A wrap up of the day's presentations by each of the speakers at CPA Congress, Melbourne 2014. Day Two: Tuesday October 14, 2014

1. DAY TWO: TUESDAY 14
OCTOBER
Wrap up

2. Australia’s positioning in the region –
reform + innovation = competitiveness
Key points:
1. National income growth has been constant at around 2%
per year for the past decade.
2. Need to recognise opportunities and shortcomings and
create industry capabilities that support those.
3. It’s a reasonable view to assume that if we don’t take some
pain now, we’ll be much worse off in 10-20 years time.
4. Must deal with issues sufficiently in advance of them
becoming crises - don’t defer decisions or you will inevitably
have a bigger problem to deal with.
5. Australia’s future needs innovation. But innovation and technology is not in the vernacular of politicians.
6. The only way out of problems is innovation.
7. The more questions we ask about decluttering the processes in small businesses, the more we find out just how
cluttered they are.
Speakers: Peter Harris AO, Chairman, Productivity Commission, Rebecca McGrath, Non-Executive Director, OZ Minerals Ltd,
Incitec Pivot Ltd, CSR Ltd and Goodman Group, Alex Malley FCPA, Chief Executive, CPA Australia

3. Anthony Alexander CPA
Chief Financial Officer, Oxfam
Building a financially sustainable organisation – lessons learnt from Oxfam
Key points:
1. Oxfam focus in 4 main areas: Long term development.
Humanitarian work. Advocacy. Fair trade shops.
They work in 90 countries and turned over $90 mil AUD in
2013/14. They have 600 staff, 11 shops and an online presence.
2. In 2011, organisation ran into trouble Assets and equity
dropped $20 mil over 4 years.
Developed strategy based on 3 questions: Where are we now?
Where want to be in future? How do we get there?
3. Phase 1: Immediate cost reductions. Phase 2: Identify
longer term cost reduction actions to focus on growth.
4. Key tasks were to reduce expenditure, grow income.
Income: Focus on flexibility, diversification, stability of funding.
Create good quality programs to ‘sell’. Create a unique offering.
Expenditure: Voluntary and compulsary redundancy.
Operational spend reductions. Consolidating assets and
processes.
5. Learnings: Regular monitoring essential. Need to know
business’ numbers ‘inside out’. Keep staff involved and informed.

4. Steven Smith
Director, Digital Consulting, KPMG Australia
Demystifying the cloud
Key points:
1.The cloud is just the storage devices and computers that are housed off-site
at a facility owned by the provider.
2. The data is the valuable thing, not the device that it is sorted on.
3. Some of the benefits of the cloud are:
- Cost-saving on IT equipment and staff
- Greater productivity
- Better version control
- Accessible anywhere, anytime
4. Data will be safer with a cloud provider because:
- Robust security software and systems
- They have secure premises
- They have trained staff in security
5. When selecting the right cloud provider, treat it like you would any other
external provider - research them!

5. Anthony Hodgkinson
Executive Director, KordaMentha
Executive Director, KordaMentha
New developments in fraud detection
Key points:
1.Whistleblowers are the most important people when it comes to fighting fraud and corruption.
2. Drug, alcohol and gambling are significant contributors to corruption.
3. The higher the person's level of authority in an organisation, the higher the loss. The average loss is $500,000.
4. Companies need to make sure adequate procedures are in place to fight fraud and corruption.
5. Fraud red flags include a history of dishonest behaviour, rumours of an improved lifestyle and a failure to take leave.

