Indholdsfortegnelse for August 2020 i NZBusiness+Management

W ell, what a ride the past quarter has been for New Zealand business! I’m in absolute awe over the way the business community has swivelled, pivoted and managed its way through arguably the most tumultuous time in the nation’s history – barring two World Wars of course! Kiwi business owners everywhere deserve a medal for facing up to the adversity and disruption caused by Covid-19 and, in the majority of cases, trading through successfully. Our team of five million has pulled together and supported local business to the best of our ability and means, which is truly remarkable. But Covid delivered a major body hit – we’ve all felt it. And it will hurt for some time to come. The publisher of NZBusiness was not spared from the impact…

“PIVOTING” BECAME THE NEW BUZZWORD DURING, AND AFTER, LOCKDOWN. WE’VE ALL READ ABOUT THE COMPANIES THAT REINVENTED PRODUCTION LINES TO MAKE HAND SANITISERS OR FACE MASKS; THE TOUR OPERATOR THAT DELIVERED FOOD PARCELS; THE RETAILERS WHOSE ONLINE SALES SUDDENLY WENT BALLISTIC.” When you consider how this insidious virus has wreaked havoc on the economy, and how New Zealand’s diverse SME community has generally responded, you can’t help but be inspired. We’re smart, we’re inventive, we’re gutsy in this part of the world. There were, and will be more, business casualties, but they’ll be outnumbered by the survivors and successes – businesses that have embraced new thinking, new technologies, and alternative revenue streams. “Pivoting” became the new buzzword during, and after, lockdown. We’ve all read about the companies that reinvented production…

Regardless of size, every business relies on some form of technology for marketing, communication, and data recording. Technology can streamline business processes to ensure greater efficiency and enables products and services to be promoted more creatively. There is no denying that the right technology can move your business forward, but will new technology deliver noticeably better performance than your existing solutions? In this article, we highlight why businesses should leverage modern technology to boost their business’s bottom line, and how Bartercard can help you do just that. AN ACCESSIBLE RESOURCE In the world of modern-day commerce, streamlined technologies are essential, and perhaps even more so as the country engages in recovery following the pandemic crisis. You need every advantage you can find to compete with bigger and more established companies.…

Online criminals wasted no time exploiting the Covid-19 pandemic. In March, the government-funded Computer Emergency Response Team (CertNZ) reported attackers were targeting victims with Covid-19 scams. It was always going to happen. Criminals will do anything to get at your data and money. They prefer to attack low-hanging fruit. So here is a guide to making sure that isn’t you. START BY PROTECTING YOUR COMPUTER If you work from home, it’s likely the computer you use for your business is also used for entertainment. It may even be used by other family members. That’s a security risk in itself. The ideal solution is to use a separate machine for work. That might sound expensive, but work computers don’t need to be as powerful as entertainment machines. Few business computing tasks…

Lockdown severely impacted many businesses’ cashflow. While wage subsidies have been helpful, fixed costs continue – regardless of whether money is coming through closed doors. For those affected by Covid-19, keeping cash in their business until their financial situation improves may require new solutions. One viable option is tax pooling. The service lets someone choose when they make their provisional tax payments and has been operating with the blessing of Inland Revenue (IR) for 17 years. But why might tax pooling be useful right now? THE CURRENT ECONOMIC ENVIRONMENT Containing the spread of Covid-19 in New Zealand came at a cost. Businesses have gone belly-up; unemployment is on the rise. A 1.6 percent decline in GDP in March 2020 represents the largest quarterly drop in 29 years – and that…

The Covid-19 crisis has provided a unique opportunity for humanity to think about want we want in the workplace, how we value the time we contribute to organisations and how we can be most productive, says Tech Futures Lab founder Frances Valintine. Speaking at the Roundtable webinar: Diversity, inclusion and the future of workplace flexibility, she said one of the amazing opportunities this adversity brought, particularly in New Zealand, was the chance to consider what really works for people, rather than rely on a model that’s become irrelevant in the scheme of digitalisation and our ability to effectively work remotely. “The supercharging ahead of perhaps two or three years has enabled us to really evidence how significant this shift is but how quickly we did adapt. Now we have to…

For those of us who are not super-fast typers dictation and transcription tools are a huge time-saver, accelerating the cadence of collaboration. These are five tools I’ve been checking out recently. X.AI: HTTPS://X.AI X.AI is a super simple and easy to use appointment scheduling assistant – I’ve used this app for some time. It’s got better with age and new integrations make the paid plan more appealing. You can use X.AI for free. You can share your public calendar or simply cc Amy to take over the scheduling conversation behind the scenes. ADAM: HTTPS://ADAM.AI More than scheduling Adam is a complete solution to help teams manage meetings, collect notes and track actions. Meetings often get side-tracked with ideas (that should be assigned to the ‘Parking lot’)…

