Compliance articles

We sell Microsoft licensing. So this is an awkward thing for me to write down, and I'm writing it anyway: if you buy Copilot seats this month and hand them out on Monday, you'll waste the money, and you might create a problem you didn't have. Not because the product's bad. It isn't. It's what happens in the fortnight before anyone types anything. What a Copilot licence actually does on day one Think about a ...

Somewhere in your firm there's a document that says who can commit the firm to what. It might be called a delegation of authority schedule, or a signing matrix, or just "the approvals policy". It's been through the board. It says a senior associate can authorise up to a figure, that above another figure it needs two partners, and that certain things need you personally regardless of the amount. It's one of the oldest and ...

It's 4:40 on a Thursday. A senior associate has a client review at nine tomorrow. She's got eleven pages of file notes she hasn't read, and she's been sitting in other people's meetings since ten. She opens a browser tab, ChatGPT, the same one her nephew uses for his assignments. Select all, copy, paste. Then she types: "Summarise the key issues and flag anything that needs a decision." Four seconds later there's a clean one-page ...

Name every AI tool your people used this week. Not the ones you bought. All of them. Almost nobody can. I ask this in meetings, and the answer is usually a pause, then "Copilot, Claude...I think..." then a slightly less certain "and I think a few of them use ChatGPT." That is an fair answer, and it is nowhere near complete, which is the entire problem. This isn't a gotcha. It's the same blind spot ...

"Our people know not to click." I've heard that sentence in a lot of boardrooms, and I've never once thought it was a stupid thing to say. It's usually true. The partner saying it has paid for the training, run the simulated phishing tests, and watched the click rate come down year on year. He is describing a real achievement. The problem is that it answers a question nobody is asking anymore. Because in a ...

Let's be honest. We all feel the pressure to "do something" with AI right now. The noise in the market is absolutely deafening. Last week, I was catching up with a client—a managing partner at a wealth management firm. He looked anxious. He told me his board was pushing him to integrate AI into their workflows to "stay competitive" and speed up their client reporting. I asked him a simple question: "If ASIC knocked on ...

Cybersecurity threats are a constant concern, making IT compliance more critical than ever for safeguarding data. Nearly 70% of service organisations must demonstrate compliance with at least six types of frameworks. IT compliance audits are vital to staying secure and protected from cyber insurance requirements to industry regulations. What Is an IT Compliance Audit? An IT compliance audit evaluates a company’s technology systems and practices to meet specific legal, industry, and security standards. These audits ...

Not a month goes by without the clear and present danger of another cyberattack on an Australian business. In the last few weeks, millions of Australians have had their data stolen by hackers attacking Latitude Financial.  Many Aussies would be surprised to learn that Latitude Financial held sensitive documents dating as far back as 2005 from the previous owner, GE Capital Finance.  Simple, interest-free purchases made at The Good Guys or JB Hi-Fi have now ...

A quick peek around your home office will uncover a range of gadgets and tech purchases made over the last few years. When we were all stuck at home, you may have invested in new Apple AirPods, upgraded your TV or finally set up your desk with a second monitor to avoid hunching over and squinting at your tiny laptop screen. Perhaps you even put a TV in your home office to watch the footy ...

You know what it's like when you have a new neighbour move in.  Questions you ask yourself. Do they have young kids? Any pets? Will you all get along? And like most people, you want to respect each other's right to privacy. But if you live in the outskirts of Melbourne, that can be easier said than done. With Melbourne's rapidly growing population and housing estates bursting at the seams, land availability continues to be ...