Waikato Business News January/February 2017

18 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS January/February 2017
Turning innovation
into gold – top tips
Innovation in business. It’s unquestionably
important – as a scan of most, if not
all, CEO’s strategic priorities and board
agendas will attest.
But equally important, as
the CFO will dutifully
remind us, is that innovation
is pointless if it doesn’t
make - or save - money for the
business, and hopefully appreciable
amounts of it.
That was the key message
behind our recent four-city,
nationwide seminar series,
“Turning Innovation into Gold”,
which saw 13 kiwi entrepreneurs
tell the business story of
their personal journey through
innovation. A journey that
covered the mistakes made,
the strategies that worked (or
didn’t), the lessons learned and
advice for others contemplating
a similar path to possible
prosperity.
Some common themes
emerged. One of the biggest
issues many of our entrepreneurs
faced was a simple lack of
funding – at start-up, or at critical
growth points on the journey
such as that scary step into the
global marketplace.
Being innovators, however,
the speakers on tour had
plenty of tips to help others
struggling in this environment
and their innovative instincts
extended beyond the products
or services they’d created. For
Scott Noakes of classroom
management software company
LineWize, innovation was also
about saving start-up costs by
engaging experts in the business
and giving them shares in the
venture – creating fully engaged
employees in the process.
Other speakers had similar
tips around collaboration. Karl
Gradon of NZ Mānuka Group
told the Tauranga audience of the
power of giving your suppliers
“skin in the game” – letting them
share in the prosperity. Amanda
Wiggins of Christchurch-based
Forest Herbs, makers of thera-
peutic products derived from the
native Horopito plant, says her
company benefits immensely
from working closely with a few
key distributors, developing the
relationship, rather than working
with many who you don’t know
so well.
Collaboration for Bruce
Davey’s Christchurch-based
company ARANZ Medical,
makers of specialised 3D medical
cameras, means working
closely with your customers –
seeking their referrals and leveraging
their marketing. Jason
Low of Tauranga-based Trimax
Mowing, who manufacture large
mowers for parks and sports
grounds and sell them globally,
also emphasised the importance
of customer collaboration – in
Trimax’s case, that’s about constantly
innovating, drawing on
what customers tell Trimax they
want and need.
Leveraging your customer
relationships was also on the
menu for Heilala Vanilla, says
Jennifer Boggis, who pointed
to the benefits of co-branding
with established manufacturers
like Whittakers and Lewis Road
to get the Heilala Vanilla brand
recognised.
Innovation Council speaker
Louise Webster urged innovators
to look for partnerships
both as a way to improve their
speed to market and to access
established channels to their
customers.
Trimax also flew the flag for
the importance of service and
reliability – don’t let your customers
down, a view shared by
Prolife Foods of Hamilton, part
of whose marketing catch cry
is “Providing great food with
obsessive service”.
For Binu Paul, Aucklandbased
developer of SavvyKiwi,
an app that helps people decide
which KiwiSaver provider is the
right one for them, the hardlearnt
lesson was about not
blowing all your funds on product
development. You never
have enough funding at the start,
he said, but whatever funding
you do have, you must keep a
decent amount aside for market
validation.
That importance of clearly
identifying the need (and thus
a viable market) for a product
was echoed by Todd Gisby of
StretchSense and SleepDrops
founder Kirsten Taylor. An engineer,
Gisby worked for many
years trying to develop an artificial
muscle before realising
that what people really wanted
(and couldn’t get) was a type
of sensor that could be woven
into stretchable clothing – which
StretchSense duly delivered.
Taylor, a naturopath, tapped into
an often undiagnosed need for
sleep remedies but realised there
were many different sleep disorders
and one remedy couldn’t
possibly cover them all – hence
her specialised range, targeting
individual disorders.
Gisby’s approach to collaboration
differed from the
others on the tour, however;
StretchSense sticks resolutely to
its core – making the stretch sensors
– which they sell to those
producing the actual consumer
products for the marketplace.
Proud Waikato craft brewer
Darrel Hadley was able to get
around a common obstacle to
marketing new beers - not being
able to secure outlets for the
product – by opening up his
own, on the back of his experience
in establishing cafes and
bars. Selling the Waikato brand
story and collaborating with
fellow Hamiltonians has grown
this award-winning brewery
TIPS FOR INNOVATORS
Give experts a share in the business to save money
and ensure engagement
Look for partnerships
Allow loyal suppliers to share in the profits
Develop great relationships with a few key distributors
Use customers for referrals and product development
Emphasise service and reliability
Set aside some funding for market validation rather
than just product development
Clearly identify the need and thus the market
Invest in R & D
New Fieldays Society president
Pete Carr, an experienced
commercial businessman,
with a background
in logistics and shipping, has
been elected president of the
NZ National Fieldays Society.
At the society’s annual
general meeting (AGM) in
December, Mr Carr was elected
president by the society’s
members. He had previously
served as Fieldays Society
vice president and chair of its
structure committee.
