I Grew Up Believing Australia Rewarded Effort
Build carefully. Work hard. Take risks. Back yourself. Invest in something real. The idea was that if you put in the years and made sound decisions, the outcome would reflect that. It was not a guarantee, business never is, but the system, broadly, was on your side. Estate planners and wealth advisers are calling the […]
CGT — Death Taxes by Another Name
Estate planners and wealth advisers across Australia have started using a different name for the new Capital Gains Tax changes. Death taxes. It is a blunt label. But once you understand what is actually being proposed, particularly for family businesses and trust holders, it is not a difficult one to understand. The issue with trusts. […]
Business Owners – Send This to Your Mates
I will keep this short. Because that is the point. If you sell your business after 1 July 2027 and you cannot demonstrate what it was worth before or on that date, you will very likely pay more tax than you need to. That is not a scare tactic. It is the mechanics of the […]
Capitalism After the Crisis: A Framework That Failed the Test of Reality
Jim Chalmers’ 2023 essay was written immediately after delivering his first Federal Budget and was presented as a new economic manifesto for Australia, a “values-based capitalism” built upon co-investment, market redesign, wellbeing frameworks and expanded public purpose. But by 2026, two projects alone stand as irrefutable evidence that this was not a durable economic framework. […]
AI and the Vanishing Firm
When staff side-hustle your intellectual property into the cloud, your competitive advantage quietly disappears. Let me describe a scene that is almost certainly happening in your business right now, today, whilst you are reading this. A member of your team has a task to complete. Perhaps they are drafting a proposal, summarising a client file, […]
From Innovation to Infringement: Can AI‑Built ‘Proprietary’ Tools Actually be Someone Else’s Asset?
AI has given many Australian business owners a tempting story: “We have built our own proprietary tool.” The test is whether that tool would survive due diligence, or whether part of it quietly belongs to someone else. The uncomfortable question: What do you actually own? Over the past two years, disputes over training data, open‑source […]
The AI Valuation Paradox – Strategic Asset or Unanticipated Liability?
The Premise In the current scramble for “Digital Transformation”, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are integrating Artificial Intelligence at a pace that may be outstripping their limited governance. At Negotia Group, we are beginning to see a divide in how these tools can impact business value. Is AI a Strategic Asset that raises a business […]
Technology, AI, and the SME: How Digital Transformation Raises (or Lowers) Your Business Value in 2025
There is no shortage of people willing to speculate on artificial intelligence (AI) and the impacts on small to medium enterprises. Multiple industry workshops I have attended have echoed most peoples biggest fear; someone always asks, “Is AI going to take all our jobs?” It is a phrase shrouded in self-interest and apprehension, yet the […]
Setting Price in a Recession: Three Important Decisions
Every business owner confronts the same dilemma during uncertain economic times: how do we increase prices when the market is exhibiting the same fear, uncertainty, and doubt that we feel as costs continue to climb relentlessly? The conventional wisdom suggests freezing prices during a recession is the safe option, perhaps even reducing them to maintain […]
Navigating Uncertainty: How Tariff Changes Impact Risk Premiums and SME Value in Australia
Building upon last week’s discussion of Aswath Damodaran’s insights into the valuation challenges posed by recent tariff shocks, we now turn our attention to the broader implications for Australian small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In today’s volatile global trade environment, tariff changes have become a persistent concern for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Australia. […]