A board portal can make papers easier to store. It does not automatically make them easier to understand, compare or decide on.

That distinction matters as NSW introduces new rules addressing risks arising from digital work systems. The Work Health and Safety Amendment (Digital Work Systems) Act 2026 recognises that digital systems can influence how work is allocated and performed—and that those systems must not create health and safety risks.

The Act is not specifically a board-governance law. But it raises a question every board should be asking:

Does our digital workflow reduce the cognitive load on directors and executives—or simply move the administrative burden onto another screen?

What has changed in NSW?

The Act defines a digital work system broadly. It includes algorithms, artificial intelligence, automation and online platforms. It clarifies that a person conducting a business or undertaking must manage risks arising from the use of digital work systems, and introduces a specific duty concerning work allocated by those systems.

The law received assent on 18 February 2026. The framework is still being implemented: SafeWork NSW is developing guidelines, and most of the remaining provisions will commence later by proclamation. That makes this a useful moment for organisations to examine how their digital systems affect people, rather than waiting for a compliance deadline.

The boardroom connection

SafeWork NSW already identifies psychosocial hazards such as role overload, high job demands, time pressure and frequent cognitively difficult work. In a board setting, those pressures can appear as papers arriving late, multiple versions circulating, decisions being pushed to the end of a long meeting, or directors being expected to absorb complex information without enough time to test alternatives.

This is not an argument against technology. It is an argument for judging technology by the work it creates as well as the work it removes.

Five questions to ask about a governance platform

• Does it reduce the time directors spend searching, reconciling and chasing information?
• Can directors see the relevant papers, options, risks and recommendations in one coherent decision context?
• Does it create enough space for questions, challenge and consideration of alternatives?
• Can the organisation show what information was available and how the decision was reached?
• Does implementation simplify the board’s work, or add another system, alert stream and administrative burden?

What good looks like

The practical test for a governance platform is not just whether it stores documents securely. It should also help the organisation demonstrate:

• what information directors received;
• whether they had time to consider it;
• what alternatives were discussed;
• how the decision was reached; and
• what actions and risks remained afterward.

This is where board technology should be judged: not by how many features it has, but by whether it improves the quality, traceability and sustainability of decision-making.

The best digital system is not the one that creates another destination for information. It is the one that helps directors arrive prepared, focus on the decision and leave a reliable record of what happened.

From document storage to decision evidence

SharePoint and board portals can be useful places to store papers. The harder problem is making sure the board has enough time and context to understand the material, compare options and record decisions clearly.

That is the space Agentic CoSec is designed to support: a practical governance workflow that helps turn board information into usable decision evidence.

Book a 20-minute Board Evidence Diagnostic to discuss where your current board workflow is creating friction, cognitive load or gaps in decision traceability.

This article is general information, not legal advice. Organisations should obtain advice about how NSW work health and safety laws apply to their own circumstances.

Sources: SafeWork NSW: Digital Work Systems Guidelines; SafeWork NSW: Psychosocial Hazards; SafeWork NSW: Legislation.

The integration of CRM and marketing automation tools has lead to increased sharing and visibility of marketing & sales information within those departments and the wider organisation. AI is now more than ever doing the heavy lifting to deliver sophisticated, data-driven insights to help organisations win and retain more customers.

CRM and marketing automation tools such as Salesforce, Hubspot and Prospect.io make it easy to use AI-based features where you need them and integrate them into your business over time.

AI FOR ALL BUSINESSES

Instead of hiring more data scientists and marketers, small and medium-sized businesses can use third-party tools with easy-to-use interfaces and efficient machine learning functions to connect their data and workflow to get a smarter picture of their customers.

THE POWER OF HUBSPOT

Marketing automation software automates marketing actions or tasks, streamlines marketing workflow and measures the results of marketing campaigns.

Hubspot is the world’s top inbound marketing platform, which integrates blogs, social media monitoring and publishing, contacts, SEO, email marketing, marketing automation and analytics in one user-friendly and powerful platform.

Hubspot’s 18, 000 customers worldwide use software and services to transform their outbound marketing ( cold calls, email spam, trade shows, TV ads, etc. ) into incoming lead generation, allowing them to leverage remarkable content and integrated experience to deliver leads and better sales  results – not to mention their great online training which helps you grow in your understanding of how best to target customers.

TALK TO YOUR IT DEPARTMENT

Humans and AI applications form a very complementary team when it comes to social media marketing.

For social media AI applications to really flourish they must interface with the business analytics and business intelligence applications used in their IT department.

