Lanna Hill: Beyond the perky LinkedIn posts, business are struggling
Beneath the polished surface, a different picture is starting to emerge — one that doesn't quite match the momentum we're performing. In reality, many teams are stretched thin, and external budgets are stalling. Proposals hang in inboxes for weeks with no response — not because they weren't good, but because a fear of commitment (and ghosting) has become real in the business world, too. July data backs this up, with 70 per cent of WA businesses citing rising costs as their top growth barrier.
What we're seeing is something I'd like to call performative recovery. The external signals are strong — especially here in WA, where mining royalties and infrastructure investment paint a confident picture — but scratch the surface, and you'll find a quiet hesitation that's shaping everything from hiring to marketing spend. London-based ad giant WPP's tumbling share price this week is one of many examples of the ever-changing environment we're in.
Some of this is actually very important. Business and political leaders need to show strength. Perception matters: to clients, to competitors, to staff. So we lean into language that sounds like progress, even when we're still in a holding pattern.
It would seem it's partly because the rules have changed. The post-COVID economy never fully reset. We're no longer in crisis mode (depending largely on the increasingly unpredictable geopolitical landscape, which swings wildly from week to week), but we're not in true growth mode either. There's a sense of suspended motion — like we're all waiting for someone else to blink first.
At the same time, the cost of doing business has risen across the board. Wages, insurance, software, compliance, professional services — everything's gone up. But few companies have raised prices fast enough to match it. And in service-based businesses, that squeeze is especially brutal. The same team is expected to do more, with less margin, and still show up looking energised and engaged.
And then there's the fatigue. The kind you can't see in a quarterly report. Mid-sized firms, especially those led by owner-operators or lean leadership teams, are running low on buffer — not just financial, but emotional. I've spoken to so many capable, ambitious people lately who are quietly questioning whether this version of success is sustainable. For those taking them, holidays aren't just holidays anymore. They're an essential tactic to stave off burnout.
So no — not everything is back. But that's not a failure. It's just the reality of a business culture that's been white knuckling its way through economic uncertainty, policy shifts, and relentless change.
The danger is in pretending otherwise. Because when the external narrative says 'we're thriving,' but the internal systems are strained and the team is flatlining, it's easy to feel like you're the only one who hasn't caught up. That disconnect breeds shame. It also stops leaders from asking for the support, advice or clarity they actually need.
We don't need more hype. We need more honesty. If we want to build businesses that actually last — not just look good on LinkedIn — we'll have to make space for truth alongside optimism.
And that starts with calling the bubble what it is.
Lanna Hill is the founder and director of Leverage Media Group.
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The Advertiser
4 hours ago
- The Advertiser
COVID's gone, costs are not: How Newcastle's hospitality scene is hanging on
At Bank Corner on a weekday morning, as the weather cools into winter and a handful of the nine-to-five crowd wait for their order, it's hard to recall that not that long ago we were scared this would all be gone forever. It has been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Hunter. There was the time before, and the time after. As we get further from it being our present, it becomes clearer that comparing the before and after is futile. Under the long shadow of the virus, living costs choked the weekly budget in a long and painful hangover of swollen inflation, supply shortages, wage stagnation and unaffordable rent. In that climate, venue owners say customers are less concerned about superficial luxuries and retail guff. They care about value for money and the sense of reliability in a world swimming upstream against a cascade of modern anxieties. Alyssa Salamon, the owner of the Newcastle West cafe on Bellevue Street, knows the names of her regulars and their orders by heart. She says Bank Corner customers crave that connection and authenticity. There is no time before the pandemic for her business to compare with now. She has worked in hospitality for years, but only became the owner of the West End landmark in January last year. She wants to keep out the sterile modernities that came from the pandemic years: to take the orders herself, make eye contact with her customers, and chat about their day. There are no screens in the cafe, and little branding. There's no front-facing tablet screen asking for reviews. If the service and the coffee are good, you can mention it to the staff yourself. Chances are, they remember you from last time. "I think there is something to be said for a cosy little corner where you don't