News Feature

Dining, feasting, entertaining: Cuisine on Cue marks 25 years

AN ENDURING PIONEER of the Brisbane catering industry, Cuisine on Cue has spent 25 years wining, dining, feeding and entertaining Brisbane – an achievement the team will celebrate at a new purpose-built facility in Brisbane’s inner west.

“It’s been a fast, furious, constantly evolving, constantly changing 25-year ride,” owner and chef, Rob Morrow said.

Indeed, from humble beginnings servicing the government sector, the Cuisine on Cue business has pivoted from strength to strength.

The addition of managing director (and Rob’s now wife), Anna in 2009 brought the company into a new era, diversifying the brand’s offering and introducing an impressive venue portfolio with exclusive catering agreements in place.

“Anna’s strong background in corporate communications helped to solidify our future” Mr Morrow said.

“She was able to seek out new avenues for the business and establish longstanding relationships – many of which are still in place today.”

These avenues travel an impressive list of venues including Room Three Sixty, Old Government House, White Chapel Kalbar, Newstead House and Walkabout Creek.

Now with a rebrand and new look, Cuisine on Cue is set to take on 2020 and beyond with renewed vigour.

As part of their vision, owners Rob and Anna Morrow are also firmly focused on giving back, with the duo humbly philanthropic.

“Rob is an incredibly generous operator” Ms Morrow said. “Many of the charities he supports are industry based, given his intimate knowledge of the stresses and strains of being a chef as well as owning your own business.

“Additionally, we are committed as a company to giving back and are passionate about social responsibility,” she said. 

The company’s volunteer work at present focuses on supporting young people and children in foster care.

Whether an event be for a charitable endeavour, intimate private dinner or gala ball, the caterer is renowned for providing consistency in unsurpassed customer service and attention to detail – a trait which Rob Morrow is certain has assisted their longevity in the industry.

“Working hard, staying humble and constantly striving to improve – that’s the backbone of Cuisine on Cue and the business traits we’re very proud of,” Mr Morrow said.

www.cusisineoncue.com

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Small business body backs ATO in pursuit of scammers

THE Council of Small Business Organisations Australia (COSBOA) has announced it will support the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) and the Federal Government in pursuit of people and organisations "that deliberately scam the tax system".

Speaking on behalf of COSBOA, CEO Peter Strong said the release of the tax gap for small business (12.5 percent) and stated that small business people need complexity removed for better tax compliance.

“Small business people make up more than 99 percent of Australian businesses, pay more than $76 billion in income tax annually, add $380 billion to the economy and provide an income to around five million people, but it’s the few that do the wrong thing who get an unfair advantage in competition and let down the rest of their industry and the small business sector," COSBOA CEO Peter Strong said.

"As a member of the Black Economy Board, we work closely with all government agencies to help catch the bad people while ensuring the honest people, the great majority, are given a less complicated system and the capacity to run a successful business that provides opportunity for revenue for other people,” Mr Strong said. 

A member of COSBOA, The Australian Hairdressing Council, is a good example of an organisation that works closely with the ATO and the Fair Work Ombudsman to ensure home-based hairdressers comply with rules and contribute to their industry, Mr Strong said. He said COSBOA recognised that the majority of hairdressers "do the right thing and are often angry at having to compete with those who rip off the taxpayer".

“There are many things that make business more difficult than it needs to be," Mr Strong said. "Recently, we have seen a report that wants to punish small business people who don’t deal with mental health to the level of a qualified mental health practitioner, and yet the same report ignores the mental health of the self-employed. All unnecessary and poorly developed compliance adds to the stress of running a business and employing staff.

“Our National Small Business Summit later this week in Melbourne will focus on real issues with our regulators, our policy makers and our business leaders in attendance. Australia has a good record globally when it comes to compliance and we can improve that record by reducing complexity,” Mr Strong said.

COSBOA and its members will work with the government to make the tax system less complicated and less onerous for the great majority who want to do the right thing, he affirmed.
 