6. Rosemary Kirkby
Principal, Rosemary Kirkby Consulting
Leadership and the future of work
Key points:
1. What millennials wants in the workplace:
- 64% want to make the world a better places
- 88% prefer collaboration over competition
- 88% want ‘work-life integration’
2. The role of “place” or community is key. The workplace should be a
collaborative environment. There is no excuse for poor design.
3. Many advantages of virtual teams. Use technology to your advantage.
Economical. Efficient. Recruit globally: Look up O-Desk and Freelancer.
4. Challenges of virtual teams: Managing performance, time zones,
availability of technology, teamwork and collaboration difficult.
5. Six ‘DOs’ for leaders of a distracted workforce:
Be role models. Access global talent pools. Build cultures of inclusion.
Make trust a given. Create cultures of collaboration. Rethink processes

7. Ram Subramanian
Policy Adviser – Reporting and Auditing, External Positioning, CPA Australia
Not-for-profit-sector – status update
Key points:
1. An update on charity regulation, and some of the
impacts, including the status of the Australian Charities
and Not-for-profits Commission as a Commonwealth
Regulator.
2. The current regulatory changes and requirements you
need to know about, including your obligations under
Commonwealth and State/Territory laws and regulations
3. Update on current financial planning reporting issues
including the reporting entity concept, and some
accounting standards that have not-for-profit specific
considerations.
4. Looking to the future of financial reporting and obtaining
an understanding of some of the developing innovations in
this area.
5. Reminder – when complying with ACNC financial
reporting obligations, there are a number of transitional
provisions the ACNC provides for 2014 that may alleviate
your compliance burden this year.

8. David Mahony
General Manager, Financial Control, Stockland
Stockland case study – adding value with integrated reporting
Key points:
1. Duplication of information across all reports means no clear
company narrative.
2. We have progressed from sustainability is 'the right thing to do' to
'creating long term value’.
3. It provides the opportunity to draw out a narrative not found in one
place
4. Things to consider: Materiality. Streamlined reporting. Minimise
duplication. Optimise accessibility.
5. Our approach to Integrated Reporting: Scoping. Design. Build.
Review.

9. Paul Cameron
Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, Booktrack (New Zealand)
Disruptive technology in business - reading never sounded so good
Key points:
1. The world has changed so much
when it comes to books, people
have new entertainment
expectations.
2. Be brave when it comes to
pushing a new idea.
3. Never, ever, give up.
4. Having a good business culture is
important and going against the
norm can lead to success.
5. Disruptive accounting, a more
effective way to run a business.

10. Ethan Glessich
Managing Director, enarah
The simplest way to instantly boost productivity
Key points:
1. Do you ever feel overwhelmed? Do you feel that
there is not enough time in one day? Every single
one of us experiences productivity issues.
2. Our attention is limited: You can control the
attention spotlight but… You may have very limited
bandwidth. Attention doesn’t divide well. Might feel
very sensitive.
3. The longer a task, the more errors you will make
and the poorer the quality will be due to
DISTRACTIONS.
4. Distractions add up. Little interruptions during
your day add up to at least 1/3 of your day!
5. One tip to immediately improve productivity:
Choose when to look at your email. Turn
send/receive off.

11. Vera Visevic
Partner, Mills Oakley
Effective boards – the holy grail!
Key points:
1. Challenges for boards include time poor Directors and constitutions which lack
appropriate clauses to encourage limited terms for directors.
2. Boards are facing increased security from regulators in regards to stakeholders.
3. Effective boards have a good mix of members and a culture of trust and respect.
4. It's important to create a strong relationship between the Chair of the Board and the
CEO.

12. Tania Galbraith CPA
Director, Continuous Improvement, The Walt Disney Company
Continuous improvement: Better metric reporting for driving efficiency
Key points:
1. The role of metrics: Identify opportunities for improvement.
Monitor adoption rates of new tools and process. Compliance to
policy. Monitor defects.Improve efficiency. Reporting success.
2. How metric reports help: Shock and gain peoples attention.
Makes the problem a tangible one. Provide a benchmark and
highlights areas for improvement. Facilitates a structured
conversation. Provides insights in the root cause .
3. Designing a metric report: Be clear on the objective. Consider
your audience. Prepare many, report on a few. Review regularly as
the business changes so will the metrics required. Make it visually
appealing.
4. Metric reports for driving efficiency: Be consistent. Follow up
on actions. Focus on small and incremental improvements. Don't
report on redundant metrics. Focus on inputs and process not just
outputs. Use metrics as a tool to help you drive efficiency but don't rely
on them to be the solution.

