Pictured above: Clayton Pyne. Many Kiwi employers struggle to attract and motivate key frontline staff to achieve better business outcomes. Clayton Pyne, CEO of Humanforce, talks to NZBusiness about his company’s employee-centred technology platforms that are leading the way in staff management, engagement and motivation. Right now, New Zealand is facing a crisis of talent in frontline workforces across key sectors. According to a recent survey by BusinessNZ, 87 percent of Kiwi employers have struggled to fill jo ..read more

The latest in a string of start-up acquisitions, Weirdly an enduring HRTech start-up has been bought by INSIDE Recruitment. INSIDE works with some of the country’s biggest (and most-loved) companies as well as several large public sector departments. CEO, Troy Turner announced the move today saying it’s the next logical step for an organisation dedicated to raising the bar. “Challenging economies are when you see industry-shifting ideas come to life. INSIDE is grabbing that idea by the horns and, by adding Weirdly’s powerful technology to the group, we’re poised to bring some exciting pro ..read more

Businesses in the Manawatū will benefit from a new partnership between CEDA and ManawaTech as they support the Summer of Tech programme in 2024. With an aim to increase the number of recent tech graduates moving to the region, CEDA will cover the Summer of Tech registration fee for participating businesses as well as co-funding 50% of the placement fee. “Tech plays such an important role across the whole ecosystem,” says Greg Bignall, CEDA Business Development Manager. “So there’s a nice synergy because tech cuts across all sectors that we focus on at CEDA.” Summer of Tech is a nationwide inte ..read more

Pictured above: Peter Beck at the 2020 Royal Society of New Zealand awards, credit: Royal Society Te Apārangi. Founder, President and CEO of Rocket Lab, Peter Beck, has the innate ability to shoot for the stars and reach them – the success of his global business a case in point. Here, he shares with us his passion for entrepreneurship, and mission to get business leaders to make a greater impact on the world. Since founding Rocket Lab in 2006 Peter Beck has grown it into a global organisation that develops and launches advanced rockets, satellites and spacecraft. Under Beck’s leadership, Rocke ..read more

When Xero’s ‘The Global State of Small Business Owner Wellbeing’ reports that just 17 percent of New Zealand’s small business owners can take a break, and when only 37 percent of those starting out on their own are still in business after five years, the Small to Medium Enterprise (SME) landscape is broken. But not irretrievably so. That’s the stark view of Alana Swain, Your Success Team co-founder who also has executive experience in banking and marketing. “We have an appalling business failure rate and a mental health crisis. These are linked, because the SME sector represents 97 percent of ..read more

Pictured above: David Awards 2023 winner Glen Sharkey with trophy. When popular business coach and training facilitator Glen Sharkey won the Supreme Award in the David Awards 2023, he admits to feeling totally “blown away”. He views it as an acknowledgement to hardworking business owners everywhere. While watching the David Awards’ online winner announcement on October 16th, Glen recalls being “over the moon” to see he’d won the Solo Meo category for solopreneurs and contractors. “My expectations were already so exceeded that I immediately turned the award ceremony off and went back to wo ..read more

Pictured above: Inaugural Purapura (Founders) of the Tupu accelerator at the first wānanga last Friday. Highly contested business accelerator, Tupu, welcomed its inaugural cohort of Māori founders last week, kicking off its ten-week programme to drive sustainable growth for Māori businesses. Developed by Tapuwae Roa, in partnership with Sprout Agritech, the accelerator onboarded eleven teams of aspiring pakihi Māori (Māori businesses) from an initial applicant pool of over 300. “The response to Tupu has exceeded our expectations, and it was an honour to receive so many applications from rakahi ..read more

Grant Thornton New Zealand’s latest survey of over 200 business leaders and decision makers has revealed a significant uptick in optimism for the coming year despite many toughing it out in current economic conditions. Asked about optimism around economic conditions over the next 12 months, survey participants cited being very optimistic (2 percent), and slightly optimistic (51 percent) compared to 4 percent and 32 percent respectively this time last year. This is despite a tough year where many businesses surveyed have struggled to grow revenue. In 2023, 50 percent of survey respondents had g ..read more

Leveraging AI to inform your content marketing may be cool tool, but as Richard Conway explains, having a user manual in place first will help you get the return you’re after. The past 12 months have been hard for businesses in New Zealand, leading many to tighten their budgets. In this climate, every marketing dollar counts. However, history has shown us that the businesses that most successfully emerge from a downturn are the ones that invest heavily in marketing during in that time. My advice? Invest in content marketing that works. The proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI) has demo ..read more

New data from a Xero Small Business Insights (XSBI) report shows New Zealand small business labour productivity remains below pre-pandemic levels, putting additional pressure on small businesses. The report, Small business productivity: Trends, implications and strategies, is based on anonymised and aggregated data from more than 240,000 Xero small business customers and looks at small business labour productivity across New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom (UK). Productivity in New Zealand small businesses (adjusted for inflation) was generally between $100/hour and $110/hour in the ..read more