If used strategically, the use of AI in a company’s social media and business intelligence efforts can go a long way toward putting (or keeping) the customer at the centre of their organisation.

POWER IN THE DATA

AI in marketing will undoubtedly continue its rapid expansion. Companies that track and store their historical and real-time sales and marketing data will be the first to benefit.

But as with other technological advances in marketing ( such as CRM or modern marketing automation software ), the market will naturally reduce the cost of integration and learning curves, and small and medium-sized businesses will be able to access AI’s capabilities almost as well as their larger competitors.

DON’T BUY EMAIL LISTS

With tools like Prospect.io you don’t need to buy email lists anymore. You simply need the name and company of the person you are trying to reach and Prospect.io can find the email for you. Using publicly accessible data and clever AI algorithms Prospect can match a name to an email to 100% accuracy and then you can send drip email campaigns to those customer to uncover the business opportunities. Always remember to provide the prospect with an optout message and respect the boundaries and then use Prospect.io as your very own target audience detective tool.

ECOMMERCE & AI

Advertisers and e-commerce companies have the most to gain from machine learning because of the ease of measurement and quick feedback needed to train and improve machine learning algorithms. Drip is the world’s first ECRM Ecommerce CRM designed to build personal and profitable relationships with customers on a scale. Ecommerce marketers all over the world are beginning to see their customers in full color with Drip features such as comprehensive tracking, hyper-segmentation and robust email marketing automation.

SMALL BUSINESS & AI

In order to achieve digital marketing success, thousands of small businesses use AI via Facebook and Google’s advertising platforms. With more options than ever before, small businesses are building powerful AI strategies without having to hire data scientists or expensive marketers.

WHERE TO FROM HERE?

If you are new to using artificial intelligence and automation in your sales and marketing approach then start with the basics:

1. Start with the data – use what you know about your current customers to drive information gathering for your ideal customer. Store it in a place where it can be shared across different tools.
2. Find a new tool – you know already what gets your customers attention and brings them to you. Find a tool that makes that process easier, faster and/or fills the gaps that you really wish you could do now.
3. Use the data and the new tool together – trial a new marketing campaign with improved data and tools
4. Go back to step 1 and repeat!

If you still have questions please give us a call to find out how we can support your newer, smarter approach to marketing your business.

Call Today 1300 796 771

Roses are FF1919, violets are 1C86EE, Futura is a controversial font choice but Comic Sans is just wrong.

But seriously, why is great web design still such a big deal and how does it translate into better sales results?

Great Design Knows the Visitor Already

Even if you’re a new business you will have some sense of your ideal customer. So make sure you do your research and form an accurate, detailed picture of the customer by answering questions like:

• What do they do on a typical day?
• What are their biggest challenges/pain points?
• What information do they use to make a purchasing decision and how is the decision made?

Knowing your visitor means knowing what to put on the page. If your customer can’t approve the purchase themselves, for example, then you need cater for their information needs and those of the boss.

Great Design Knows a Mix of Content is Best

So if you want them to take away one or two key points, use something other than text to convey that point. Think about what gets people’s attention and weave that into your compelling (product) story.

Great Design Knows That People Do Business with People

Everyone on the web has a mobile phone, and all phones have a camera function. Take photos of your team, your work environment, your city, take photos of real things that will connect your customers to you.

There are some amazing news tool out there for automating Q&A, service issues and lead generation but you must still provide an opportunity to talk with a real person.

Prioritise other contact methods on your website if you need to, but make sure they can talk to a real person when they need to. Even just having the option makes converting a visitor into lead more likely.

Great Design Keeps Asking, “So What?”

So now that we’re clear that on your website you need to:

• Know your ideal customer
• Use a mix of interactive content to reach them
• Emphasise connection on a human level

You must still give them a clear reason and a method to take the next step.

Compelling (product) stories should lead to good business opportunity and a well-designed website should help you do that.

Right when they are about to ask, “so what?” give them something good in return. Insight they can’t get elsewhere, a stat they’ve never seen before, a report they didn’t have to do themselves.

Avoid Design Fail

Avoiding #designfail with these 4 important techniques is really about applying common sense when designing your website, because lost business is no laughing matter.

I love checking my Fitbit App at night, on the days I exercise. Watching the good green vibes explode off my phone when I hit the preset step & activity targets make me feel like a ninja. But when I’m sitting down and I shake my wrist a bit and the step count jumps for no reason it’s like I’ve eaten a donut and my taste buds missed the party.

A big problem

While I’m not giving up on my Fitbit just yet, this is a big problem. But it’s also exciting, because we have all the right ingredients to solve it.