have screens," Salamon says. "You're not ordering off a QR code menu. "I've been through my fair share of grieving, and sometimes going to an establishment where you're seen and recognised, and you're held in that bit of gentle space, is important." Salamon has made gradual progress for the past few months on extending the cafe's hours and securing its liquor license, but she is taking it steadily. She's conscious of not changing too much too quickly, and talks often about respecting the history of the place. One of her first improvements was to cut a section of bench that had previously jutted out. A patron had dropped by and offered to help, and Salamon was sawing the timber freehand when she went about 10 millimetres off track. There's a small knot in the side of the bench now, almost invisible if you did not know it was there. For Salamon, it's a stamp of her identity on a place that already has so much of its own. "It was a beautiful way of christening the space in that it was such a community effort," she says. The weekday crowd has never really come back to The Kent. Everyone is watching their spending these days, and the cross-town pub that used to cater to the office and retail workers around the suburb is now competing with the fast-and-cheap alternatives. Still, the 101-year-old Beaumont Street establishment has held on. "I think people are saving their money for the one night a week to go out," group director Chris Fitzsimmons says. "You get those nights where it seems like everyone just picked Saturday this week - no one Friday and then, on Saturday, there's a line around the corner." The venue has been enticing customers back with new lunch specials and pub staples like schnitzels and wings. It has had mixed results, Fitzsimmons says. "The patterns used to be a lot easier to pick," he says. "You used to have a better idea of what was going to happen day to day. These days, it's more crystal ball." Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp, who has been involved in a string of revitalisation efforts in the city pre- and post-COVID, says venue owners and managers have been operating in a rapidly changing environment for a long time. The culture has been turning increasingly to moderation. Rates of drinking, particularly among people under 30, have been steadily declining. Of those who partake, the number of weekly drinkers increasing their intake rose around 2013 and has remained fairly consistent since, according to government data. "People are going out, but they are finessing where they go," Crakanthorp says, noting a growing preference for small and medium-sized venues. "The cost of living is driving people out of the city and into the outer suburbs. "There are a lot of green shoots in the night-time economy. For the bigger ones, it is tough at the moment, but we see positives as well." Josh Distefano, the owner of Vera Wine on Beaumont Street, believes there's a benefit in having a small and casual space. You can be in and out in 15 minutes, he says, and there have been plenty of customers who have taken him up on the offer. The three-year-old bottle shop secured a license to serve their wares in-store in November, and has since added a handful of small tables at the front of the shop. Customers are time-poor. They have commitments and obligations, and those have costs. And costs have gone up. Distefano is sceptical about the oft-repeated line that customers are looking for boutique experiences, too. When he opened the shop, he wanted to offer something for everyone with an experience that could not be found at the commercial chains. "People will remember how they felt, more than what they ate," he says. "Having that connection with your guests is important." When Distefano received the email from the Newcastle Herald with the news that Audrey Nash, the city's fearless children's advocate, had died last month, he immediately sent a message to her family. Mrs Nash had visited the store a few times over the previous year, and he had got to know her. "Her family came in that night and had drinks and we were a bit quiet," Distefano says. "I sat down with them and reminisced. These people become part of your family." On a Wednesday night, about 9pm, Chris Wilson opens the door to The Koutetsu bar on Hunter Street and immediately puts out his hand. He has been at work since before 9am, and he won't leave until after closing time, but he greets every customer warmly and asks about their day. This new climate has him feeling like he is building his business all over again, and working the same and longer hours. He opens the bar four nights a week. He would like to open for seven, but the demand is not there yet. Uber has been a game changer, helping patrons get around the city on demand. He likes the light rail, but also believes that getting it was a travesty of public planning that almost crippled the city and businesses like his. "It was so hard to get a taxi in Newcastle, back in the day," he says. "I know the tram is very polarising and, mind you, I was lucky that it didn't go in front of my business. The people who got through that debacle - hats off to them because that would have been so stressful, but I use it when I can." Ultimately, he says, the trick to a vibrant social and