Why depachikas in Japan are the best place to enjoy the foodie scene
In Japan, depachikas – department store food halls selling the finest food and drink – are an institution. A portmanteau of 'depato' (department store) and 'chika' (basement), these subterranean Shangri-las are the perfect place
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Techday NZ
7 hours ago
- Techday NZ
Contract inefficiencies cost global economy AUD $3.13 trillion
Australian workplaces are experiencing a notable productivity slowdown, with new research indicating that inefficient contract management processes are contributing to the country's economic challenges. The latest report from Docusign, in collaboration with Deloitte, identifies outdated and manual agreement procedures as a factor behind ongoing micro-inefficiencies in businesses, which, when accumulated, significantly impact national productivity levels. The findings come as the Productivity Commission's most recent bulletin highlighted only a 0.2% growth in output, while hours worked rose by 0.3%—leading to stagnation in productivity results in early 2025. Despite widespread adoption of digital transformation initiatives and artificial intelligence (AI), many organisations still depend on fragmented contract workflows. According to Docusign, such inefficiencies equate to more than AUD $3.13 trillion in lost economic value on a global scale each year. Key findings The Docusign-Deloitte survey focused on the Australia and New Zealand (ANZ) region, uncovering the scale of the so-called 'Agreement Trap'. Lengthy negotiation cycles and delays in approval are prompting business leaders to prioritise operational efficiency measures. The study shows that 68% of ANZ decision-makers rate their contract creation capability as advanced, with 55% attributing significant performance improvements to this maturity. "Reversing Australia's weak productivity performance is one of the most urgent economic challenges we currently face, and slow business processes are only exacerbating the issue. It is perhaps no surprise that we're seeing businesses focus on tactical use cases like contract creation; what may seem like siloed inefficiencies at the individual business level actually causes a considerable strain on productivity when multiplied at the scale of the economy," said Shaun McLagan, Group Vice President and General Manager for ANZ at Docusign. The digital maturity gap The report highlights a disconnect between reported digital maturity and tangible impact on business performance. While 75% claim advanced capability in routing, editing, and approval workflows, only 39% saw notable enhancement from these capabilities. Similarly, 85% reported high maturity in customer experience; however, less than half (44%) credited this with significant performance benefits. In the area of business intelligence, 90% of ANZ leaders stated that insights and intelligence are mature functions within their organisations. Nonetheless, only 25% said these capabilities had significantly boosted business performance, which is behind the 33% reported by Japanese counterparts. McLagan commented: "ANZ leaders are rightly focused on driving microefficiencies, but many are still struggling to extract strategic value from their contract management systems. Despite investments in automation and advanced tools, the business impact often lags behind technological maturity. Organisations must think bigger, and more strategically, about how agreements can unlock long-term performance gains." AI and contract lifecycle management Artificial intelligence is increasingly regarded as a key enabler for agreement management transformation. Globally, business leaders estimate 60% of each capability within contract lifecycle management could be AI-assisted within the next three years. Nearly half (48%) of global leaders surveyed rank contract creation as a priority area for AI application, ahead of functions such as insights and intelligence (35%), customer experience (35%), agreement storage and categorisation (32%), review and risk evaluation (30%), and obligation and renewal management (28%). The report cautions, however, that while automation can drive immediate productivity gains, businesses could repeat previous mistakes by ignoring use cases with potential for long-term strategic value. McLagan said: "Contract creation being an essential area for AI indicates a key pain point for organisations. However, AI and intelligent agreement management represent an opportunity for businesses to think beyond automating away pain points and digging deeper into the untapped potential trapped inside static contracts." He added, "Agreements are the heartbeat of the economy. As Australia seeks to turn the tide on its productivity slump, closing the gap between digital maturity and real-world business impact in agreement management will play a key role in growing the modern economy." Survey methodology The Docusign and Deloitte survey drew on responses from over 1,400 business leaders across 14 countries, including Australia and New Zealand. Organisations surveyed ranged in size from 125 to 20,000 employees and included representatives from sales, procurement, customer experience, human resources, legal, and information technology roles. Respondents were at director level or above and held responsibility for contract management functions. The research combined quantitative data with qualitative interviews for context.