COSBOA National Small Business Summit information: https://www.cosboansbs.com.au/

SEGRA means business on sustainable economic growth

CLOSE TO 170 people from across regional, rural and remote Australia will converge on the Cobram Barooga border region of rural Victoria and New South Wales this week for the 23rd Sustainable Economic Growth for Regional Australia (SEGRA) conference.

“SEGRA is Australia’s most credible independent voice on issues affecting regional Australia,” SEGRA Conference convenor, Kate Charters said.

She said the industry forum in the Cobram Barooga region has attracted a record number of registrants reflecting the interest of all of Australia in the future of agricultural regions. 

Keynote speakers travelling to Cobram Barooga include Dr Tom Measham of CSIRO, who will present on Strategic Foresight for Regional Australia: mega trends, scenarios and implications.

Dr Daniel Terrill of Deloitte Access Economics will be speaking about Drivers and Constraints to Regional Economic Development.

Professor Lee Pugalis of the University of Technology Sydney will be discussing Delivering Place-Based Regional Economic Development.

Jan Owen, the chief executive officer of the Foundation for Young Australians will be talking about Lifelong Learning and Employment in Australia.

Luke Wilson, Victoria’s Cross Border Commissioner, will be speaking with his NSW counterpart James McTavish about Releasing Opportunities at the Border.

“SEGRA is not ‘just another conference’,” convenor Ms Charters said. “It is renowned for its willingness to take up real challenges and propose actions that understand the true character of economic development in regional Australia.

“This is why we are branded ‘The think tank with tangible outcomes’,” Ms Charters said.

SEGRA has been speaking out for regional Australia for 23 years. It is a critical forum where regional development practitioners, industry, researchers and government bring together their combined knowledge and ideas on regional futures from across Australia.

The full conference program is on www.segra.com.au

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The robots are coming ... to help your business

By Leon Gettler >>

EVERY industry will be hit by robotics

Dan Ternes, Blue Prism’s chief technology officer (CTO) for Asia-Pacific and Japan, said this is inevitable. Blue Prism is an international company that develops Robotic Process Automation (RPA) software for businesses.

“Whatever your business happens to be, there’s an HR department that on-boarding staff and doing time-off requests and there’s a finance department that’s paying salaries, and paying expenses and issuing POs and paying invoices and all of those sort of tasks and all those ancillary functions of business are suited to RPA,” Mr Ternes told Talking Business. 

“Any type of business that relies on data and information, the collection of that information, the collation of that information, evaluation, dissemination, if your core business relies upon that, then RPA represents a fantastic opportunity for you.”

He said it was of particular interest to financial services, telcos, government and retail with its supply chain and logistics networks were all very suited to RPA. However, it was also attracting other industries such as transport and mining.

Mr Ternes said it did not necessarily represent an apocalypse for employees as it could create new career paths.

“The history of IT is automation, that has disrupted jobs and changed jobs and ever was it thus,” he said.

“For every organisation that is reducing headcount because of RPA, I reckon there is 20 of them who are saying this is not about headcount reduction. This is about preparing for growth, enabling us to grow the business without increasing our cost base and also about redeploying that talent to things they are better at.”

He said this was more prevalent than job losses.

MAKING THE TRANSITION

Mr Ternes said companies need to think through how they make the transition, as there are aspects that are cultural and aspects that need to be considered.

The organisation also needs to undergo a process of education for its workforce and management.

“As we talk about redeploying humans to things they are better suited to and things that leverage human talents with higher order skills of judgment and empathy, you start to ask: ‘If I didn’t have my humans doing X, Y and Z, instead they could be doing A,B and C. And A, B and C are more valuable to me, and is there a D,E and F that they could be doing that no-one does today that adds even more value.”

Mr Ternes said organisations need to start planning for those higher order roles and start training people for that.