cultural economy does not come solely from having busy bars and restaurants open all hours. Rather, the city's entire infrastructure must work to serve the population, and one of the happy effects is a thriving hospitality scene. The veteran barman is a stickler for service. He and his bartenders would rather open for 20 customers and serve each of them with consistently impeccable wares than fill the place to capacity and see customers walking out frustrated over a long wait for a drink. He could change his hours, or his menu, or his style on a whim, chasing the new flavour of the week. But he says doing so would cost him the patronage he has spent years struggling to build. "The more you chop and change, the more confused your guests get," he says. "They would rather go somewhere where they know they are going to get a drink." There's no magic trick, no social media algorithm or strategy that will fill the place until it's standing room only. Customers, in that sense, want what they have always wanted. "We're here to serve," Wilson says. "People work hard for their money, and when they are paying for a cocktail, they deserve to get quality and to get it quickly." At Bank Corner on a weekday morning, as the weather cools into winter and a handful of the nine-to-five crowd wait for their order, it's hard to recall that not that long ago we were scared this would all be gone forever. It has been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Hunter. There was the time before, and the time after. As we get further from it being our present, it becomes clearer that comparing the before and after is futile. Under the long shadow of the virus, living costs choked the weekly budget in a long and painful hangover of swollen inflation, supply shortages, wage stagnation and unaffordable rent. In that climate, venue owners say customers are less concerned about superficial luxuries and retail guff. They care about value for money and the sense of reliability in a world swimming upstream against a cascade of modern anxieties. Alyssa Salamon, the owner of the Newcastle West cafe on Bellevue Street, knows the names of her regulars and their orders by heart. She says Bank Corner customers crave that connection and authenticity. There is no time before the pandemic for her business to compare with now. She has worked in hospitality for years, but only became the owner of the West End landmark in January last year. She wants to keep out the sterile modernities that came from the pandemic years: to take the orders herself, make eye contact with her customers, and chat about their day. There are no screens in the cafe, and little branding. There's no front-facing tablet screen asking for reviews. If the service and the coffee are good, you can mention it to the staff yourself. Chances are, they remember you from last time. "I think there is something to be said for a cosy little corner where you don't have screens," Salamon says. "You're not ordering off a QR code menu. "I've been through my fair share of grieving, and sometimes going to an establishment where you're seen and recognised, and you're held in that bit of gentle space, is important." Salamon has made gradual progress for the past few months on extending the cafe's hours and securing its liquor license, but she is taking it steadily. She's conscious of not changing too much too quickly, and talks often about respecting the history of the place. One of her first improvements was to cut a section of bench that had previously jutted out. A patron had dropped by and offered to help, and Salamon was sawing the timber freehand when she went about 10 millimetres off track. There's a small knot in the side of the bench now, almost invisible if you did not know it was there. For Salamon, it's a stamp of her identity on a place that already has so much of its own. "It was a beautiful way of christening the space in that it was such a community effort," she says. The weekday crowd has never really come back to The Kent. Everyone is watching their spending these days, and the cross-town pub that used to cater to the office and retail workers around the suburb is now competing with the fast-and-cheap alternatives. Still, the 101-year-old Beaumont Street establishment has held on. "I think people are saving their money for the one night a week to go out," group director Chris Fitzsimmons says. "You get those nights where it seems like everyone just picked Saturday this week - no one Friday and then, on Saturday, there's a line around the corner." The venue has been enticing customers back with new lunch specials and pub staples like schnitzels and wings. It has had mixed results, Fitzsimmons says. "The patterns used to be a lot easier to pick," he says. "You used to have a better idea of what was going to happen day to day. These days, it's more crystal ball." Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp, who has been involved in a string of revitalisation efforts in the city pre- and post-COVID, says venue owners and managers have been operating in a rapidly changing environment for a long time. The culture has been turning increasingly to moderation. Rates of drinking, particularly among people under 30, have been steadily declining. Of those who partake, the number of weekly drinkers increasing their intake rose around 2013 and has remained fairly consistent since, according to government data. "People are going out, but they are finessing where they go," Crakanthorp says, noting a growing preference for small and medium-sized venues. "The cost of living is driving people out of the city and into the outer suburbs. "There are a lot of green shoots in the night-time economy. For the bigger ones, it is tough at the moment, but we see positives as well." Josh Distefano, the owner of Vera Wine on Beaumont Street, believes there's a benefit in having a small and casual space. You can be in and out in 15 minutes, he says, and there have been plenty of customers who have taken him up on the offer. The three-year-old bottle shop secured a license to serve their wares in-store in November, and has since added a handful of small tables at the front of the shop. Customers are time-poor. They have commitments and obligations, and those have costs. And costs have gone up. Distefano is sceptical about the oft-repeated line that customers are looking for boutique experiences, too. When he opened the shop, he wanted to offer something for everyone with an experience that could not be found at the commercial chains. "People will remember how they felt, more than what they ate," he says. "Having that connection with your guests is important." When Distefano received the email from the Newcastle Herald with the news that Audrey Nash, the city's fearless children's advocate, had died last month, he immediately sent a message to her family. Mrs Nash had visited the store a few times over the previous year, and he had got to know her. "Her family came in that night and had drinks and we were a bit quiet," Distefano says. "I sat down with them and reminisced. These people become part of your family." On a Wednesday night, about 9pm, Chris Wilson opens the door to The Koutetsu bar on Hunter Street and immediately puts out his hand. He has been at work since before 9am, and he won't leave until after closing time, but he greets every customer warmly and asks about their day. This new climate has him feeling like he is building his business all over again, and working the same and longer hours. He opens the bar four nights a week. He would like to open for seven, but the demand is not there yet. Uber has been a game changer, helping patrons get around the city on demand. He likes the light rail, but also believes that getting it was a travesty of public planning that almost crippled the city and businesses like his. "It was so hard to get a taxi in Newcastle, back in the day," he says. "I know the tram is very polarising and, mind you, I was lucky that it didn't go in front of my business. The people who got through that debacle - hats off to them because that would have been so stressful, but I use it when I can." Ultimately, he says, the trick to a vibrant social and cultural economy does not come solely from having busy bars and restaurants open all hours. Rather, the city's entire infrastructure must work to serve the population, and one of the happy effects is a thriving hospitality scene. The veteran barman is a stickler for service. He and his bartenders would rather open for 20 customers and serve each of them with consistently impeccable wares than fill the place to capacity and see customers walking out frustrated over a long wait for a drink. He could change his hours, or his menu, or his style on a whim, chasing the new flavour of the week. But he says doing so would cost him the patronage he has spent years struggling to build. "The more you chop and change, the more confused your guests get," he says. "They would rather go somewhere where they know they are going to get a drink." There's no magic trick, no social media algorithm or strategy that will fill the place until it's standing room only. Customers, in that sense, want what they have always wanted. "We're here to serve," Wilson says. "People work hard for their money, and when they are paying for a cocktail, they deserve to get quality and to get it quickly." At Bank Corner on a weekday morning, as the weather cools into winter and a handful of the nine-to-five crowd wait for their order, it's hard to recall that not that long ago we were scared this would all be gone forever. It has been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Hunter. There was the time before, and the time after. As we get further from it being our present, it becomes clearer that comparing the before and after is futile. Under the long shadow of the virus, living costs choked the weekly budget in a long and painful hangover of swollen inflation, supply shortages, wage stagnation and unaffordable rent. In that climate, venue owners say customers are less concerned about superficial luxuries and retail guff. They care about value for money and the sense of reliability in a world swimming upstream against a cascade of modern anxieties. Alyssa Salamon, the owner of the Newcastle West cafe on Bellevue Street, knows the names of her regulars and their orders by heart. She says Bank Corner customers crave that connection and authenticity. There is no time before the pandemic for her business to compare with now. She has worked in hospitality