuclear sentiment, Germany shut down all plants, Italy scrapped plans, China imposed temporary halt on approving projects. [CR: Is nuclear bad only because the accident happened? What is the impact of other sources without an accident?]

Partnership survey of 38 legal firms: 30.2% of partners (60 of 199) appointed in the last ix months were female. Average is 21.6%. Average has been climbing: 20% in 2009, 20.3$ in 2010, 20.8% in 2011. The best nine firms have between 27 and 67 partners and average over 25% women. Reason for lower representation in larger firms cited as a need to be a “24/7 partner, available at the whim of the client, not so family friendly.” [CR: Interesting how 25% representation is good only because the average is so low, but if we are expecting closer to 50%, it is pretty poor.]

Comment by Michael Bradley, managing partner of Marque Lawyers: NSW law society’s 2011 report on advancement of women in the profession: 60% of law graduates and young lawyers are women.  50% of women and 43% of men opt out in the first 5 to 10 years.  Bradley’s answer: “The problem is that although law firms are really very flexible now towards working mothers, clients are not. Clients maintain unreasonable demands of accessibility, and that undermines the whole flexible working thing.” [CR: Speaks to the risk of a values disconnect between clients and the organisation, and staff and the organisation in any professional services firm.]

28 June 2012: Survey of Australian income perceptions and China air quality

Palmer buying Tourism: Billionaire Clive Palmer, Australia’s eighth richest man, purchased a Club Med in Tahiti for $10m, part of buying frenzy to boost tourism sector and gain exposure. Over $100.6m has been spent on sales of island resorts since 2006.  [CR: Most people just rent a cabin]

Mining women in the workforce and shift work: To increase productivity, Griffen’s Colloe coalmine has a nanny crew,  introduced to take meal shift from 11:30am to 3:30pm. Boddington has a female outfit trained for work from 9am to 2pm.  PWC research found there were 40,000 women working in the mining sector, 18% of mining roles. Women represent 45% of Australian workforce.  Rio Tinto stops employees flying before 6am before a 12-hour shift, creating a grey-zone shift arrangement.

Retailers issues with internet competition: Harvey Norman, Big W., Bunnings, Coles, Super Retail Group cite trading hour restrictions, $1,000 tax- and duty-free threshold for imported purchases, and penalty rates.  Harvey Norman CEO Katie Page, “I don’t care who buys what from which country but I absolutely do believe that whoever ships in this country must pay the tariffs, must pay the GST, the GST collection, the compliance costs, the on-costs for wages, the carbon tax and the company tax.” [CR: Makes buying online feel like stealing.]

Survey of Australian income perceptions by Fidelity Worldwide Investments:  5,186 residents across Asia-Pacific, 500 from Sydney. 85% of Australians underestimated their income bracket, viewing “high income” as $136k (government reference point is $180k). Similar sentiment in China and India, whereas Japan and South Korea have a better sense of relative wealth.  38% of Australians anticipate an income boost in the next decade, 17% expect a decline. 92% expect their children will be high or middle income earners by the time they are in their 40s as a result of good education and that their kids will “work hard”.  Those expecting a low income for their kids cite causes of lack of economic opportunities and poor education.39% of high income earners expect their kids to drop, 83% of low income earners expect their kids to increase. 8% identified friends and colleagues as high earners.  Almost 66% expect the income gap to widen in the next decade. [CR: Are we as rich as we think we are?]

Telstra stops recording mobile site visits: Telstra has 13.2 million phone users, was recording websites visited sans personal information and sending to Netsweeper as part of a mobile voluntary internet filter called Smart Controls. Has now stopped after customer protests and Greens senator Scott Ludlam. [CR: Then again, what do we have to hide?]

Governor of Bank of England says Britain faces five more years of financial pain. Mervyn King: “We’re facing an enormous economic problem”. [CR: Not looking pretty for the 92% who think their kids are going to do better.]

China air quality: China releasing reading for hazardous fine particulate matter (PM2.5). The Shanghai Environmental Monitoring Centre draws data from 10 monitoring stations, the US consulate has one station.  China reporting an Air Pollution Index of 28, US consulate of 57.  0 to 50 = good, 51 to 100 = moderate, 301 to 500 is hazardous. Reading on 27 June was 115: US embassy website stated “People with heart or lung disease, older adults, and children should avoid prolonged or heavy exertion”. China said it was illegal to publish the information. US State department said it had no plans to stop publishing the information.

Carbon tax offset being spent: Super Retail Group says same store sales increased from 3% to 4% in past few weeks, when first payments of the government’s average $476 Clean Energy package were made available to low and middle income earners and pensioners.  Woolworth’s Big W saw increases in baby good’s and children’s wear, consumer electronics, and women’s apparel. Coles CEO says consumer sentiment is at its lowest in 20 to 30 years, excluding the GFC downturn. [CR: Does this really help?]

Vivendi to focus on cutting costs at French wireless unit SFR., said CEO of seven years Levy. Vivendi  owns Universal Music Group, Activision, Blizzard, and phone operators in France, Morocco, and Brazil.  Vivendi is at second lowest investment grade of BBB, stocks near the lowest in nine years.  European regulators to rule by September 6 if Universal can acquire EMI Group’s recorded music business, which would create a company nearly twice as big as the next nearest competitor. [CR: Needs more World of Warcraft players.]

20 June 2012: Tablet manufacturers by market share and UK jobless youth

Top tablet manufacturers by market share of 65.3m units shipped worldwide: Apple iPad – 40.5m, 62%; Samsung Galaxy Line – 6.1m, 9%; Amazon Kindle Fire – 3.9m, 6%; Barnes & Noble the Nook – 3.3m, 5%; AusTek Transformer line – 2.1m, 3%; Others – 14%.