This meant doing an audit of the skills the organisation requires in the future and the direction it is heading in.

www.blueprism.com

www.leongettler.com

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. 

ends

How do you manage business risks beyond Australia?

By Lynette Schultheis >>

IF ANYTHING is for sure in business, it’s that there will always be risks and crises to contend with.

Some of these risks are internal to our organisations, and some are external. The best we can do is to make sure that we’re as aware and prepared as we can be.

A resilient national business environment makes managing risks less daunting. Fortunately, Australia has some advantages in this regard.

The 2019 edition of FM Global’s Resilience Index confirms the strong resilience of the Australian business landscape, with Australia ranking 17th out of 130 countries. 

Among Australia’s strengths are the quality and enforcement of its building codes with respect to natural hazards, like floods and bushfires (ranked 15th) and strong fire risk management, due to the enforcement of building codes with respect to fire-based design (ranked 8th).

Higher control of corruption (ranked 14th) and supply chain visibility (ranked 22nd) also lift up the resilience of Australia’s overall business environment.

On the other hand, Australia’s inherent cyber risk (62nd) weighs on our ranking. This reinforces the need for business leaders to assess their level of cyber exposure as well as to develop clear, actionable steps to mitigate cyber risk and avoid business interruption.

BUSINESS BEYOND BORDERS

The reality is that enterprise resilience is dependent on the resilience of those you do business with. This is where the FM Global Resilience Index – the only global ranking of countries by the resilience of their business environments – causes pause for thought.

It’s easy to see why many Australian businesses have supply chains reaching into South East Asia. Relatively low labour costs – together with recent policies designed to attract foreign investment, improve infrastructure and expand access to export markets – make shifting lower-value manufacturing activities to these regional economies highly attractive.

With a population of 620 million and a combined economic output of about US$2.5 trillion, South East Asia is an increasingly important partner for Australian trade and investment. But these low costs are often accompanied by high risks.

FM Global’s 2019 Resilience Index shows that trading partners like Bangladesh (108), Cambodia (114), Vietnam (88), Sri Lanka (81) and Thailand (73) present a variety of risks. These include political, financial, legal and reputational factors.

China’s ranking varies wildly from one region to the next.

MAPPING, MANAGING VULNERABILITIES

As one of the largest commercial and property insurance providers, FM Global believes that too few Australian businesses have mapped the vulnerabilities in their supply chains.

Vulnerabilities may include supply chain visibility, corruption, infrastructure quality and corporate governance.

Some of Australia's regional trading partners are also highly exposed to natural hazards.

The three countries with the largest economic exposure to flooding are Laos, Pakistan and Bangladesh, ranked 55, 88 and 112 respectively for exposure to natural hazards. Vietnam ranked lowest (130) for natural hazard risk quality, due to poorer quality and enforcement of building codes with respect to natural hazard design resistance.

On the positive side, Thailand (73) rose 16 spots this year. An Asian supply chain hub, Thailand showed significant improvement in supply chain visibility and corporate governance.

However, Thailand remains heavily exposed to extreme weather and could see an additional rise in its Index ranking by improving the quality of its natural hazard risk management.

There are significant opportunities in trading with our regional partners but FM Global’s experience indicates that a lack of resilience planning has far-reaching, long-lasting effects on business value and performance.

The key isn’t to retreat – but to engage mindfully.

Resilience is a choice. Make informed and considered decisions when choosing trading partners or site locations and implementing risk management strategies.

www.fmglobal.com.au

Lynette Schultheis is the operations manager for FM Global Australia. She sets FM Global’s strategic direction in Australia, executes corporate objectives and ensures compliance with local regulations – and is also responsible for underwriting, engineering, claims, finance and human resources.

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Electrifying new businesses

By Leon Gettler >>

RENEWABLES and technologies like electric cars can create new businesses, according to Fiona Reynolds, the chief executive officer of London-based PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment).