for years, but only became the owner of the West End landmark in January last year. She wants to keep out the sterile modernities that came from the pandemic years: to take the orders herself, make eye contact with her customers, and chat about their day. There are no screens in the cafe, and little branding. There's no front-facing tablet screen asking for reviews. If the service and the coffee are good, you can mention it to the staff yourself. Chances are, they remember you from last time. "I think there is something to be said for a cosy little corner where you don't have screens," Salamon says. "You're not ordering off a QR code menu. "I've been through my fair share of grieving, and sometimes going to an establishment where you're seen and recognised, and you're held in that bit of gentle space, is important." Salamon has made gradual progress for the past few months on extending the cafe's hours and securing its liquor license, but she is taking it steadily. She's conscious of not changing too much too quickly, and talks often about respecting the history of the place. One of her first improvements was to cut a section of bench that had previously jutted out. A patron had dropped by and offered to help, and Salamon was sawing the timber freehand when she went about 10 millimetres off track. There's a small knot in the side of the bench now, almost invisible if you did not know it was there. For Salamon, it's a stamp of her identity on a place that already has so much of its own. "It was a beautiful way of christening the space in that it was such a community effort," she says. The weekday crowd has never really come back to The Kent. Everyone is watching their spending these days, and the cross-town pub that used to cater to the office and retail workers around the suburb is now competing with the fast-and-cheap alternatives. Still, the 101-year-old Beaumont Street establishment has held on. "I think people are saving their money for the one night a week to go out," group director Chris Fitzsimmons says. "You get those nights where it seems like everyone just picked Saturday this week - no one Friday and then, on Saturday, there's a line around the corner." The venue has been enticing customers back with new lunch specials and pub staples like schnitzels and wings. It has had mixed results, Fitzsimmons says. "The patterns used to be a lot easier to pick," he says. "You used to have a better idea of what was going to happen day to day. These days, it's more crystal ball." Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp, who has been involved in a string of revitalisation efforts in the city pre- and post-COVID, says venue owners and managers have been operating in a rapidly changing environment for a long time. The culture has been turning increasingly to moderation. Rates of drinking, particularly among people under 30, have been steadily declining. Of those who partake, the number of weekly drinkers increasing their intake rose around 2013 and has remained fairly consistent since, according to government data. "People are going out, but they are finessing where they go," Crakanthorp says, noting a growing preference for small and medium-sized venues. "The cost of living is driving people out of the city and into the outer suburbs. "There are a lot of green shoots in the night-time economy. For the bigger ones, it is tough at the moment, but we see positives as well." Josh Distefano, the owner of Vera Wine on Beaumont Street, believes there's a benefit in having a small and casual space. You can be in and out in 15 minutes, he says, and there have been plenty of customers who have taken him up on the offer. The three-year-old bottle shop secured a license to serve their wares in-store in November, and has since added a handful of small tables at the front of the shop. Customers are time-poor. They have commitments and obligations, and those have costs. And costs have gone up. Distefano is sceptical about the oft-repeated line that customers are looking for boutique experiences, too. When he opened the shop, he wanted to offer something for everyone with an experience that could not be found at the commercial chains. "People will remember how they felt, more than what they ate," he says. "Having that connection with your guests is important." When Distefano received the email from the Newcastle Herald with the news that Audrey Nash, the city's fearless children's advocate, had died last month, he immediately sent a message to her family. Mrs Nash had visited the store a few times over the previous year, and he had got to know her. "Her family came in that night and had drinks and we were a bit quiet," Distefano says. "I sat down with them and reminisced. These people become part of your family." On a Wednesday night, about 9pm, Chris Wilson opens the door to The Koutetsu bar on Hunter Street and immediately puts out his hand. He has been at work since before 9am, and he won't leave until after closing time, but he greets every customer warmly and asks about their day. This new climate has him feeling like he is building his business all over again, and working the same and longer hours. He opens the bar four nights a week. He would like to open for seven, but the demand is not there yet. Uber