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What's New At Credit Matters?

What's New At Credit Matters?

Despite the many issues which prevented the February newsletter appearing, a number of developments have taken place at Credit Matters.

First, we have a new tag line to better reflect what we do - Credit Matters - Your Cashflow Defence from Cashflow Robbers. We also wrote a blog to explain what our focus was Eliminating Profit Robbers Naturally Increases the Dollars in Your Bank Account.

Our feature Anatomy of a Recession and the Preferential Payment Calculator are now in our Members Area, which is free to join. The reason for this action was that I suspect it is too late for many businesses to adequately protect themselves from the next recession. Of course, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings" as they say. Therefore if you wish to try and take proactive steps to avoid the worst of the recession, which I suggest is essential and may allow your business to survive, you can still access and download a copy of the feature via our free Members Area.

I have deliberately only attached three brochures this month as everybody is distracted by the COVID19 virus, and trying to stay alive physically and commercially. In addition, with the collapse of the share market, the panic buying and the attempts by governments to stop the inevitable, people will be struggling to make sense of it all for some weeks in to the future.

The first brochure is from Barry Urguhart and the second and third are from The Bank Doctor. These brochures are focused on the real world of business and staying sensible as those around you panic.

 

Quote Of The Month

Quote Of The Month

"I love the smell of napalm in the morning"

Spoken by Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore in the film Apocalypse Now

Monthly Business Observation

Monthly Business Observation

The thing about fraudsters is that they never let an opportunity pass by to earn a dollar. In their view, there is nothing like a good crisis, or someone looking for love, or a new opportunity like the birth of cryptocurrency, to make money. We have already seen the scams taking advantage of the latest bushfires, just as they did after the Black Saturday bushfires. We have also already seen scams associated with the COVED-19 virus.

Fraud is a fraudsters business, and many are really good at it. At this point in time, the fraudsters are “… loving the smell of their version of napalm in the morning” as lately the opportunities never seem to stop occurring. For fraudsters, making money from all of today’s opportunities has its own unique sensory pleasure.

The truth is frauds and scams work when people are distracted by a lack of family finances and other issues, are gamblers or drug takers desperate for the next fix, or want something so badly, they become susceptible to the fraudsters’ advances.

In business, we see these same situations and can add to the list of factors affecting the business environment when business owners and managers are desperate for sales, cashflow or success. As a result, they may become distracted and compromise on their business disciplines, ethics and common sense. It is not unusual therefore for them to encourage their salespeople and purchasing employees to tell lies, to take shortcuts in processes, all “… for the good of the company!”

There is a well known saying from the field of criminology which says, “People steal in the good times because they can, and steal in the bad times because they need to survive.”

The problem we have today is the perfect storm where fraudsters steal because they can thanks to lax business operations and disenfranchised employees, plus as always, they steal to survive. No wonder fraudsters wake every morning at the moment with their equivalent of “… loving the smell of their version of napalm in the morning.”

It is a thought well worth thinking about as management teams, review their current business operations.

Monthly Business Conundrum

All too often you hear of senior management complaining on the lack of commitment of their employees. When you look at the employment conditions of their employees however, you come to realise that management deserves the employees they have working for them.

When management employs the cheapest quality employee and under dictatorship style rules of employment, they shouldn’t be surprised when the employees are not engaged in the welfare of the business. They just keep their heads down and do what they are told.

Furthermore, in such environments, there are two other situations which discourage employees from doing the right thing and engaging with management. The first is where any suggestions to improve processes are treated with paternal and or discouraging comments. The second is in tough economic times, where these same employees are afraid to leave the business because they may not get another job.

In tough economic times and the new rules of engagement forced on business by legislators and the general community today, the last thing a business needs are disenfranchised or “brain dead” employees.

From another perspective, I haven’t even mentioned the destructive damage that these employees can do if they eventually decide to “turn their brains on at work”. That is a story for another occasion.

Monthly Business Conundrum
Business Red Flags

Business Red Flags

Despite all the advances in technology with AI and the use of big data, there are times when you cannot go past the effectiveness of the human “tummy test”. This tummy test is especially valuable when evaluating new applications for credit, reviewing existing accounts, or when interacting with businesspeople.

One day it might be possible for technology to be of a standard that equates to the human “tummy test” but that is in the far distant future for two main reasons. The first is the amount of data required to bring technology to this standard and second, the cost. As we regularly see today, protecting a business’s cash resources is still often well down the list of priorities for any in management. Management’s usual focus is on the cheapest possible upfront costs and not on effectiveness.

Even when the technology is perfected to a satisfactory level, the data input by people can be manipulated to achieve desired outcomes.

We also know from reviews of earlier technology; a system could modify criteria to achieve different results than intended. On review of bad debts by at least one of Australia’s major banks in the 1990s, found their systems had modified lending criteria which had in turn, resulted in a higher level of bad debts. In addition, from the earliest development of AI technology, a number of projects have had to be shut down because the technology took over the human instructions. This ability for machines to take over human control has also been depicted in several movies to date.

At the end of the day, technology can reach a decision on whether to lend or not very quickly. In the meantime, it will take a human to understand the nuances of every application where “things” don’t look right. However, your human reviewer will need to be employed under the right terms of employment, including the authority to make perceived adverse decisions and for those decisions to be respected.

Word Of The Month

Is the spelling sanitizer or sanitiser?

The main time I tend to use hand sanitiser, or is that hand sanitizer, is when I’m on a cruise before I eat. I’ve also used it when visiting people in a hospital, or in an aged care facility. It makes sense.

However, now with COVID-19, all that has changed and now it becomes part of your regular routine.

The question then is, is the Australian spelling with the ‘s’ or the ‘z’?

A check of Google for sites ending in .au for the words sanitiser and sanitizer, returns 1.19 million results for the ‘s’ spelling and 464,000 for the ‘z’ spelling.  A check of the Australian Oxford Dictionary and the Macquarie Dictionary for the words sanitise and sanitize gives us sanitise with the ‘s’ as the primary spelling and sanitize with the ‘z’ as the secondary spelling.

In Australia the preferred spelling uses the ‘s’ for the word sanitiser and its various forms.

Word Of The Month

Updates courtesy of www.asic.gov.au

Media Updates

theBankDoctor offers free banking and finance advice to help small business owners get the best business banking set-up.

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What is a Black Swan Event?

Credit Matters is a financial risk management resource centre for the Australian business community. If you are in business, Credit Matters is your ideal source of financial risk management solutions.

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Future Opportunities & Possibilities

Credit Matters is continuing to grow and provide marketing and knowledge about financial risks to the Australia business community.

Futhermore, we invite marketing and knowledge ideas from our readers and contributors on how we can assist our respective firms grow. If you have any ideas, please contact me at info@creditmatters.com.au.

If you are interested in finding new ways to reach your marketplace, why not try Credit Matters. Our prices for advertising are very reasonable and advertising packages are on offer to make any cost, even more affordable. So if you are interested in reaching your customers at the right price, please contact Kim at info@creditmatters.com.au for options.