“The future doesn’t need to be such a terrible thing,” Ms Reynolds told Talking Business. “What are the opportunities? The thing I find in this country is we talk about all the negatives. 

“What are the investment opportunities, what are the job opportunities? What are the markets that will open up? What are the things we will be able to export?”

Ms Reynolds cited electric car policies which have been unveiled in Europe years ago.

“If we’re going to have electric vehicles, which will happen around the world, what are the opportunities for Australia?” she asked. “What are the minerals we can sell? What can we be involved in in terms of the parts for cars that have to be delivered? What about the infrastructure that’s required in a big country like Australia if you’re going to have electric vehicles?

“In other parts of the world where this transformation is underway, lots of businesses have flourished around charging stations.

“So at the moment, it might take you 40 minutes to charge your car. So there pops up a café or restaurant so you can have lunch while you’re doing it.

“Good things happen in economic transformations.”

SUSTAINABILITY WITH CAPITAL

PRI is a UN supported organisation created to bring sustainability to capital markets.

PRI works with the largest investors in the world, getting them to incorporate environmental, governance and social factors to their investment processes and the organisation has 2300 signatories representing $US83 trillion in assets.

Signatories include all the big Australian superannuation funds and the overseas pension funds such as Calpers, which have come on board as long term investors.

“Pension funds and super funds invest over long term horizons,” Ms Reynolds said.

“For example, Calpers invests with a 100 year horizon so it has to think about what are all the things happening in the world that will affect my investment.”

She said pension funds are investing in companies are making the transition to a low carbon environment.

Ms Reynolds said the world would decarbonise and Australia needed to be looking at this as an economic issue and driver of new business.

“It doesn’t mean we’re not going to invest in coal tomorrow…but over a longer period, people are not going to be buying coal,” she said. 

“Australia needs to be thinking about this.

“For example, Australia has lots of other minerals it can sell the world, it’s not just coal. And we’re not giving up selling coal tomorrow.”

www.leongettler.com

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. 

How newsagencies are growing as newspapers decline

By Leon Gettler >>

WITH NEWSPAPERS closing down print editions in favour of online – or just closing down – more newsagents are becoming retailers, even opening coffee shops.

Ben Kearney, the CEO of the Australian Lottery and Newsagents Association (ALNA), Australia’s national industry body for the newsagent industry said this is becoming the way of the future.

He said the newspaper was now struggling with its margins, which affects the increases that the newsagents are able to get. 

He said when he started in the industry 10 years ago, he thought the situation with newspapers and media would have a more serious enormous impact.

“What I’ve realised is they’re more resilient as retailers than I had expected,” Mr Kearney told Talking Business.

“There is no doubt that traditional print media is a big challenge and will be an ongoing challenge for news agency businesses, but what we have seen is our members have certainly demonstrated a capacity to diversify their business and change their business model to adapt to that loss in revenue from those traditional print products.”

He said most of those that are succeeding have moved strongly into the area of gift products.

“If they’re succeeding, they’re outcompeting their local toy store, they’re outcompeting their local gift store, they’re introducing hybrid models,” Mr Kearney said.

He said a number of newsagents had opened coffee shops in their stores as part of the newsagency.

“We have seen some that are newsagents/bookshops, we have examples of newsagent/pharmacy,” he said.

“The retailers that are succeeding are just becoming better retailers.”

Mr Kearney said the media was changing its models and newsagents were hoping to work with media companies to develop partnerships,

He said there was scope for newspapers to get back to working closer with their communities which would see them working with newsagents.

“Newspapers have become far more a commoditized product. There is an appetite in communities for longer form journalism, particularly when it relates to communities,” Mr Kearney said. 

He said the ALNA was now conducting research at the University of Technology Sydney on how to leverage the traditional newsagent’s role as a community hub for news.

“The thing that has kept news agents resilient to a degree, and one of the things we do really well – particularly in local communities – is that we sell basic human interaction,” he said.

www.leongettler.com

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.

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