News

A total of 11.8 million people held tech jobs in 2018, up 2.3 per cent from the previous year, with gains led by software developers, systems analysts and cyber-security analysts, and IT support specialists, CompTIA said in a report Tuesday. Tech jobs accounted for 7.6 per cent of the US workforce last year, up from 7.2 per cent in 2017.

If the pace holds, the number of US tech professionals is set to grow 13.1 per cent over the decade between 2016 and 2026, creating 8.6 million new jobs, the report said. Over that period, the number of jobs for all occupations is projected to grow 10.7 per cent.

Tech workers are about evenly split, according to the report: 46 per cent work for technology companies, a category that includes Silicon Valley firms, while 54 per cent work in IT in other industries.

“We take it for granted that technology has an impact,” said Tim Herbert, CompTIA’s senior vice president of research. As an economic driver, he said, tech is shifting beyond Silicon Valley to businesses across the country.

Companies of all sizes were being transformed by technology in places like in Charlotte, North Carolina, or Boise, Idaho, he added: “When you really drill down into what’s happening in states that you don’t always think of as having a strong tech presence, it’s really something.”

As of the end of 2018, more than 100,000 workers in Charlotte had jobs in tech, either working for one of the city’s 4228 tech firms or as IT professionals at local businesses, accounting for 8.1 per cent of the city’s workforce, the report said.

Boise’s net tech employment hit 28,645 last year, up 4.1 per cent from 2017, representing 8.4 per cent of its workforce, the report said. In 2018, the city had just over 1000 tech firms. The results are based on an analysis of Labour Department data, as well as other government sources.

The tech sector generated an estimated $US1.8 trillion ($2.5 trillion) last year, up from $US1.6 trillion in 2017. Tech’s share of gross domestic product rose to 10.2 per cent in 2018 from 9.2 per cent in 2017, the report said. That makes tech the third biggest contributor to the economy, behind manufacturing and government services but ahead of the finance and insurance sectors, CompTIA said.

Part of the reason for tech’s employment growth beyond Silicon Valley was that the role of IT was shifting from backroom tech support to business strategies and revenue generation, said Craig Stephenson, senior partner and managing director of the North American technology officers practice at executive-search firm Korn/Ferry International.

“Companies are experiencing new challenges which may require a modernisation of functional capabilities,” Mr Stephenson said, adding that technology was quickly becoming critical for revenue growth, the time it took a product to reach the market, and customer experience.

Korn/Ferry last year found that 83 per cent of nearly 200 IT executives surveyed at firms across a range of industries described their role as being more strategic than it was three years ago.

That, in turn, is prompting companies to raise IT budgets. Gartner expects global spending on IT to reach $US3.8 trillion this year, up 3.2 per cent from 2018. Increased IT spending was driving job growth across the tech sector, said John-David Lovelock, a research vice president at Gartner.

“IT is no longer just a platform that enables organisations to run their business on. It has become the engine that grows the business,” Mr Lovelock said.

A downside of higher demand for tech workers is a yawning talent gap, CompTIA’s Mr Herbert said. More than 80 per cent of roughly 2800 tech-hiring decision makers at US firms, surveyed by Robert Half International this year, said finding tech talent was a challenge.

Amazon’s head of ‘Core Consumables’ is leaving the e-commerce giant to take up a leading role at Unilever’s beauty and personal care business, which represents 40 per cent of the company’s turnover.

Sunny Jain has led Core Consumables at Amazon for the last six years, following 16 years at rival Procter and Gamble.

During his time at Amazon, Jain was responsible for brands within health and personal care, beauty and grooming, luxury beauty, grocery/food, baby, private label categories and pharmacy.

Unilever CEO Alan Jope said Jain’s “unique experience” made him “exceptionally well suited to help us deliver our growth ambitions” for the division.

“Sunny also has a strong sense of purpose and is passionate about high performance, and will therefore undoubtedly be a highly valued addition to our team,” Jope added.

Jain will take up the role and become a member of the leadership executive in June.

A 5 kilogram parcel can cost at least $2 more to send if bringing your own packaging, according to the online postage estimator.

Lobbying Australia Post

"I actually almost didn't write [the] petition, because I was thinking 'it won't make a difference', but I'm so glad I did," Flannery said. "An amazing win for the environment. Power to the people."

Australia Post has confirmed this to the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age, but cannot comment further on future on this changes at this stage.

Compostable bags

The win comes as Australian startups turn their minds to addressing the environmental impacts of the global e-commerce boom.

Better Packaging Co founders Kate Bezar and Rebecca Percasky have spent the past two years building parcel bags that consumers can compost at home.

"It was just so compelling, the proposition of being able to really make change," Bezar, who also founded Dumbo Feather magazine, says.

Better Packaging Co has been working with brands like Ripcurl, L'Oreal Paris, Garnier and Maybelline on projects to start using its products, which include parcel packs made of biodegradable materials derived from corn.

The founders have invested $200,000 of personal savings in the company so far, but after their first run of 50,000 bags sold out in two weeks, Bezar says the pair knew they were on to a winner.

