Waikato Business News October/November 2020

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6 WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS October/November 2020 A boardroom in the bush By RICHARD WALKER An open-air boardroom in a sanctuary surrounded by native birds: that’s the vision taking shape in a special piece of Waikato nature. The brainchild of Nature and Nosh’s Kylie Rae, the offering sees corporates taking a guided mindful hike on the slopes of Sanctuary Mountain Maungatautari before knuckling down to work at a boardroom table constructed from native timber. It’s entirely possible the distractions will consist of birdsong from the likes of saddlebacks or tui, rather than the hum of an overactive airconditioning unit or the bleeping of cellphones. “The bird song on Maungatautari is pretty special,” Rae says. “You can go for a meeting in a regular room with four walls, or you can come into the middle of the bush with us.” The full experience can also include a foraging workshop, mind set coaching, facilitated leadership training and glowworm kayaking. The corporate package is the latest addition to an offering Rae and her husband hit upon in South America. They wanted to set up a business on their return to New Zealand, they enjoyed walking, they knew that was a great way to solve problems - and the idea came to them while they were out hiking. “I've since done a lot of research, and there's a heap of science behind it. There are proven psychological and physiological benefits from taking the outdoors and a bit of exercise,” Rae says. The couple would also spend on good local food and lodgings during their hikes, rather than camping. At the end of 2017, they put it all together by setting up Nature and Nosh, originally focusing on the leisure market and offering a range of tours from one to seven days, across Waikato and Coromandel. Even during that time, Rae says, the idea for a boardroom table in the bush was on her mind though it was hard to see how it could be achievable. “It seemed impossible to me because, obviously, getting a huge table in the middle of a bush mountain is quite difficult.” The impossible became possible when, like so many other businesses, Nature and Nosh had to adjust quickly as Cambridge firm Rocketspark take a guided mindful walk on Maungatautari. Covid-19 struck. Until then, they had been marketing their offerings to the overseas leisure market, particularly the east coast of Australia. The firm was just over two years old, and was seeing good uptake. With borders closed Nature and Nosh went from having revenue to refunding customers to having "really tough conversations about, is this viable?” “And we just thought, well this is our passion and it's worthwhile. We know that eventually we're all going to be able to travel again. Can we just be really creative and try and tide it over?” They were helped by the fact Kylie Rae’s accountant husband, Steve, has a separate job. They switched leisure focus Mamaku forms part of a nourishing foraged meal. to the domestic market, using social media and word of mouth to attract Kiwis to see their own backyard. About half come from Auckland but Rae is pleased that there is also a sizable contingent from the greater Waikato. They also kickstarted the corporate packages on Maungatautari, where native species are thriving thanks to the pest-proof fence encircling the mountain. “This idea of walking meetings, or bush boardroom table, wasn't something I came up with magically because of Covid, it was more like, well now it's time to see if we can access the corporate market.” She quickly realised a site would need to be found within the more accessible southern enclosure - a fenced-off area within the larger fence - and they needed a clearing that was readily accessible but secluded enough not to be interrupted by anyone walking past. They found it in a clearing close to the event centre. The nearby centre is covered, meaning meetings can go ahead there in the event of rain. A handsome table, 3.5m by 1.2m, made to seat 12-14 people and constructed from locally and sustainably sourced tawa and rata, now takes pride of place in the clearing, and the first corporate meetings have been held. It is an offering that may be unique worldwide. Rae has “googled and googled” and Kylie Rae found nowhere else offering a bush boardroom table for corporates. The package always starts with a mindful hike, guided by Rae, in which participants walk in silence to start with. Other parts of the package are led by experts in their area, and firms can turn it into a two-day retreat if they choose, with accommodation at nearby Sanctuary Lodge Maungatautari, formerly Out in the Styx. The corporate packages can incorporate activities outside Maungatautari, but Nature and Nosh is contracting to the Maungatautari Ecological Island Trust to offer the guided mindful hikes, foraging workshops and the bush boardroom table on the maunga. A percentage of the fees for the corporate team and leadership packages goes back to the mountain. “This is a great way that they [companies] can actually also support local, and get back to conservation at the same time.” BEWARE OF FOREIGN IMITATIONS. There’s no shortage of great ideas in New Zealand. But for an innovative bunch, we’re not the best at realising the full potential of our innovations, particularly when exporting them. At James & Wells, we can identify your competitive edge, offer business strategies for specific markets and help you own and leverage your intellectual property to ensure no one steals the fruit of your labour. www.jaws.co.nz | +64 7 957 5660
WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS October/November 2020 7 Innovative text-tovoice software wins innovation award State of the art software that turns text into humanlike audio files at a fraction of the cost of booking a voice artist, recording studio and sound engineer has won Waikato Agile software development specialist Company-X its third innovation award. Company-X won the Independent Software Vendor category in the Homegrown Innovators section of IDG’s Reseller News Innovation Awards in Auckland on October 21st, where Company-X co-founder and director David Hallett and senior executive Ben Judge were presented with the award. “Company-X wins this award for designing and deploying a platform with a Speech Synthesis Markup Language (SSML) editor to automate a labour-intensive manual process for its client, introducing automated workflow technology to transform the process for users,” said Reseller News editor Leon Spencer. “I’m absolutely thrilled that Company-X has won the Independent Software Vendor award for the third time,” Hallett said. Company-X won the Independent Software Vendor award in 2019 and 2017 and was a category finalist in 2018. “This is the pick of IDG’s Innovation Awards for innovative software development, and is the trophy we absolutely love to take home!“ The Company-X textto-voice editor also allows SSML tags to control emphasis, pitch, speed and tone. Software users can edit and resynthesise the result at any time using SSML tags. Company-X clients, Stockholm-based multinationals CBG and DeLaval, use the text-to-voice editor to transform the manual voice translation process essential to global operations. “I am really proud that Company-X has won the Independent Software Vendor Award recognising such a great team of software specialists at Company-X again,” said Company-X co-founder and director Jeremy Hughes. “I am also really grateful for the trust and confidence clients put in the Company-X team to innovate for them and create innovative and award-winning software.” CBG key account manager Paul Jacobsen congratulated Company-X for a well-deserved award win. “Since we first turned to Company-X for assistance with our synthetic audio needs, they have been very flexible and accommodating,” Jacobsen said. This innovative software is intuitive and easy to use and answered our need to provide a budgetfriendly alternative to professional voice recordings. “They managed to adapt their SSML tool to give even more adjustment options to reach better audio results. “This innovative software is intuitive and easy to use and answered our need to provide a budget-friendly alternative to professional voice recordings.” DeLaval milk quality and on-farm service solutions technical development manager Mario Lopez Benavides said Company-X’s SSML editor had proved to be pivotal in making good progress in his projects. “The flexibility of the tool allows the project team to make sure that voice quality meets the requirements that any user of the final product would expect. Project time is shortened without compromising quality, and that is something we value greatly. The innovation award in the Independent Software Vendor is a well-deserved win for Company-X. Congratulations.” DeLaval farm supplies training and assortment administrator Stefanie Goodhew said: “Before I was assigned the task of translating and coordinating global e-learning within our company, I honestly hadn’t given any thought at all to how an automatic translation of text into spoken word could work, let alone how it would sound. “While working with the recording tool, it is all the more amazing to me how natural the final result sounds and how easily you can change the sound of the words with tiny changes and adjustments. “Very impressive and congratulations to Company-X!” Company-X was also a finalist in the Digital Transformation and Internet of Things (IoT) award categories. TracPlus, which offers real-time tracking, event reporting and messaging for aircraft, vehicles, vessels and personnel, asked Company-X to build a mobile app that enabled satellite communication when cell coverage or internet was not available. Company-X built a messaging platform that works over web, cellular, satellite, and radio. Company-X has won many other awards: • The Service Excellence and Global Operator awards at the Westpac Waikato Business Awards in 2018. • Services Exporter of the Year category at the Air New Zealand Cargo ExportNZ Awards 2017. • The Roading Asset Management Innovation Award at the Road Infrastructure Management Forum in 2017 for the One Network Road Classification Performance Measures Reporting Tool. INNOVATION: Company-X senior executive Ben Judge receives the Independent Software Vendor award. Innovation that works Companies across the globe save time and money using the latest award-winning technology from Company-X. Make our award-winning innovative thinking work for you too. HOW IT WORKS: A screenshot, below, of the Company-X text-to-voice editor.
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Waikato Business News October/November 2020

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