NZ Herald
a day ago
- NZ Herald
Why depachikas in Japan are the best place to enjoy the foodie scene
Want to dive into Japanese cuisine? Make a beeline for a depachika, writes Tamara Hinson In Japan, depachikas – department store food halls selling the finest food and drink – are an institution. A portmanteau of 'depato' (department store) and 'chika' (basement), these subterranean Shangri-las are the perfect place
Techday NZ
5 days ago
- Techday NZ
Exclusive: AI drives new cyber threats & resilience strategies in APJ
There is both opportunity and risk, as artificial intelligence (AI) is adopted at enterprises across the region, according to Ben Young, Field CTO for APJ at Veeam. He also sees businesses are under pressure not only to adopt new technologies but also to shore up their defences as adversarial groups increasingly harness the same innovations for malicious purposes. "Every single vertical can benefit from some form of AI adoption," Young asserts. "But it's a double-edged sword. Just as we're trying to innovate, the threat groups-cyber adversaries-are leveraging AI as well." He points to the growing accessibility of AI-powered toolkits that lower the bar for launching attacks: "There are tools you can buy for a few hundred USD a month as a subscription, and they allow non-experts to write malware or deploy very convincing phishing campaigns. Large language models can push spear phishing click-through rates from industry averages of 12% up to 54%." This sharp escalation in the sophistication and volume of threats comes at a pivotal time when organisations are also accelerating their AI strategies. Veeam, which originally established its brand in backup and disaster recovery, is rapidly expanding its portfolio to address an evolving landscape, protecting hybrid environments, SaaS platforms, and even providing storage for backup workloads. Young notes that the company's partnerships, especially with Microsoft on Azure, have enabled it to offer backup-as-a-service while leveraging global economies of scale-critically, with "no egress and no API transaction fees." However, he's quick to add that adaptability is part of its core: "It's on the roadmap for other clouds to run these things, because not everyone's an Azure shop." The broadening definition of business resilience now brings backup and security disciplines much closer together. 90% of cyber attacks focus on backup repositories, which has resulted in disaster recovery and cybersecurity being intertwined. "Backups are the last resort, and threat actors know it. If they take out your backups, your only options are to pay the ransom and hope for the best," Young explains. Veeam's acquisition of CoveWare, an incident response firm, enables the direct integration of real-world telemetry and threat intelligence into Veeam's product development and customer education initiatives. Changing regulations are also playing a critical part. The recently enacted Japanese cyber defence bill mandates the reporting of ransomware incidents and the development of regular response plans. Young applauds this direction, noting, "It's critical we talk about incidents-otherwise these are not board-level discussions and security teams struggle for budget." He points out that cyber extortion is no longer a niche risk. Financial institutions and public sector organisations, in particular, are contending with increasingly sophisticated AI-enabled attacks while balancing compliance, governance, and privacy regulations across diverse national boundaries. The surge in 'shadow IT'-where departments launch unsanctioned SaaS, AI applications or cloud projects-presents new blind spots. "We're seeing lots of little shadow IT projects, especially as people rush to experiment with AI. When that gets to production, who is looking after that system? It's the same shadow IT problem we've seen for years, now amplified by the ease of consuming AI services," Young says. This requires a step change in visibility. Veeam is responding by mapping and analysing customers' data footprints and building automated support, monitoring, and reporting features through its observability platform. The company's AI-powered 'Veeam Intelligence Engine' is designed to suggest remediations, generate code samples, and flag risks in natural language-"making support and reporting far more accessible," says Young. The complexity of emerging architectures compounds the challenge of AI adoption. "We're really good at protecting databases and webservers because we know what they are and how to back them up. But with the introduction of vector databases, AI agents, and model training checkpoints, we need new strategies," Young explains. The potential cost and risk of a failed AI project, such as losing weeks of model training due to corrupted data, is prompting enterprises to consider backup and recovery for infrastructure previously outside the IT remit. "Agents are going to be central to the future, especially with more reliable, reflective AI systems. The good news is, most of these platforms run on environments-Kubernetes, cloud infrastructure-that we already protect." Young identifies security lapses as a persistent oversight in the current rush to implement AI: "It's the shiny new thing, and the basics can be forgotten. If we can get people thinking about security as part of their DNA while deploying AI, they'll be better off." He cautions that most SaaS providers operate a shared responsibility model: "Microsoft or Salesforce take care of the platform, not your data. If it's deleted from the cloud, it's gone-vendors won't provide a full backup. Your data is your responsibility." Against this backdrop, keeping pace with threats requires organisation-wide preparation. Veeam's customer workshops and regular incident simulations demonstrate a commitment to education as a proactive defence. "Preparation is the key: practice and plan. Use your tools, test your backups, scan for vulnerabilities, and have a response plan. Yara signature rules, for example, can be imported to scan for specific attack strains in backup archives," Young says, emphasising the importance of practical readiness over theoretical robustness. Young notes that Veeam's AI and resilience roadmap is anchored in five pillars: infrastructure resilience, intelligence, security pre- and post-attack, and business value extraction from archived data. The company's long-standing data integration API, for instance, enables the surfacing of unstructured data, ranging from images to documents, for AI applications, analytics, or compliance. "AI applications require fuel, and that fuel is data. Unlocking value from our organisations means thinking beyond expensive, monolithic data lakes, and instead focusing on the ability to extract insight from all data sources, structured or not." "Our role is to assist with growing compliance, governance, and regulatory requirements, but also to bring responsible, opt-in AI features to our customers and to help make data protection, cybersecurity, and digital transformation board-level priorities," Young concludes. "It's critical we talk about incidents-it raises awareness across all organisations. If we don't, it's not going to be a board-level discussion, and teams will struggle to get budget for this stuff."