has been a game changer, helping patrons get around the city on demand. He likes the light rail, but also believes that getting it was a travesty of public planning that almost crippled the city and businesses like his. "It was so hard to get a taxi in Newcastle, back in the day," he says. "I know the tram is very polarising and, mind you, I was lucky that it didn't go in front of my business. The people who got through that debacle - hats off to them because that would have been so stressful, but I use it when I can." Ultimately, he says, the trick to a vibrant social and cultural economy does not come solely from having busy bars and restaurants open all hours. Rather, the city's entire infrastructure must work to serve the population, and one of the happy effects is a thriving hospitality scene. The veteran barman is a stickler for service. He and his bartenders would rather open for 20 customers and serve each of them with consistently impeccable wares than fill the place to capacity and see customers walking out frustrated over a long wait for a drink. He could change his hours, or his menu, or his style on a whim, chasing the new flavour of the week. But he says doing so would cost him the patronage he has spent years struggling to build. "The more you chop and change, the more confused your guests get," he says. "They would rather go somewhere where they know they are going to get a drink." There's no magic trick, no social media algorithm or strategy that will fill the place until it's standing room only. Customers, in that sense, want what they have always wanted. "We're here to serve," Wilson says. "People work hard for their money, and when they are paying for a cocktail, they deserve to get quality and to get it quickly." At Bank Corner on a weekday morning, as the weather cools into winter and a handful of the nine-to-five crowd wait for their order, it's hard to recall that not that long ago we were scared this would all be gone forever. It has been five years since the COVID-19 pandemic reached the Hunter. There was the time before, and the time after. As we get further from it being our present, it becomes clearer that comparing the before and after is futile. Under the long shadow of the virus, living costs choked the weekly budget in a long and painful hangover of swollen inflation, supply shortages, wage stagnation and unaffordable rent. In that climate, venue owners say customers are less concerned about superficial luxuries and retail guff. They care about value for money and the sense of reliability in a world swimming upstream against a cascade of modern anxieties. Alyssa Salamon, the owner of the Newcastle West cafe on Bellevue Street, knows the names of her regulars and their orders by heart. She says Bank Corner customers crave that connection and authenticity. There is no time before the pandemic for her business to compare with now. She has worked in hospitality for years, but only became the owner of the West End landmark in January last year. She wants to keep out the sterile modernities that came from the pandemic years: to take the orders herself, make eye contact with her customers, and chat about their day. There are no screens in the cafe, and little branding. There's no front-facing tablet screen asking for reviews. If the service and the coffee are good, you can mention it to the staff yourself. Chances are, they remember you from last time. "I think there is something to be said for a cosy little corner where you don't have screens," Salamon says. "You're not ordering off a QR code menu. "I've been through my fair share of grieving, and sometimes going to an establishment where you're seen and recognised, and you're held in that bit of gentle space, is important." Salamon has made gradual progress for the past few months on extending the cafe's hours and securing its liquor license, but she is taking it steadily. She's conscious of not changing too much too quickly, and talks often about respecting the history of the place. One of her first improvements was to cut a section of bench that had previously jutted out. A patron had dropped by and offered to help, and Salamon was sawing the timber freehand when she went about 10 millimetres off track. There's a small knot in the side of the bench now, almost invisible if you did not know it was there. For Salamon, it's a stamp of her identity on a place that already has so much of its own. "It was a beautiful way of christening the space in that it was such a community effort," she says. The weekday crowd has never really come back to The Kent. Everyone is watching their spending these days, and the cross-town pub that used to cater to the office and retail workers around the suburb is now competing with the fast-and-cheap alternatives. Still, the 101-year-old Beaumont Street establishment has held on. "I think people are saving their money for the one night a week to go out," group director Chris Fitzsimmons says. "You get those nights where it seems like everyone just picked Saturday this week - no one Friday and then, on Saturday, there's a line around the corner." The venue has been enticing customers back with new lunch specials and pub staples like schnitzels and wings. It has had mixed results, Fitzsimmons says. "The