NEWS
Woolworths to invest A $ 50 million to ensure employees progress with technological change
Learning and robotics , with further investment planned for advanced customer service skills , team leadership and agile ways of working .
The fund is expected to support training for more than 60,000 Woolworths team members over three years across its store and e-commerce operations , supply chain network and support offices .
Woolworths , Australia ’ s largest private employer , is investing A $ 50 million to help employees ride the wave of technological change .
The company has announced plans to make the investment over the next three years to equip its team with new skills and capabilities for the retail industry of the future . The Woolworths Future of Work Fund will help upskill , reskill and redeploy team members impacted by industry disruption and technological change . It will also underpin the launch of an online learning platform to offer team members easily accessible training , apprenticeship and mentoring support across Australia .
The key technical focus areas for training will be in digital , data analytics , Machine
Brad Banducci , Woolworths Group CEO , said : “ Technological advances in automation , predictive analytics , AI and cloud computing are making core retail processes much faster and more efficient than ever before .
“ The Future of Work Fund is designed to equip our team members with new skills and capabilities that will not only serve their career within Woolworths but across a number of industries .”
Southern Cross selects Ciena to support submarine network connecting Australasia to US West Coast
Southern Cross has selected Ciena ’ s GeoMesh Extreme submarine solution , utilizing Ciena ’ s 6500 Submarine Line Terminating Equipment , for the new 13,494 km Southern Cross NEXT submarine cable in the Pacific .
This deployment will allow Southern Cross to not only tackle the growing demand for bandwidth but also support the resiliency , reconfigurability and rapid activation requirements that their customers need .
The NEXT system will leverage Ciena ’ s WaveLogic 5 Extreme to mesh the new system into the current Southern Cross network fabric while supporting higher connectivity services and a fully integrated eco-system .
Consisting of three diverse submarine cable routes , 20 plus access points and over 43,000km , this single ecosystem supports high capacity and low latency routes between Australia , New Zealand , Fiji , Tokelau , Kiribati , Hawaii and the US West Coast .
Laurie Miller , President and CEO , Southern Cross Cables Limited , said : “ Today ’ s work from home mandates and the sudden dramatic influx of remote digital requirements have generated major traffic spikes and required our customers to deliver increased capacity in extremely short time frames , a trend we expect to see for years to come .
“ In seeking the optimal solution for our NEXT system , we engaged an external global consultancy to independently review and evaluate the various leading industry solutions and after a thorough process , the Ciena WaveLogic 5 Extreme was identified as the ideal choice .”
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