People solve problems

The first ingredient, and most important, is people. People are great at finding problems and also coming up with ideas to solve them.

Data helps

The second, and one we have in abundance, is data. I, and many others, have been providing Fitbit with years of data on my exercise and sleep habits. If they asked me for permission to anonymously share my data to build a better step and sleep counter I would say yes quickly.

Finding the patterns

The third ingredient is machine learning. Machine learning happens when we teach computer programs to find patterns in data. Surely within that repetitive data lurks a pattern that can tell when I’m really busting out the steps and when I’m having an animated conversation.

Problem solved

Dump these ingredients in a computer mixing bowl with amazingly fast processors that can find the way to improve the counter in days, not months. Then I’ll know how many steps I need to counteract those Christmas party indulgences and truly attain ninja status.

And that’s the great thing about problems.

1. You’re not the only one thinking about it
2. The data is out there to help solve it
3. Human intelligence can guide the technology needed for the end solution

So, what’s your problem?

Having watched a few scary TV shows I was pleasantly surprised with the dark sense of fear that passed over me when I finally saw the Upside Down in Stranger Things. The sense of stolen youth and the unknown were palpable, and I’m thrilled season two is finally here.

But placing a support request with my average service provider, I can always wait for that. As a consumer the sense of the unknown, foreboding and lost youth is the same as with the Upside Down, only it’s reality television.

As developers, marketers and support technicians we recognise the possibility that our clients might feel the same if we don’t constantly work on better ways to process help requests and manage the communication flow.

So we asked ourselves, how specifically could AI help us expedite the workflow, especially when the request is first initiated?

Fast and Furious?

Most clients get it, technical issues come up and the fastest way to get resolution is to put the issue on your plate, after all that’s what they pay you for.

But sometimes fast means you just have to call them back to get more detail, which does not mean faster resolution, just greater expectation on the client’s part.

More Hunter, Less Gatherer

Using an automated 1st level support agent can help customers log tickets faster while still retrieving the necessary detail you need to initiate an investigation.

Your own decision tree and existing support process, especially at initiation, is ripe for automation. Contact details, issue description, follow up questions (have you restarted your computer?) and other common questions don’t need a hands on approach to gather, only to solve.

Making your support team 10-20% more productive by removing the gathering exercise for simple requests puts profitability back into your service and makes a happier team.

Satisfaction Guaranteed

Using artificial intelligence to gather and process customer request data demonstrates:

1. Your clients have a problem solving partner, not a time waster
2. You would like your staff to have less interruptions providing more time for thoughtful and efficient solutions
3. Your growing business can scale intelligently and iteratively
4. You respect everyone’s time because you’re thinking about ways to give it back

Your AI automated agent will not solve every problem but it will resolve 10-20% of the noise in your support-based business, giving everyone more time to binge watch Stranger Things.

You’re welcome. 

Abandoned Cart Detection

Abandoned Cart Conversation

Brand New Visitors

Returning Visitors

Existing Customers

Abandoned Cart Conversion

As customers, we will never go backwards. We will keep demanding more and better and faster. If we don’t get it, we will vote with our feet and our social media voices.

As businesses, if we don’t invest in continuously improving customer service we can only compete on price, that joyless race to the bottom.

If you’re serious about a great customer experience then it’s time to get real about artificial intelligence (AI) because the return on investment is measurable and significant.

Businesses implementing AI in their customer experience are not replacing their existing model, they are augmenting the model where it makes financial sense. So where does it make sense?

Customer Support Cost Reduction

As organisations add new customers or new products and services their customer support request volumes increase. Using an automated agent as a first responder resolves the simple, repetitive requests that don’t require human intervention.

When the requests are more complex or require escalation the automated agent delivers a warmed up customer where the live support agent is briefed on the customer need and the customer does not have to repeat the basics of their issue.

Real Savings

Reduction in support requests requiring a live agent and/or a phone call.
Live agents maximise productivity in dealing with a smaller volume of more complex tasks that only a human being can solve and reducing the brain drain of answering repetitive questions.
Machine learning from automated agent conversations is more rapidly mobilised into website FAQ and support documentation.

Expansion of Customer Self-Service

Companies with developed customer portals already allow customers to manage their own accounts, but customers still want and need a helping hand even if they are logged into a portal.

Once authenticated, automated agents can better support the customer based on their personal history within the portal. Transactions, previously logged support requests and access to rebates and discounts are just a sample of what an automated agent can serve up all in one place and in one conversation.