Leaders across all areas of most industries are often required to lead or provide input into bids and tenders. With sales and marketing managers generally taking an active role, it’s important they keep abreast of best practice in bids and tenders to win more contracts and secure growth. The use of graphics and infographics have gone from a maybe to a must. Even where you are submitting tenders and bids through Excel, it is important to have effective and compelling graphics in the supporting documentation. Graphics are a useful tool to: • Summarise and convey complex solutions in a simple and easy to understand manner. • Personalise your bid by including real-life images of your team, equipment and personnel. • Present your documentation professionally. InDesign is currently becoming the most…

When NZBusiness caught up with Lisa Martin in early June, New Zealand had just moved to Level 1 – a ‘new normal’ for the nation’s business owners. Unless you were one of those businesses deemed ‘essential’ over all four alert levels, Covid-19 will have left an enduring mark on your business. Now is the time to regroup and rebuild – but it’s going to take a degree of certainty. Martin believes a successful transition forward revolves around certainties because ‘there is currency in certainty’. The word currency is appropriate because, as she explains, when you seek professional liability insurance for a consulting firm, the annual certificate that says you’re covered for a set period is called a ‘certificate of currency’. Martin recalls the lockdown days and how her team, like…

At the ripe old age of 40, I have had the privilege of living life pre- and post-Internet. But it’s only recently that I have become aware of its impact on the way we now live. Over the past few months we have been thrown into the unknown – not just in technology, but in every aspect of our lives – creating unprecedented levels of anxiety as we come to grips with the fragility of the way we live and how quickly it can come undone. Many parents will probably identify with the fact that the most enlightening lockdown experience for me was the adoption of technology by my seven-year-old daughter. We did the working from home thing fairly easily for our business, including setting up a workstation for my…

The lockdowns imposed around the world due to the Covid-19 pandemic have resulted in a dramatic drop in global carbon emissions. While that has highlighted that emissions can be cut hard and cut fast we don’t want to go to the wall in the process. The good news is that there are far more sustainable ways for businesses to take climate action. That action needs to be taken urgently if we are to stand any chance of meeting our international commitments, and our goal to become a zero carbon economy by 2050. The Sustainable Business Network recently launched its Climate Action 20/25 project. It is a five-year programme making it easy for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to take action to reduce their carbon emissions and become climate resilient. It…

Shaped by the trying circumstances that have affected them from the beginning, millennials (aged 26-37) and Gen Zs (aged 18-25) are remaining steadfast, and refusing to compromise their values, according to The Deloitte Global Millennial Survey 2020. The global survey gathered responses from more than 18,000 millennial and Gen Z people from 43 countries. In New Zealand, some 300 millennials were surveyed. A media release from Deloitte says the survey found that this cohort’s commitment to positive change remains strong, despite high levels of stress and low levels of trust in traditional institutions and the media. Deloitte NZ human capital partner, Lauren Foster, says that the lasting impact of the GFC, the threat of climate change and rising inequities have shaped a unique generation that now faces the economic fallout…

The fallout from the global pandemic has already seen tens of thousands of New Zealanders lose their jobs across all levels of organisations whether they be senior leaders, mid-tier management or at the coalface of a business. And there’s likely to be more job losses to come. An ASB Economic Weekly report in late June says its economists think the big test for the New Zealand labour market will be the second half of the year, as the removal of the Government’s wage subsidy reveals some previously “hidden” unemployment. “Our read on the weekly NZ Jobseeker numbers is that they are equivalent to a near ‘real-time’ unemployment rate of a little over six percent. We have that rising to a peak of around eight percent by the end of the…

When we first heard about the four-day work week, BioGro thought we could do something fairer [too] and so our board and management came up with a new idea. The Time Warp. We started a quiet revolution two years ago, by giving employees what we call a time bonus or a time warp (or time wrap as some call it, it has all kinds of names). Everyone who has worked at the company for two years, qualifies to be considered for a time warp bonus. So, what is a time warp? A team member’s usual 40-hour work week warps to a 38-hour work week with the same pay. Two years of employment is two hours of earned time warp per week. This rolls out per year until you reach five…

In the past few months, much of the world has made a great global pivot. Almost everything we’ve taken for granted as safe and familiar has shifted. Virtually overnight, we’ve moved from meeting in rooms to meeting on Zoom, from office-based work to WFH, from learning at school to schooling online, from employee-by-day-parent/partner-by-night to employee-parent-partner-teacher-cook-cleaner-gym instructor in one messy mash-up. Though global in number, our experiences and responses to Covid-19 will forever be singular – we have each faced the pandemic challenges in our own, individual ways. Similarly, our experiences heading into the “next normal” will be unique, reflecting the varied and diverse circumstances in which we each find ourselves. Having said that, as we move into this new world, it’s worth taking stock of some of the collective experiences…