More Queensland government jobs to go: Newman says 20,000 more jobs in public sector than needed. There are 244,000 public servants, 208,000 full time equivalents.  Full time jobs increased 40% since 2000. Independent auditor report found departments had an “entitlement culture”, annual direct cost of unplanned absences rose 55% from 2007 to 2011.

APN News and Media said at the annual general meeting that it was examining targeted and substantial acquisitions in the digital space.

UK Jobless youth soars: 18 to 24 year olds out of work in Britain increased 874$ in the past 12 years, increased 264% in the last 12 months.

19 June 2012

Fairfax changes: SMH and The Age to move to compact size in March. To close printing presses in Sydney and Melbourne in 2 years, saving $44M in annual costs, taking out $234M in costs by 2015. Cutting 1900 jobs, 20% of total workforce. 380 positions will be from editorial.  Will adopt a “digital first” editorial model.  Sold 15% stake in NZ online business Trade Me for $160M to reduce net debt to $800M. [CR: Expect a tsunami of new bloggers in the market]

Gillard government finally finalised definition of the word “flood” for insurance companies. [CR: So take that, you stupid dictionary.]

Apps impacting taxi industry: Apps Ingogo and GoCatch make it easier to pre-book owner-driver hire cars, bypassing taxi industry. [CR: Potential industry suffering from limited competition resulting in lack of innovation, risking diminished market share. If you view yourself as the product or service you sell, you will be obsolete. They do not sell taxi rides, they facilitate getting people from A to B, just like video stores do not rent DVDs, they lease entertainment experiences.]

Water conservation still a global issue: UN receives support from 45 CEOs, including Levi and Coke. 800 million people worldwide do not have safe drinking water, 2.5 billion lack access to sanitation. Water demand will outstrip supply by 40% by 2030. [CR: Pondering the world I am leaving for my kid...]

$13,115 pot of face cream: Shiseido to release a 50-gram jar of face cream costing $13,115. $263 per gram (gold is $51.30 per gram). Each container made up of 30 layers of crystals and three platinum rungs. [CR: After reading the story above, I ask what we invest in]

St George to launch Pay to Mobile payment feature that will allow customers to send money via SMS. To compete against ComBank’s Kaching and ANZ’s goMoney. Will not offer Facebook payments or NFC like ComBanks. Kachin limited to iOS, Pay to Mobile available cross-device. In May, 18,662 downloaded the iOS app, 5,637 downloaded Android, 494 Windows, 33 Blackberry. [CR: Blackberry who?]

Quote from Macquarie Bank’s head of wealth management technology Stephen Dunn: Institudions need to let go the historic need to develop their own apps and solutions. “We have to partner. If we don’t all we’re going to do is provide bank accounts and technology companies are going to provide the servicing. For us it’s about time to market and so what we need to do is partner”.

Microsoft IE 10 which ships with Windows 8 to ship with new Do Not track (DNT) feature turned on (other browsers have it as an option to turn off).  DNT is a browser-based feature that allows users to tell advertisers they do not want to be followed.  Association of National Advertisers say it will not show fewer advertisements, but less relevant advertisements, consumers will be worse off [CR: You would say that].   Google relies almost solely on advertising. [CR: Clever, hurting Google in an indirect way, while being seen as a benefit to the consumer]

Intel says Android slow on fast chips: “Google’s Android OS is so poorly designed and so poorly implemented by mobile phone handset makers that the dual-and quad-core processors found in most high-end Android phones can actually run slower than single-core processors. [CR: While this may be inflammatory, keep in mind the c-suite audience of the Fin Review. Also be aware a few pages back St George says they cannot ignore 25% of their users on Android. Message to the market is to do Android, but manage expectations on a popular yet fragmented and still immature platform]

18 June 2012: Betting on the financial market and full body scans

Full body scans to be introduced to Australian airports in coming months (Adelaid, Cairns, Brisbane, Darwin, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Perth, Sydney). Technology reduced risk rate 5 to 10%, would only be cost effective if the mean attack rate was 2 to 3 per year. [CR: Time to get those metallic ink tattoos]

World Bank’s annual Doing Business review 2012 looks at rules and regulations that affect companies in 183 economies, Australia slipped from 11th to 15th place in terms of overall ease of doing business. [CR: I thought it was getting harder]

Tabcorp considering offering betting on the financial market. Already offers betting on interest rate movements, would expand into sharemarket and commodity indices. [CR: Isn’t that an oxymoron, betting on the stock market?]

Deloitte survey of over 2000 consumers: Use mobile phone for entertainment - 49% between 29 and 45, 72% between 14 and 22; Baby boomers – 46% prefer computer over TV, 55% first learn of new products online; 53% of consumers under 22 socialise on social networking sites each day.

Banking game technique: CBA’s Investorville: https://www.investorville.com.au/ - goal to increase wealth over a 15 year period by buying and selling properties, charging rent, and reacting to economy. [CR: Playing a new game, where I count how many times the word “gamification” still appears in the FIN review.]

Supermarkets move into digital entertainment: Tesco, Britain’s largest retailer, pays $16.8M for digital music streaming platform WE7, bought online movie service blinkbox last year. Rival retailer Sainsbury offers ebooks to onlin shoppers, takes 66% stake in ebook store Anobii by buying 45.5% of the store from HMV. [CR: People who are good at selling stuff look to sell more stuff, digitally]

Nokia shares dropped 18% on Friday, steepest dive in over a decade, to cut over 10,000 jobs, potential takeover target. [CR: How the mighty have fallen.]