Waikato Business News July/August 2019

44 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS July/August 2019
Electronic
scooters approved
E-scooters are set to hit the
city's streets. Hamilton City
Council approved a six-month
trial, for the hire of personal
transportation devices from
public spaces in the city, with
permits available from July 1.
New management team at Lodge
City Rentals delivers benefits
to landlords
Get smart, Hamilton
The interactive Smart Space
has just opened beside the
Garden Place Library. It is
designed to tell stories of
how technology is making
a difference in addressing
real problems facing our
community and enabling
innovation. Visitors are
encouraged to provide
feedback and thoughts on
how emerging technologies
may be applied to create a
smarter society. Open to the
public from 10am to 4.30pm
Wednesday to Friday. For
more information visit https://
www.smarthamilton.nz/
Māori walking tour
of Kirikiriroa
Te Ahurei Mā ori Tourism has
just launched a guided tour in
the CBD that will take you on
a journey, across the scared
lands of Kirikiriroa (Hamilton
CBD). The tour is using
prestigious visual art and lush
surrounding landscape of
Kirikiriroa, to tell the fascinating
stories of the Tainui people.
Follow them on Facebook at
teahureimaoritourism
Boon after dark
Boon After Dark is bringing
to the Hamilton CBD an
incredible display of temporary
sculpture to Garden Place by
the art collective Hybycozo,
support by CBD Events,
Hamilton City Council and
Beca. It will be installed in
Garden Place from August 2
to November 30. Follow Boon
After Dark on Facebook for
updates and invites.
Lodge City Rentals has seen a change
in management recently as real estate
industry guru David Kneebone steps away
from his role as general manager.
Though Kneebone
stepped aside in June, he
remains part of the executive
team and continues to
provide advice and expertise to
property investors, clients and
the wider team.
Branch manager Jason
Waugh has taken up the reins
from Kneebone who, Waugh
says, has been exceptional in
creating a team culture that is
focused on excellence.
The Healthy
Homes Standards
set minimum
requirements for
modern heating,
proper insulation
in floors and walls,
ventilation in highmoisture
rooms,
moisture ingress and
drainage, and draught
stopping.
“David has been instrumental
in instilling the core
values in our team. The transition
of myself into the general
manager role will be a matter
of continuing the great work
David has accomplished in his
21 years of service to Lodge
City Rentals. The goal of providing
a high level of customer
service remains our team’s
focus,” says Waugh.
Waugh has been part of
the Lodge City Rentals team
for 18 years. This experience,
coupled with his background
in the construction industry,
has given him the nous to work
closely with clients to help
them build value in their property
portfolios.
“We’re fortunate that David
is remaining within the Lodge
Rentals team capacity so we
can continue to draw on his
expertise and knowledge.
“His key focus has shifted
to developing our service
offering to landlords. He will
work closely with clients in a
property investment advisory
role,” explains Waugh.
Matthew-Shane Berryman
has been promoted to branch
manager.
Berryman joined Lodge
City Rentals in 2016 after
Jason Waugh, left, and Matthew-Shane Berryman.
working overseas as an investment
consultant and banker.
He has extensive experience in
both the real estate and banking
industries.
On the immediate horizon,
Waugh says the team
is focused on ensuring the
Healthy Homes Standards,
which came into force on July
1, is rolled out by all landlords
across all rental properties
under management.
The Healthy Homes Standards
set minimum requirements
for modern heating,
proper insulation in floors
and walls, ventilation in
high-moisture rooms, moisture
ingress and drainage, and
Intelligent automation
should lighten the load
David Kneebone
draught stopping.
“We are putting the right
steps in place to ensure the
rental properties under our
management are dry, warm and
to the standard they should be.”
CBD celebration
awards
The CBD Celebration Awards
are sponsored by Spark
Business and brought to
you by Hamilton Central
Business Association and
The Breeze. Support your
favourite business for the
People’s Choice awards, open
from August 1-21, vote at
hamiltoncentral.co.nz.
CBD activation in
spotlight
The CBD will be on show
when Hamilton Central
Business Association presents
at the International Cities, Town
Centres and Communities
(ICTC) Conference -
Transformative Cities, held in
Townsville in October. HCBA
has been invited to speak
on CBD Activation - bringing
vibrancy to public spaces
through activation, events
and people. Visit ictsociety.
org/2019 to find out more.
Snippets supplied by
Hamilton Central Business
Association
TECHNOLOGY SECURITY
> BY AARON STEELE
Aaron Steele is a senior manager at PwC Waikato.
Email: aaron.steele@pwc.com
Intelligent automation (IA)
is ushering in the fourth
industrial revolution by
disrupting and creating new
business models. In order to
thrive in the digital revolution,
we must balance business
understanding with technology
innovation and human
insight.
Seventy-six percent of
CEOs in our 2019 global
survey are worried about the
speed of tech change. And
64 percent acknowledge that
changes in the technology
used to run their businesses
will be disruptive over the
next five years.
PwC have analysed the
business impact and commercial
viability of more than
250 emerging technologies
and have a list of the essential
eight core technologies
that will matter the most for
business, across all industries,
over the next three to
five years. These are artificial
intelligence, augmented reality,
virtual reality, blockchain,
drones, 3D printing, Internet
of Things (IoT) and robotics.
IA has the ability to transform
how your business operates
and delivers services in
the future, but implementing
new technology just because
it’s the latest thing, in isolation
from your business
strategy and with inadequate
upfront assessment, can lead
to a failure to achieve the benefits.
There is a broad spectrum
of IA and some areas such as
virtual assistants/chatbots and
robotic process automation
(RPA) are already well developed
and used by a large number
of businesses.
One of the most visible
elements of IA at the moment
is the virtual assistants, such
as Amazon Alexa or chatbots
that pop up when you visit a
website to enable automated
enquiries and customer support.
This is conversational
intelligence that is based upon
natural language processing
and artificial intelligence to
enable a computer program to
conduct a conversation based
upon audio and/or textual
input.
RPA is less visible, but can
have a major impact on your
business processes, freeing up
staff for customer-focused and
value-add activities. Essentially,
RPA transforms how a
business deals with manual
repetitive processes through
automation which increases
workforce capacity. In 2018
Gartner said that RPA will be
adopted by three in four financial
controllers within two
years.
RPA is computer software
(a “bot”) that sits on top of
existing systems (it is technology
agnostic) to perform
tasks normally performed by a
human, using rule-based processes.
There are no changes
to existing software or additional
interfaces required,
your existing systems view
the RPA bot as just another
user and interacts with the
system through the graphical
user interface (GUI). The
best processes for automation
are high volume, rules-based,
digital and often involve interaction
between multiple systems/tools.
For example, we had a client
that was replacing approximately
20,000 assets per year
and had a manual process to
update the asset records with
the new asset information. It
took six minutes per asset for a
human to perform this simple,
repetitive process, whereas
the RPA bot took just one minute
and could work 24/7. By
automating this process, staff
didn’t have to perform a task
that they didn’t like doing and
their time could be used on
more productive tasks.
RPA is becoming easier to
implement, and can lead to
quick improvements in terms
of efficiency and cost savings.
Like all technologies, RPA
only works if it is applied to
the right processes and if it is
implemented well, with the
old saying “garbage in equals
garbage out” applying.
Intelligent automation
should put the human back
in the people, increasing
employee morale, customer
experience and satisfaction
by allowing people do what
they do best. If it doesn’t, then
come and talk to us.
The comments in this
article of a general nature
and should not be relied on
for specific cases. Taxpayers
should seek specific advice.