Technology has NZB always played a leading role in the progress and prosperity of business. From a macro perspective what technologies do you predict will play key roles in shaping the future of business post Covid-19? What impact will they have? MICHELLE: Videoconferencing has become mainstream and I think will continue to be the norm for many in a post-Covid world, and reduce the amount of domestic and international travel that we do long term. Augmented Reality (AR) could also temporarily help businesses to take people on virtual tours if they can’t travel to physical locations. I think their uptake will be much stronger once their value is realised through more people experiencing the technology. IoT (Internet of Things) devices will allow remote monitoring of homes, offices and even farmland,…

Technology has had a major role to play in assisting businesses to function in this post-Covid world. We’ve all become proficient in conducting Zoom online meetings, but the push is on to make online meetings more functional and this requires a sharpening in meeting etiquette, explains Simon Mundell, CEO and founding director of strategic execution consultancy Advisory.Works. It has also paved the way for ‘blended meetings’. Mundell’s initial experience with blended meetings came through a company he launched in the US. It ran many virtual meetings via GoToMeeting, but soon realised it needed a dashboarding tool to tie the conversation together. The result was a software platform called Resultsbi.com. “I’m a firm believer that a meeting without metrics or data is just a talk-fest. When running meetings virtually, it’s even…

It may come as a surprise that more companies in New Zealand, Australia and around the world are choosing to offshore their customer service and back office support services to Fiji. While countries such as the Philippines and India were early front-runners in this space, in recent times Fiji has gained favour, thanks to a number of positive initiatives. Today it is positioning itself as the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) “Hub of the Pacific”. But Fiji is no newcomer – its call centre sector received global acclaim as far back as 2014 when it won the European Outsourcing Association’s Offshoring Destination of the Year Award. “Fiji has proven through their customer service and back office support for companies ranging in size from multimillion-dollar multinationals, such as Lufthansa and DHL Express,…

E-commerce has been one of the few winners as the Covid-19 pandemic crossed the globe. There have been variations in the scope of ‘lockdowns’ throughout the world but several patterns have emerged: • People are making fewer trips to physical stores. • Consumers are making a higher percentage of their spend online during the pandemic. Traditional chain stores in the US recorded a massive 80 percent increase in online sales in April 2020 compared to the same month in 2019. (digitalcommerce360.com) • There is a general unease within the economy as the predictions of recession abound. This has a negative effect on total consumer and business spend. In the UK there was a 23 percent drop in total retail sales in April compared to 2019.(econsultancy.com) Online merchants in essential businesses…

There's nothing worse than someone who thinks they have all the answers. Add to that the fact that, as you're reading this you've probably seen about 25 thousand articles all suggesting exactly what your small business needs to do to leverage the opportunity/survive the chasm/seize the day/grasp the chance, etcetera. And I'm pretty sure the last thing you want to hear is the ‘reckons’ of some random guy from Canterbury. Well, sorry, I was invited to opine so opine I will. Hopefully, however, I'll be a bit of fresh air to those of you who have been doing it hard [over the past months] and have grown frustrated at all the platitudes. First a little bit of context. I'm the majority shareholder of Cactus Outdoor and Albion Clothing, a pair…

The World Economic Forum says that as businesses emerge from the Covid-19 crisis, they have a unique opportunity to ensure that equity, inclusion and justice define the "new normal" and tackle exclusion, bias and discrimination related to race, gender, ability, sexual orientation and all other forms of human diversity. But it notes that technology alone cannot create fair, equitable and diverse workplaces; it requires an integrated strategy that blends new technological tools with human-centric approaches. A media release from the forum says that the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion 4.0 Toolkit outlines novel technologies with the potential to establish best practices that were previously out of reach. For example, new systems can review job applications at scale in far greater detail than a typically resourced people and culture department. These systems…

So, lockdown is over and everyone is saying ‘let’s get back to normal’. Great in many ways, but the pandemic has provided a great petri dish for experimenting around ways to work, forcing many companies, by necessity, into a massive trial of flexible work and work from home. So, let’s not lose the learnings from this and just all drift back to BAU in our offices. In general staff loved many aspects of working from home – more time with the family, less commuting, more productivity (less interruptions), no need for pants (oops, did I say that out loud!) and a more relaxed atmosphere. For some there were downsides. A lack of human contact – worsened by the lockdown; challenges completing some tasks often due to lack of specific equipment…