Real Savings

Reducing customer churn. Providing an adaptable, personalised experience and delivering information in a timely and useful way is critical for customer retention.
For organisations it provides real time feedback on how well the customer portal is functioning. Easily gauge and improve on the customer experience by understanding what is used and/or confused.

Improved Sales Conversions

For eCommerce sites reducing any point of purchase friction is a critical, but sometimes frustrating pursuit. In the case of some businesses the retail experience is only online, and overheads are already stretched across multiple areas of the business and staffing a phone or live chat 24/7 isn’t financially viable.

Using a combination of automated support and personalised data retrieval, customers receive timely advice, supported by previous purchase data and available loyalty rewards.

Improved Bottom Line

1. More sales conversions per site visitors and/or unique sessions
2. Less abandoned carts
3. Improved sales through remarketing efforts

Using AI to enhance the customer experience has clear financial benefits, but it also helps improve the person to person experience too.

As customers we want to know our money and our time is valued and adding AI to the customer support experience doesn’t just say that, it SHOWS it.

As a successful online retailer it’s second nature to see sales roll through your store, but the frustration of even a single abandoned cart never really goes away. That is unless you understand why it happens and employ tactics to convert them to sales.

Close to 67% percent of shopping carts are abandoned and this percentage has been going up every year since online shopping was possible. The reasons why abandoned carts happen have not changed much but the ability to address the problems head-on has.

Problem #1: Unclear or High Shipping Costs

Every single person out there is looking to try and save money on shipping. No one wants to show off their new item only to find out they paid twice the shipping cost – it’s like walking into a store and asking for a mark UP at the register.

Solution: Tell them early, often and be transparent.

1. Australia Post – If you want to do shipping cost by the book then link your cart directly to real time AusPOST shipping costs. No games or great mysteries here because they can price check it directly on the AusPOST website – everyone wins.

2. Flat rate shipping – You should have your shipping costs and margins down to a science by now but maybe you need flexibility AUSPost does not offer. Switching to a clear, concise rate structure by # of items or weight will allow you to incentivise a higher spend for better shipping rates.

3. Free shipping – a massive winner so if it’s practical then do it. You can make everything free by adding a standard shipping cost into the price or set simple conditions to qualify and then make sure to remind them of those conditions on every page of your website, by using the word FREE.

Problem #2: Not Having the Right Payment Options

Having built hundreds of shopping carts ourselves we understand that the payment methods that work for your organisation may not be the ones that customers prefer. But the good news is we’ve come a long way since Paypal as a single option and new options spring up every month, you need to start nimble.

Solution: Provide 2-3 options, track what’s most popular on your site and re-evaluate every 12 months.

1. Stripe – Imagine setting up an account in 10 minutes or less that allows you to process credit card payments right on your checkout page (SSL required). This is what you get with Stripe, in addition to removing sales friction from page-directs or extra account setups just to make a payment. It’s easy, seamless and it just works.

2. Paypal – Still the golden, international standard for online payment processing and we still recommend it as a solid choice for accepting credit card payments. If your clients are also regular eBay shoppers will give them the comfort they need to convert the sale.

3. Bank Merchant Account – With Stripe and Paypal you still don’t get direct access to your cash until it’s in your bank account. Setting up a merchant account with your bank and processing payments directly into your bank account makes money management easier. Most of the big banks offer this facility, it’s up to you to negotiate the fees associated with your merchant account.

4. Layby – In the last 12 months multiple online layby options have sprung forth. End customers are really loving this, the immediacy of getting something now and paying for it over time. Zippay and Afterpay are the most popular choices but you need to check the fine print and make sure your preferred layby option will talk to your eCommerce system.

Problem #3: They Aren’t Ready to Buy Yet

Almost no one goes to a website once, adds a product to cart and checkouts straight away. They compare prices, look at other comparable products and check customer reviews on your products and business. You know this already, so accept it and start building a more memorable customer experience.

Solution: Make customers feel respected and supported.

1. Wish Lists – They know you value their money, but have you shown them you value their time? Let customers continue the shopping journey instead of restarting with a Wish List. In return you get an email address and the chance to follow them up and sweeten the deal with marketing automation. If they are serious shoppers they will remember you for saving them time.

2. Customer Support – All shopping carts being equal, this is where you can really set your experience apart. If your products have some complexity, can they live chat with someone about their questions? Better yet are you using intelligence automation to engage customers and provide answers and reassurance 24/7?

It’s easy to get caught up in the moment when shopping carts get dumped, spending too much time on the problem and not the solution.