13. Joshua Vial
Founder, Enspiral (New Zealand)
Collaborative funding: Dissolve authority,
empower everyone, and crowdsource a
smarter, transparent budget
Key points:
1.Enspiral has embraced entrepreneurship within
its employees.
2. Democracy, network, collaboration and a
decentralised information model are the keys to
its business.
3. When it comes to budgeting, Enspiral uses
different 'money buckets' to fund its projects.

14. Bri Williams CPA
Principal Consultant and Behavioural Specialist, People Patterns
Why rational arguments fail (and what you should be doing instead)
Key points:
1.Eliminating low-grade decisions saves energy for more important
ones.
2. 3 biggest mistakes - we rely on willpower and motivation, we think
we are always rational, we underestimate our environments.
3. It takes 66 days on average to form a habit.
4. We have bad habits because the is something good about them.

15. Stuart Cameron
Partner, KS Black & Co
Performance management for NFPs – the requirement to adapt
Key points:
Key points:
1. Not for profit organisations need to continually adapt in
response to external demands on their services given their funds
available.
2. NFPS need to measure performance in terms of solvency and
profitability both to assess past performance, and to identify
trends to determine appropriate responses.
3. Solvency is the primary financial risk for NFPs.
4. Profitability and NFPs are not incongruous, especially given
the basis of government grants.
5. NFPs have similar legal obligations to for-profits entities. They
have the same business objects of solvency panda profitability.

16. Michael Davison
Senior Policy Adviser – Superannuation, CPA Australia
Future of retirement savings: Critical policy decision
Key points:
1. We need a long-term vision and goal for Australia's retirement savings system
2. We need to encourage a retirement incomes culture. We should think of our
superannuation as pension plans not savings plans.
3. Flexible saving incentives are needed and innovative pension product design
encouraged to minimise the risk we'll outlive our super.

17. Ken Christie FCPA
Chief Financial Officer, NAB Wealth
BNZ case study:
World class finance transformation
Key points:
How the Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) was
transformed into a world class finance company:
1.Define the vision 'the what’ - For BNZ to be in the
top 10% of the market benchmark.
2. Build trust in the leadership team - Finance
problems were easy once trust was built.
3. Deliver the core work stream - Grow the number of
team members who have the right attitude.
4. Benchmark the team - Aligned, acted, adjusted on
issues/challenges.
5. Measure the value created - BNZ Improved in
engagement and enablement score.

18. Bri Williams CPA
Principal Consultant and Behavioural Specialist, People Patterns
How to make and break habits
Key points:
1.Don’t rely on motivation and
willpower.
2. Design your physical and social
environment to support your habits, i.e.
smaller plate sizes.
3. Use the three parts of a habit -
trigger, reward and routine to make
and break habits.
4. To break a habit make it hard, to
make a habit make it easy!

19. INTHEBLACK presents – Building a winning culture of
workplace productivity and innovation
1. Companies need to be really clear about the purpose, or innovation doesn’t stick.
2. Make the finance team a part of your creative team to get company ideas off the ground.
3. Engaged workers improve a company’s bottom line.
4. Innovation is a gift - It’s when people put meaning into their work and do over and above what they’re paid for.
Speakers: Annalie Killian, Founder, Curator & Executive Producer Amplify Festival; Director of Innovation & Social
Business, AMP, Eileen Burnett-Kant, Executive Global Head of Human Resources, Orica; Kieran Flanagan, Co-
Founder and Chief Creative Officer, The Impossible Institute

20. Stay tuned for the
Day Three Wrap Up
tomorrow at
cpaaustralia.com.au