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CreditorWatch keeps an eye on the future while scanning the business past
By Leon Gettler >>
CREDITORWATCH chief technology officer (CTO) Joseph Vartuli says workplaces have changed tremendously with the pandemic.
Remote working will now become permanent – and businesses will have to have to make most of machine learning, data analytics and artificial intelligence
CreditorWatch was started about 10 years ago to manage the trend of ‘debt hopping’ where suppliers switch companies without paying their arrears. Generally, it’s been the same offenders, according to Mr Vartuli.
CreditorWatch was started as a crowdsourcing business to share the names of dubious businesses. It now has the technology to provide ‘deep dive’ insights into businesses and their practices.
With the impact of COVID sweeping through the economy, businesses are now turning to CreditorWatch to assess the risks on their ledgers. CreditorWatch also provides data for the Federal Government’s economic index, giving it insights into trade payment behaviour of individual businesses and industries. 
Mr Vartuli said that as technology experts, CreditorWatch was not shying away from the prospect of employees working remotely. But as it appeared working from home was going to become more or less permanent, then the big question for companies was about looking at the work environment of their employees.
Was it a distraction free environment? Were there enough rooms with a partner working from home as well? How did they manage to work from home while home schooling their kids?
“Flexibility is what we’ve always been proud of. We provide a lot of autonomy to our developers and give them goals. We need to be a lot more flexible during these periods,” Mr Vartuli told Talking Business.
GOODBYE 9-TO-5
Mr Vartuli said the 9-to-5 model does not work anymore.
“We’re finding it’s unrealistic,” he said. “People need breaks throughout the day.
“They need to find a little more autonomy in terms of how they manage that workload and deliver that weekly workload each and every week,” he said.
“So giving them that autonomy and giving them that ability to choose, themselves, when and how they work is a big part of it. Supporting them in terms of resources, whether that’s stand-up desks or chairs has played a big part as well.
“We’ve also given all our developers an extra day off every month to take a long weekend every month, to let them recharge during this pandemic.”
Because developers are less committed during the pandemic when people are working from home, CreditorWatch provides online team bonding, continual education, as well as packages every month.
“I think we’ll have a remote working lifestyle pretty permanently,” Mr Vartuli said.
EYE ON THE FUTURE
He said when developers came back to the office at the end of the first lockdown, the company implemented a two-day-a-week-in-the-office policy, which worked well.
He said businesses needed to watch out for machine learning, data analytics and artificial intelligence. These were the big trend ahead and had been going ‘gangbusters’ in the last few years because the technology had become more accessible.
Mr Vartuli said businesses could now examine the data coming in to see what they could monetize and examine the big trends ahead.
“I think 70 percent of CEOs globally think AI is going to play a big role in the next five years in most industries, if not all,” he said.
“So even if you‘re not keen or don’t understand it, I think you should start dabbling in it. It’s definitely going to be a big part of the next five to 10 years for every single business.”
Hear the complete interview and catch up with other topical business news on Leon Gettler’s Talking Business podcast, released every Friday at www.acast.com/talkingbusiness.