NZ National Fieldays
Society CEO Peter Nation,
who reports to the board, said
he was delighted with the new
president.
“He brings an eye for rural
business, a community focus
and an understanding of how
local government works,” he
said.
“We are pleased to welcome
a president who is
approachable, has worked
with a diversity of people and
can help the Society and its
assets to grow.”
Mr Carr has been a regular
volunteer at Society events
and founded the NZ National
Fieldays Society Future
Leaders’ programme, which
helps educate and encourage
young agricultural leaders.
Originally from Yorkshire,
England, Mr Carr has had
a long career in shipping,
logistics and management. He
has lived in New Zealand for
more than 45 years and has
strong roots in the Waikato
and Cambridge communities.
He has a good understanding
of rural business in country
communities, and how to
work well with others. He is a
life member of the Cambridge
Chamber of Commerce and
the Chartered Institute of
Logistics and Transport and
has worked as business development
manager for Waipa
District Council. He is also
a board member of Karapiro
Rowing Incorporated and
has served as a Justice of the
Peace for four decades.
As well as the president’s
role Mr Carr will chair the
NZ National Fieldays Society
board, saying the president’s
role was both an honour and
a “juggling job”. Although he
was mindful of the Society’s
rich history, he is eager to
look at new opportunities for
future commercial growth for
the Society.
“Last year we recorded
109 event-days, and Fieldays
was just four of them,” he
said. “Equidays began six
years ago with good success.
Looking forward, we want to
consider where there are gaps
in the calendar and how can
we fill them. There is opportunity
for growth. Watch this
space.”
At the AGM several new
board members were elected.
“It is great to see a board
emerge which combines
established experience with
new blood,” he said.
The new NZ National
Fieldays Society board
includes James Allen (vice
president), Warwick Roberts
(immediate past president),
Lance Enevoldsen (director
and chairman of the events
committee), Jenni Vernon
(director), Pam Roa (director),
Brent Goldsack (co-opt director),
Bill Falconer (co-opt
director) and new additions
David Gasquoine (director)
and Jason Hoyle (director).
Clint Gulliver has been
appointed vice chairman of
the events committee.
Mr Carr thanked the outgoing
president, Warwick
Roberts, for his efforts, as
well as those of outgoing
board members. Mr Roberts
will continue to serve as a
board member.
Mr Nation is looking forward
to working together with
Mr Carr on implementing the
Society’s new five-year strategic
plan, which was approved
earlier this year. The Society’s
revised vision includes growing
new events, improving
the site, investing in charity
and growing the Agricultural
Heritage Village.
He said the president’s
role is a vital one for the
Society, especially significant
with the Society’s 50th anniversary
little over one year
away. “Fieldays is a worldclass
event on the world stage,
and the Fieldays Society president’s
role is one where you
are mixing with presidents
and politicians and leaders,
not only from New Zealand
but overseas.”
IP MATTERS
> BY CERI WELLS
Ceri Wells is a founding partner of national intellectual property law
experts James & Wells. Ceri.wells@haws.co.nz – www.jaws.co.nz
Fieldays Society president Pete Carr.
brand.
For Gallagher, a global electronics
success, the constant
push for innovation was illustrated
by the amount of money
they put into R&D – around 9
percent of revenue, against a
New Zealand industry average
of less than two percent.
And therein lies the self-evident
truth to come out of the
“Turning Innovation into Gold”
seminar series. Continual innovation
is a key to long-term
growth and competitiveness in
the global marketplace and a
higher standard of living for all,
yet we do little in this country
to really prime the innovation
pump.
Back in the 1980s, countries
like Denmark and Finland were
agriculture-based economies
like New Zealand with similar
per capita incomes. But they
have now sprinted ahead, leaving
us mired on the farm in our
Wellington gumboots.
In the 1980s Israel’s economy
was a cot case – but in
the last year alone, there were
1400 new technology start-ups
in Israel.
The economies of these
countries have diversified
and become more productive
because their governments engineered
a cultural shift in attitudes
to innovation and created a
business environment that facilitates
and supports technology
based start-ups. We can do this
too.
Persuading kiwis to invest in
innovation and start-ups (rather
than property) is not something
business alone can do, because
we have a small, risk-averse
domestic market which is dominated
by small businesses.
The answer lies with our
Government; if it sincerely
believes in a thriving innovation
economy where we profit from
the brainpower we have here,
it needs to unclog the arteries
of innovation and get things
pumping. Our government must
follow the lead of countries like
Israel, Denmark and Finland
which have R&D tax breaks,
assistance for IP ownership,
and generous, readily accessible
funding for good ideas.
New Zealand needs to be
creating jobs in the high-salary
technology sectors rather than
low-wage farming and tourism
sectors.
What we need is a government
which itself has some
innovative flair and the determination
to create a start-up welfare
state in New Zealand.