Latest updates for ANZ sales professionals
ASIC data shows business insolvencies up 75% since 2019, with cash flow cited as the main failure driver. The core issue: small businesses are financing their customers' operations through extended payment terms while their own bills are due immediately. Payment Times Reporting shows large businesses now pay 69% of invoices within 30 days, but 60-day cycles remain standard in many B2B segments.
BNPL provider Zip is shutting down New Zealand operations effective 16 August, citing strategic focus on Australia and US markets. The company posted $65.1m cash EBITDA in Q3 FY26 (up 41.5% YoY) but did not disclose headcount impact or sales team changes from the NZ exit.
University of Canberra AI expert Ryan Payne says workers over 50 are unlikely to retrain for AI-heavy roles, while employers see under-25s as over-reliant on AI. The federal government's 'jobs created, not lost' promise ignores reality: roles are changing faster than workers can adapt.
Dropbox guided to revenue decline. PagerDuty ARR is dead flat at $496M. Net dollar retention below 100% means the existing base is shrinking. This is what happens when AI agents replace headcount and seat-based models break. Your expansion motion just became a retention problem.
Auckland-based Tracksuit bought Sydney's Hall to track how brands appear in ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini responses. The acquisition adds AI visibility tools to Tracksuit's existing brand-tracking platform, which already monitors consumer perception through surveys. Hall founder Kai Forsyth joins as product lead for AI visibility.
New RBA research shows which Australian businesses are acquisition targets. Medium-sized firms ($10m-$50m turnover) face highest acquisition probability. Counter-intuitively, acquirers prefer unproductive targets, looking to cull staff and merge functions while keeping revenue.
ICONIQ's 2026 GTM benchmark shows quota inflation at well-funded B2B startups: $2.25M for enterprise, $1.35M for mid-market, $750K for SMB. The kicker: attainment is holding at 85-90%, not cratering. The difference is AI-powered pipeline generation and comp plans that finally pay for expansion work.
Everyone wrote Zoom off as a COVID one-hit wonder. The data says otherwise. Q1 FY2027 shows revenue growth picking back up, customers actually paying for AI features, and free cash flow margins over 40%. Enterprise deals are driving the turn, not SMB bounce-back.
Podcasting platform Riverside loses customers at the two-seat threshold where pricing leaps from $24/month to $500/month prepaid. The gap exists because sales teams push minimum deal sizes around $5k annually, but many B2B products leave revenue on the table between self-serve and enterprise tiers.
The government is standing up an Office of AI inside PM&C and backing it with $101 million over five years. But the announcement leaves two big questions hanging: copyright exemptions for AI training and data centre investment rules. For now, those decisions are parked.
Apple filed a lawsuit alleging OpenAI stole proprietary hardware designs through former employees, including Chief Hardware Officer Tang Tan. The suit claims OpenAI coached candidates on dodging scrutiny while sharing confidential product data. This marks a sharp turn from their ChatGPT partnership.
First federal AI employment report shows slower hiring in AI-exposed roles, not mass layoffs. Software dev jobs up 25% since ChatGPT launch. Youth employment holding steady. For sales teams: watch clerical and admin roles, but the pipeline is not collapsing yet.