If you are addressing these top 3 concerns thoughtfully, effectively and with regularity then you’re turning frustration into knowledge and tactics that will help you conquer the challenge of the abandoned cart.

1. Automate Site Visitor Analysis

eCommerce sales conversion rates average 3% globally, so for those that don’t convert you can still capture valuable behaviour data that will help you convert better in the future.

Optimizely for A/B Testing

Kissmetrics for Building Ideal Customer Profiles

2. Intelligent Pursuit of (More of) Your Ideal Customers

Once you have a decent read on what brings repeat visitors and sales to your site you need more of those customers. An effective content marketing strategy paired with cost-effective advertising will help you do that.

GoAnimate Explainer Video Creation to Demonstrate Product Benefits

Tribe to Find Your Ideal Social Media Influencer

Google Shopping for a More Targeted Ad Spend

3. Find Your Evangelists and Loyal Supporters and Keep Them Close

You’re now intelligently and actively courting your new batch of ideal customers, but make sure not to leave your loyal fans hanging. They’re the ones who interact regularly with your brand and provide unsolicited positive feedback so ask them to formalise that positivity and then reward them for good behaviour.

Reviews.io to Harness the Power of Positive Feedback

Smile.io to Create and Automate Your Customer Loyalty Program

From Lacklustre to Arse-kicker

1. Automate data capture to create insight about what works
2. Use that data and insight to spend wisely, attracting more of what works
3. Get serious about capturing crowd-sourced data and insight to create a continous loop attracting more of what works

A pool full of metrics and you dive in it…yeah OK, Kendrick’s real song was not about website metrics but the haze of interpretation can be the same in both cases.

If you’re anywhere close to digital, marketing or IT, someone is likely to have thrust a Google Analytics report in your face and asked, “Is this good?” Instantaneously they’ve pushed you into the pool full of metrics, your clothes are sopping wet and you’ve got to make the best of it.

No one wants to look silly but its really easy when you look at the volumes of website usage data you can track in Google Analytics (GA) . If you can count the number of times you’ve looked at GA data on one hand (or no hands) then these 3 statistics below will help you turn the inquisition into a conversation.

1. Site Visitors

This is the total number of unique visitors to your website for the time period of the report. Essentially, how many different people took the time to visit the website because they were interested enough in the content.

So what is a good site visitor number? This depends entirely on whether the site is being actively promoted but also what kind of traffic can be expected for the topic and the time period.

Websites that are likely to have less than 1000 visitors per month:

• Sheep Farmers Union of Invercargill
• Knitters Guild of Kalgoorlie

It’s always possible a global revolution is being launched from these places but you probably get the picture, hyperlocal concerns that don’t change too frequently for an already small user base.

Websites that should have much, much more than 1000 visitors per month:

• Australian Bureau of Meteorology
• You Tube

Extreme examples yes, but the point here is that sites that provide everchanging information and/or entertainment for a wide audience should be in the millions of site visitors per month.

Once you’ve had a look at the Site Visitor number on the report turn it around and start asking questions like:

1. How does that number compare to last month, last year?
2. Have you been actively promoting the site?

Timing is everything, maybe the website is seasonal like truffles or has a increasing visitor rate compared to previous time periods then the news story is better or more normal than you might think.

2. Bounce Rate

This one is really important. It represents the percentage of users that visited the site and did not proceed to any other pages.

A bounce rate of between 26-40% is excellent, 41-55% is average, 56-70% is below average, and anything higher than 70% is poor.

A high bounce rate (56%+) probably occurs for one of the following reasons:

• What they thought they would find on your site was not at all relevant to the reason for their visit
• What they found on the site WAS related to what they wanted, but it was not sufficiently engaging to stay
• It took so long to load your website that they just clicked off because they got impatient

Ultimately if the website does not have interesting, relevant content or performs slowly once the visitors arrive then you could just be giving a lot of people a really bad experience. An important lesson for big and small organisations.

3. Device Type

As web designers we think this number needs more attention than it gets now, if only to illustrate the importance of flexible responsive design.

Broken down into Desktop, Mobile and Tablet, if you have a Mobile and/or Tablet usage of 25% or more than you must have a site design that rearranges to look good and flow well on mobile and tablet devices.

It has been over two years since Google declared that websites must focus on the mobile experience first, ahead of desktop, an edict no organisation wanting to grow can ignore.

Looking Smart, Sexy and Delivering Value

It might not be in your job description to understand Google Analytics but giving customers, including yours, a good experience with value-added information is going to keep them in your good sted.

Just like reading your first word or first book, digital literacy simply requires you to keep taking one step forward at a time, one topic at a time.