The bags start at 18c and go up to just over $1 per unit, making them on par with plastic packaging bought from big stationery retailers, the founders say. After less than one year selling the bags, the business is tracking to achieve $1 million turnover.

It's an idea retailers have been surprisingly hungry for, Percasky says.

"We’ve always been surprised by how fast some of the bigger brands have gotten on board."

The startup, which has been a champion of Flannery's petition, has also been in touch with Australia Post to pitch itself as a potential partner.

While the appetite to ditch plastic packaging is strong, Bezar says the process of building the startup has revealed the shortcomings of Australia's recycling sector.

"It was pretty disheartening realising how fundamentally flawed some of those processes are. Some of those sorting facilities have not been updated in decades," she says.

The company is now getting to work developing parcel packs that can go in consumer's recycling bins instead of composting.

With warehouses in Australia, New Zealand, the USA and China, global goals are on the table.

"The next plan is the UK or Germany, based on the interest we’re seeing. We can’t say no to anyone," Percasky says.

This morning, Instagram lifted the curtain on an idea that the company has been refining for years. The app now has a checkout function, meaning you can store your credit card information in your profile and click to buy directly from the app, as opposed to being redirected to a brand’s website. Before the launch today, users were able to tap product tags in a post, product stickers in Stories, and a shopping destination in Explore, which would then take them out of Instagram and into a new URL where credit card and shipping information would have to be input. This trial run of shoppable Instagram features was a success; according to the company, 130 million people were tapping the product tags each month.

For the launch of Checkout, Instagram has partnered with an impressive roster of brands, including Burberry, Prada, Oscar de la Renta, Balmain, and Michael Kors. H&M, Zara, Nike, Warby Parker, and Outdoor Voices have signed on as well, as have beauty brands like KKW Beauty and NARS.

Instagram users will be able to pay with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Paypal, the latter of which is serving as the main processor for the transactions. The company explains that having the ability for a direct checkout through the app will enhance security for the purchaser and create a more seamless shopping experience, one that starts and ends on Instagram. For now, the above names, plus a few more, are the only brands participating in the beta launch, but there is excitement around the evolution of this new technology. The idea of buying an entire wardrobe with a single double tap is apparently much closer than we thought.

Instagram is trialling a “checkout” feature with select retailers in the US, that allows shoppers to buy products without leaving the app for the first time.

The social media platform said the program is still in testing phase and is being trialled with Nike, H&M, Adidas, Kylie Cosmetics and Zara.

The shopping and checkout function will appear in unpaid posts and stories but not ads.

Instagram launched its first shopping function in 2016, when it introduced a shop button which linked to the retailer’s website.

This morning, Instagram lifted the curtain on an idea that the company has been refining for years. The app now has a checkout function, meaning you can store your credit card information in your profile and click to buy directly from the app, as opposed to being redirected to a brand’s website. Before the launch today, users were able to tap product tags in a post, product stickers in Stories, and a shopping destination in Explore, which would then take them out of Instagram and into a new URL where credit card and shipping information would have to be input. This trial run of shoppable Instagram features was a success; according to the company, 130 million people were tapping the product tags each month.

For the launch of Checkout, Instagram has partnered with an impressive roster of brands, including Burberry, Prada, Oscar de la Renta, Balmain, and Michael Kors. H&M, Zara, Nike, Warby Parker, and Outdoor Voices have signed on as well, as have beauty brands like KKW Beauty and NARS.

Instagram users will be able to pay with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Paypal, the latter of which is serving as the main processor for the transactions. The company explains that having the ability for a direct checkout through the app will enhance security for the purchaser and create a more seamless shopping experience, one that starts and ends on Instagram. For now, the above names, plus a few more, are the only brands participating in the beta launch, but there is excitement around the evolution of this new technology. The idea of buying an entire wardrobe with a single double tap is apparently much closer than we thought.

This morning, Instagram lifted the curtain on an idea that the company has been refining for years. The app now has a checkout function, meaning you can store your credit card information in your profile and click to buy directly from the app, as opposed to being redirected to a brand’s website. Before the launch today, users were able to tap product tags in a post, product stickers in Stories, and a shopping destination in Explore, which would then take them out of Instagram and into a new URL where credit card and shipping information would have to be input. This trial run of shoppable Instagram features was a success; according to the company, 130 million people were tapping the product tags each month.

For the launch of Checkout, Instagram has partnered with an impressive roster of brands, including Burberry, Prada, Oscar de la Renta, Balmain, and Michael Kors. H&M, Zara, Nike, Warby Parker, and Outdoor Voices have signed on as well, as have beauty brands like KKW Beauty and NARS.

Instagram users will be able to pay with Visa, Mastercard, Discover, and Paypal, the latter of which is serving as the main processor for the transactions. The company explains that having the ability for a direct checkout through the app will enhance security for the purchaser and create a more seamless shopping experience, one that starts and ends on Instagram. For now, the above names, plus a few more, are the only brands participating in the beta launch, but there is excitement around the evolution of this new technology. The idea of buying an entire wardrobe with a single double tap is apparently much closer than we thought.