patterns used to be a lot easier to pick," he says. "You used to have a better idea of what was going to happen day to day. These days, it's more crystal ball." Newcastle MP Tim Crakanthorp, who has been involved in a string of revitalisation efforts in the city pre- and post-COVID, says venue owners and managers have been operating in a rapidly changing environment for a long time. The culture has been turning increasingly to moderation. Rates of drinking, particularly among people under 30, have been steadily declining. Of those who partake, the number of weekly drinkers increasing their intake rose around 2013 and has remained fairly consistent since, according to government data. "People are going out, but they are finessing where they go," Crakanthorp says, noting a growing preference for small and medium-sized venues. "The cost of living is driving people out of the city and into the outer suburbs. "There are a lot of green shoots in the night-time economy. For the bigger ones, it is tough at the moment, but we see positives as well." Josh Distefano, the owner of Vera Wine on Beaumont Street, believes there's a benefit in having a small and casual space. You can be in and out in 15 minutes, he says, and there have been plenty of customers who have taken him up on the offer. The three-year-old bottle shop secured a license to serve their wares in-store in November, and has since added a handful of small tables at the front of the shop. Customers are time-poor. They have commitments and obligations, and those have costs. And costs have gone up. Distefano is sceptical about the oft-repeated line that customers are looking for boutique experiences, too. When he opened the shop, he wanted to offer something for everyone with an experience that could not be found at the commercial chains. "People will remember how they felt, more than what they ate," he says. "Having that connection with your guests is important." When Distefano received the email from the Newcastle Herald with the news that Audrey Nash, the city's fearless children's advocate, had died last month, he immediately sent a message to her family. Mrs Nash had visited the store a few times over the previous year, and he had got to know her. "Her family came in that night and had drinks and we were a bit quiet," Distefano says. "I sat down with them and reminisced. These people become part of your family." On a Wednesday night, about 9pm, Chris Wilson opens the door to The Koutetsu bar on Hunter Street and immediately puts out his hand. He has been at work since before 9am, and he won't leave until after closing time, but he greets every customer warmly and asks about their day. This new climate has him feeling like he is building his business all over again, and working the same and longer hours. He opens the bar four nights a week. He would like to open for seven, but the demand is not there yet. Uber has been a game changer, helping patrons get around the city on demand. He likes the light rail, but also believes that getting it was a travesty of public planning that almost crippled the city and businesses like his. "It was so hard to get a taxi in Newcastle, back in the day," he says. "I know the tram is very polarising and, mind you, I was lucky that it didn't go in front of my business. The people who got through that debacle - hats off to them because that would have been so stressful, but I use it when I can." Ultimately, he says, the trick to a vibrant social and cultural economy does not come solely from having busy bars and restaurants open all hours. Rather, the city's entire infrastructure must work to serve the population, and one of the happy effects is a thriving hospitality scene. The veteran barman is a stickler for service. He and his bartenders would rather open for 20 customers and serve each of them with consistently impeccable wares than fill the place to capacity and see customers walking out frustrated over a long wait for a drink. He could change his hours, or his menu, or his style on a whim, chasing the new flavour of the week. But he says doing so would cost him the patronage he has spent years struggling to build. "The more you chop and change, the more confused your guests get," he says. "They would rather go somewhere where they know they are going to get a drink." There's no magic trick, no social media algorithm or strategy that will fill the place until it's standing room only. Customers, in that sense, want what they have always wanted. "We're here to serve," Wilson says. "People work hard for their money, and when they are paying for a cocktail, they deserve to get quality and to get it quickly."
Sky News AU
4 hours ago
- Sky News AU
Albanese's first order of business is to get more Chinese tourists to Australia
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is in Shanghai aiming to get more holiday makers from China booking flights to Australia. This comes after the number of visitors from China is barely half of what it was before the COVID pandemic. Tourism Australia will link up a new deal with the world's largest travel company in hopes of attracting more Chinese tourists.
Sydney Morning Herald
5 hours ago
- Sydney Morning Herald
The clean energy era is arriving. Is your power company ready?
