Productivity in modern Australia

The focus of the 2012 Global Access Partners National Economic Review is Productivity. GAP managing director Peter Fritz explores productivity and future opportunities for Australia.

According to many authors the growth of real income depends on productivity growth and growth in productivity is the driver of per capita income and living standards. Also it has been pointed out by many that increased productivity occurs when there is trustworthy leadership in management, effective communication, encouragement of innovative solutions and employee involvement in decision making.

The relatively low productivity of Australia’s mining industry, highlights the flow in the productivity argument. In this instance it took investment in new techniques and infrastructure to seemingly reduce the productivity of a sector, company, or division of a company.

Citizen empowerment through social media

TCG Group managing Director Peter Fritz reviewed citizen empowerment, social media and the use of internet interaction in policy making at last week's Herzliya Conference in Tel Aviv, Israel.

The genie left the bottle around 1450-1455, with Guttenburg’s practical application of printing using moveable type. Bibles first, then self-improvement manuals, and then newspapers.

By 1900, there were 70 different newspaper titles published each day in Paris alone. Then TV. It could be claimed that TV transmissions of Dallas into East Germany had a role in collapse of the Berlin Wall.

Now there are over 1.5 billion people worldwide, linked into social media of one form or another. The hunger for access and influence has not changed. The only thing that has changed is reach.

Chippendale Valley to accelerate start-up successes

In response to the Federal Government’s call for innovation in business, the TCG Group of Companies has opened a new business incubator. Group Managing Director, Peter Fritz, outlines the newly formed business venture.

TCG has been in business incubation for a long time. TCG is the oldest Australian IT company beginning as a start-up business in 1971. Ever since then every company in the Group has been started from nothing, with the exception of our real estate companies.

I have found the most valuable contribution that TCG brings to any partnership is its corporate memory and its network of contacts.

The way we are looking at technological change as a business opportunity, the way we assess a proposal for joint venture, the way we manage the beginning, the cash flow, the marketing and selling, all have roots in the underground experience we have gained over the many years of operation.

Migrant support essential to strong future

Ahead of Global Access Partners' Population Summit Peter Fritz remembers what it was like to arrive in Australia and the importance of laying the foundations for migrants to grow and prosper.

Shaping a vision for the future

Australians don’t seem to have any ideas about the society we would like to live in. We don’t have a vision of what is worth fighting for or fighting against. We automatically oppose any proposal for change. However, unless we take charge of our own destiny, we will be forever just hostages to the fickle wind of fortune.

Over the last 40 years I have had the opportunity to travel extensively throughout the world and have visited many countries, on four of the five continents. I recently returned from a month’s holiday in Europe and I have never felt so isolated as an Australian.

Opposing racism and supporting multiculturalism not the same thing

The Pacioli-Fritz accounting system: bringing intangibles to light

Since the so-called father of accounting, Luca Pacioli published his book Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalita in Venice in 1494, in which he describes the method of bookkeeping that Venetian merchants were using, known as the double-entry accounting system, much has happened in the world of commerce and economics.

Relatively speaking, not much has happened in the double-entry accounting system.

The Pacioli world was a mercantile one, dealing mainly in tangible products with definable risk profiles, and strict rules of depreciation. With the advent of intellectual assets the world has changed dramatically. Yet we remain driven by the mercantile concepts that pertain to accounting assets. We only account for so-called tangible assets. We must update our thinking, and recognise the change in the world, and also account for intellectual, so-called intangible assets.

Boys’ Road Trip

One evening a couple of years ago there was a security breach at our National Capital’s Airport. In a rather convoluted way, that event led me to new friends, colleagues and opportunities.  

How I Became a Chocolate Merchant

I like chocolate. 

How do we Celebrate Giving?

Big figures are not the key indicator to recognising generosity; and all generous giving should be honoured in the interest of encouraging more of it.  

In My Fair Lady, the exchange between Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle speaks volumes about the relative value of a shilling.

Crisis Needn’t Spell Disaster

Losing your job can precipitate a personal crisis, but it is possible to turn it into a career opportunity.  

In the months since November ‘08 many international companies have downsized their Australian offices, typically to consolidate their local operations with larger Asian headquarters. As a result of this trend I personally know of a number of excellent people who now find themselves in the unexpected situation of looking for work.

Australian subsidiaries of these multinational corporations are loosing their best senior executives, and when the business climate improves, their local experience will be sorely missed. It’s uncertain how many of them will still be available when that time comes. The best of them will have found better solutions to their problems by then.

Finding the First 5000

Australia’s top performing SMEs can lead the way, we must communicate with them.

Driving to work last week I was listening to ABC Radio coverage of the latest Dun & Bradstreet business report which indicated that 1 in 4 businesses expect to dismiss staff in the near future. This is the worst prognosis on employment since the survey started 21 years ago, and worse is yet to come.

I have headed up TCG for nearly 40 years. In that time we have seen 5 major recessions and survived them all without a single bankruptcy. The TCG Group employs thousands of people in dozens of companies across diverse industries. Today, we are still growing and retain a positive outlook for our future.