Kogan.com Limited has launched a marketplace for online retailers as it seeks to fend off the threat from Amazon, which runs a similar service.

Kogan said on Thursday that more than 100,000 products from brands like Microsoft, Breville, Fisher-Price and Gillette are now available through Kogan Marketplace.

"Our mission is to make the most in-demand products and services more affordable for all Australians," said Kogan Marketplace director Lazar Monin.

Kogan said it expects more retailers to sign up with the platform now that it has been launched.

Kogan shares were up for the first time in eight days on the news, gaining 26 cents, or 7.28 per cent, to $3.83 at 1320 AEDT.

From the supermarket to the online store, the evolution of the retail industry has placed more and more emphasis on customers serving themselves. 
But customers have also become more sophisticated and expect more in return for their efforts.

Amazon’s extraordinary success has been a wakeup call to retailers, both online and off, to improve the customer experience from the buying environment through to fulfilment. And that is leading them to take a very different view of the skills they need.

As the chief technology officer for Cisco in Australia, Kevin Bloch has helped numerous retailers develop their path into the digital era. While he says there will always be shoppers and products for sale, over the next decade almost everything in-between will be ‘re-fashioned’.

“Apps, as the digital shopfront, will become even more important for both the customer experience as well as for retailers and suppliers,” Bloch says. “Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) will combine to refine and enrich the shopper experience, simplifying and optimising the supply chain. 
“This data, combined with other sources, will change the way in which goods are manufactured and enable more ‘just-in-time’, agile production, faster turnaround and transform how and where stock is kept.”

That translates to a big change from the skills a retailer might have recruited for just a decade ago. It also creates an immediate challenge, given such skills are in short supply. 
For Anna Samkova, the group general manager for digital at the multibrand fashion retailer The PAS Group, the skills she needs are not readily available today, so she looks for candidates with the right attitude, who are able to learn, and have a growth mindset. But most importantly, she looks for people who can solve problems.

“The multi-touchpoint journey with customers is becoming very complex,” Samkova says. “We will need to have more visual designers and product managers and experience mangers — the builders.”

The war for talent in retail is escalating, and the battlefield is broad. The CEO at online retailer Winning Group, John Winning, says his company is always looking for developers, and finding people who both understand cutting edge technologies and the trading environment Winning Group works in is increasingly difficult. 
And it is not just technical skills that are in short supply.

“Delivery is such an important factor in customer service and gaining loyalty,” Winning says. “We not only have our own network of delivery drivers nationwide, but our logistics business Winning Services also includes an installation team. We are finding it difficult to employ good carpenters and plumbers, as well as people with heavy vehicle truck licenses.”

Winning says the line between technical and non-technical roles is blurring and everyone needs to develop skills to use or interpret technology. 

“Looking to the future, I believe a balance of technical and softer skills will be required, as people will need to use good communication skills to be successful in environments that are constantly changing,” Winning says.

The transformation of retail is far-reaching — even to the humble convenience store. The general manager for people and talent at 7-Eleven, Sharon Beaumont, says the retailer is reviewing future capabilities as it embraces change and technology.

“Fundamentally we are a people business, and the ability to build genuine relationships between all people who make our business a great one remains crucial,” Beaumont says. “Building on that is how we delight our customers each and every time they interact with us. It’s more than being just friendly, it’s having capabilities across the end-to-end customer experience that are better than our competitors."

Critical to that vision is a part of the business that customers rarely see — the supply chain. 7-Eleven’s general manager of supply and operations, Hazel Simpson, says the retailer is building capacity to swiftly adapt to consumer needs. 

“As our supply chain evolves, one of the key changes will be how the technology helps us turn large amounts of data into useful information,” Simpson says. “That will allow our people in logistics, replenishment and data science to focus on using their expertise to action the insights from data, rather than on the process of gathering and managing the data itself.”

And these are only the challenges of today. According to Cisco's Kevin Bloch, we are just at the beginning of this next chapter.

“Retail space and property is already being impacted, as are fashion seasons as we traditionally knew them, from summer-winter, are moving to week-by-week,” Bloch says.

“D2C (direct-to-customer) business is underway, leveraging technology and data to reduce legacy, costly and inefficient supply chains. Further ahead, we can expect to see broader use of blockchain or other distributed ledger and cryptographic technologies to rationalise the supply chain, simplify D2C and enable new capabilities such as provenance. 
“There will still be plenty of jobs, however the key challenge is that the type of work required will be different and will require new skills.”

Amazon is determined to boost profits at its core e-commerce business, even if that means disrupting relationships with long-time suppliers. Robert Bumsted

"If you're heavily reliant on Amazon, which a lot of these vendors are, you're in a lot of trouble," said Dan Brownsher, Chief Executive Officer of Channel Key, a Las Vegas e-commerce consulting business with more than 50 clients that sell more than $US100 million $142 million) of goods on Amazon annually. "If this goes on, it can put people out of business."

Mr Brownsher is among several consultants who said Amazon's move had affected thousands of vendors.