As long as the lights stay on and power bills aren't too high, most of us aren't overly fussed about who supplies our electricity. That may be about to change, executives in the industry believe, as Australians' booming uptake of solar panels and batteries radically reshapes the market, sending customers searching for the most effective plans to help run their homes on cheap or free energy and profit from selling surplus solar to the grid. Origin Energy was first among the nation's big power companies to start preparing for a future that looks something like this. Five years ago, it purchased a minority stake in UK-based power retailing disruptor Octopus Energy and, with it, the perpetual licence to use its market-leading customer software platform, known as Kraken, in Australia. 'Just like in fintech, there is a digital revolution in energy,' Octopus co-founder Greg Jackson explains. The heart of Kraken is its advanced data and machine learning capability, which collapses multiple legacy customer-service functions, like billing, sales and meter enquiries, into just the one, avoiding the need to bounce callers between departments, and cutting down the company's 'cost to serve'. But perhaps its most important feature in the accelerating shift to green energy is its ability to give customers access to real-time variable power pricing (think Uber as opposed to taxis), and products that automate when to run households' solar panels or hot-water units, charge electric cars and discharge batteries based on when they will get the best price. Octopus, it turned out, was onto something. In less than 10 years, it has gone from a tech start-up selling energy to zero customers to 7.5 million accounts – more than a quarter of all homes in Britain – and is considered one of the world's most valuable unicorns. Its Kraken platform, meanwhile, has proven so successful that it is licensed to utilities in 18 countries. Now, Kraken is poised to be spun out into a standalone entity with a possible valuation of up to £10 billion ($20 billion), according to British media reports earlier this week. Australian investment analysts at UBS and Macquarie value Kraken considerably less than that – UBS's Tom Allen assumes a valuation of £3.4 billion ($7 billion) to £5.8 billion, depending on its growth in sales. Either way, he says, Origin had made a 'fantastic' investment and may be headed for a considerable payday. But Kraken is paying off for Origin in more ways than that, says Jon Briskin, the company's executive general manager of retail. Since Origin migrated its 4.7 million Australian customers onto Kraken in 2023, customer loyalty scores have lifted, customer churn has been falling and complaints to the ombudsman have been fewer. Loading In a fast-changing world where more customers have solar panels, batteries and electric vehicles, the tech has also enabled Origin to become more nimble in developing and rolling out futuristic retail products, such as the EV Power Up. With more than 2 million EVs projected to be on the road by 2030, the product means customers can use their app to nominate when they want their EV charged by, and the software automatically chooses the best times of day to charge at an ultra-low capped rate of 8¢ a kilowatt-hour (that could charge up a Tesla Model Y for $5). With home battery uptake on the brink of surging since the Albanese government this month introduced rebates wiping 30 per cent off the cost, Kraken has also given Origin an edge in building out its 'virtual power plant' (VPP) network, whereby Origin pays customers a fee to let it aggregate the energy stored across thousands of their homes. Origin's VPP called Loop – a far-flung network of interconnected household devices including solar panels, batteries, electric cars and appliances that can be ramped up or down to inject bursts of energy into the grid or help address imbalances – is the biggest in the nation, with more than 400,000 devices under orchestration. Briskin says the Loop virtual power plant today sits at 1.5 gigawatts – bigger than a typical coal-fired power station. 'This orchestration is real, it's here, it's building fast,' Briskin says. 'I certainly feel like we are at a competitive advantage to have that technology that can move at greater speed.' While the value of Kraken to Origin's operations today overwhelmingly stems from the lower cost to serve customers, its ability to expand VPPs and co-ordinate household electricity usage and output would become increasingly critical in the fight for customers in the future, UBS's Tom Allen says. 'Energy retailing in the next five to 10 years will be won by who has the best technology to orchestrate behind-the-meter loads and be able to offer incentives to customers and dynamic pricing signals,' he says. 'That's what the future model will look like – it makes sense to be investing in that extra capability now.' While not everyone will be hyper-engaged and may not want to think about optimal times to run appliances, more than 80 per cent of Origin customers are already 'digital-only', Briskin says, with many simply using their app to track their energy usage, and receive alerts if it is trending too high. Origin is not alone in recognising the need to more efficiently manage customers and their energy usage in the shift to cleaner, more dispersed sources of power. We are going from a traditional commodity billing relationship to a much more complex and integrated service provision. Jo Egan, AGL's chief customer officer Last year, AGL snapped up a 20 per cent stake in the scalable and flexible Kaluza technology platform for $150 million, and has begun the process of migrating its 4 million power and gas customers in the coming years. Key drivers behind its adoption of the platform were the need to bring new and innovative energy retail products to the market more quickly in response to customers' fast-changing needs, says Jo Egan, AGL's chief customer officer. 'We are going from a traditional commodity billing relationship to a much more complex and integrated service provision … it's a completely different model,' says Egan. 'When you are working in a world like we are now, where the energy market is changing so frequently, the best situation is that you can deploy and innovate products quite rapidly and at low cost.'
