REPORTING SEASON: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY; SOME HELPFUL TIPS TO KEEP PRODUCTIVITY UP

REPORTING SEASON: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY; SOME HELPFUL TIPS TO KEEP PRODUCTIVITY UP

Welcome to this week’s business and media intelligence, with insights collected over the past seven days.

REPORTING SEASON: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

  • As we move into the reporting season home straight, media coverage of results continues to focus on the impact of COVID-19 on business performance, government subsidies, dividend policy and forward-looking statements. The impact of COVID-19 is hard to predict with some sectors proving more resilient than expected and significant divergence in performance within sectors. Also, as companies understandably move away from providing specific guidance for the coming year, investors say they are  in the dark about what to expect from the 2021 financial year, which makes  projections and valuations far more difficult.

DIGITAL CRIME IS UP, UP, UP…

  • Digital crime in the US has risen by 75 per cent, with the main type of cyber attack being in the form of phishing emails – criminals impersonating companies, banks and even government and health-care authorities. Research by Accenture estimates companies can los up to three per cent of revenue because of cyber-security vulnerabilities.

WORKING FROM HOME STILL? SOME HELPFUL TIPS TO KEEP PRODUCTIVITY UP.

  • Dr Amantha Imber, founder of behavioural science consultancy Inventium, poses four strategies you can adopt to make your workplace more enjoyable even during a pandemic, including cleaning up those meetings!
  • Harvard Business Review also highlights the advantages of shifting some of your workforce to permanent virtual positions and provides helpful steps to assess opportunities for those remote roles.

COVID-19 IS CHANGING LIFT ETIQUETTE. SERIOUSLY.

  • The pandemic is changing a lot of things, including the way we use and behave in office and residential lifts. Ten people squeezing into a lift? Forget about it. In fact, the familiar rules that took decades to evolve face a complete rewrite in the age of coronavirus. Read about the history of the elevator and what it can teach us about social distancing in The Economist.

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