Waikato Business News October/November 2020

WAIKATO BUSINESS NEWS October/November 2020
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A model shows one of Nichola Te Kiri’s designs at New
Zealand Fashion Week. Jewellery by Nichola Te Kiri.
To come up with her
designs, Te Kiri says she
draws on her heritage, culture
and environment.
This year, coming out of
lockdown around the time of
Matariki, she created a design
focused on a star, Hiwa-i-terangi.
“She’s like the one that
you wish upon your hopes and
dreams for the new year. And
I felt that really pivotal at that
time.”
She has also done more
designs based on the stars,
including the male star
Tupuārangi, which relates to
food gathered from the trees.
For summer, she is doing one
based on the summer maiden,
Hineraumati.
“So I use a lot of my culture
and the stories that we
tell. I use those traditional
passed-down narratives, but
I interpret them into my own
korero, I suppose.”
Mana motuhake
Te Waka is seeing the huge
variety of local Māori businesses
not only through platforms
like Buy Māori Made
but also through a database
it is building of Māori businesses.
Craig Barrett gives
the example of Māori farriers
shoeing horses. “We’re actually
involved in a whole range
of different things, we’re not
just working on the farm,
we’re actually providing a lot
of services and products to the
farmer as well - we just didn’t
know.”
Barrett acknowledges that
downturns like that caused by
Covid-19 disproportionately
affect Māori.
“But we are resilient. And
we have the concept of mana
motuhake and rangatiratanga
- that we will determine our
own future,” he says.
At the Tainui Economic
Business Summit, held in
Hamilton at the start of October,
economist Ganesh Nana
said while New Zealand was
blessed compared to other
parts of the world in terms of
the impact of Covid-19, the
outlook was gloomy.
He told those at the summit,
hosted by Te Kōhao Health,
the Whānau Ora collective and
Tainui Raupatu Lands Trust,
that Treasury had forecast a
further 70,000 would become
jobless. Nana predicted the
recovery would take longer
than the Treasury forecast.
“We have to look at who’s
the most vulnerable, who are
the least resilient, and make
sure that we are putting the
supports around them.”
Nana said it was a sense of
community that had got the
country through the past few
months, and that sense of connection
would remain important
into the future.
“Because make no mistake,
this is going to be a
marathon effort.”
The power of procurement
One area where the Government
can play an important
part is in its procurement practices
- and in the tech sector
the impact could be immense.
Mike Jenkins, chief executive
of Waikato-headquartered
tech firm The Instillery, sees
current practice as a major barrier
to new companies such as
his, and one which is changing
only slowly.
With procurement panels
created before firms such as
The Instillery existed, startups
including Māori businesses
find it hard to compete for
government agency ICT contracts.
“If the government truly is
motivated to support not just
the Kiwi economy but Kiwi
community and family, our
big challenge to them is that
they’ve got to embrace social
procurement,” Jenkins says.
“Social procurement is a
lever that they can pull - and
it’s in a Cabinet paper that’s
already in front of them. And
even if they said they would do
2 percent of government ICT
procurement to New Zealand
Māori-registered businesses,
that’s 2 percent of $1.8 billion.
That is a huge injection to
those communities.”
Despite the barriers, The
Instillery has continued its
meteoric rise as the fastest
growing Māori ICT company
in the country.
It has cracked this year’s
TIN100, making it one of the
country’s 100 largest tech
We are resilient.
And we have the
concept of mana
motuhake and
rangatiratanga -
that we will
determine our own
future.
exporting firms. The Instillery
has come in at number 68,
and has been identified by the
industry-leading report as one
of 10 to watch in 2021.
In a year of notable achievements,
The Instillery also won
Experience care as it
should be, experience
the Braemar way.
Braemar Hospital is one of the largest
private surgical hospitals in New Zealand,
and it’s here in Hamilton.
With more than 100 world class specialists,
10 state-of-the-art operating rooms, 84 beds
including 32 private rooms, at Braemar
you’ll receive the highest level of care.
Choose the very best.
Choose Braemar.
Microsoft Cloud Partner of
the Year and the ARN reseller
Innovation Awards Cloud
Partner of the Year for 2020.
But the seven-year-old firm
also faced challenges, including
bringing together two
companies after its acquisition
of Origin last year, which
added cyber-security capability
to its existing cloud-based
offering.
“This year hasn’t been
without its challenges,” Jenkins
says. “Probably professionally,
I’d say for us as a
leadership team, it’s been our
most challenging, with Covid
and really refocusing on our
people, what we stand for, and
who we are.
“I think, culturally, it was
a really testing time. That’s
something I’m really proud of
- that we’ve come out the other
side where we are.”
The Instillery has more
than 180 staff in offices around
New Zealand and 200-plus clients,
including some offshore.
As with social procurement,
Jenkins is frustrated by
inaction over access to digital
opportunities for Maori and
Pasifika people, despite endless
well-meaning talk about
the digital divide.
That has seen Jenkins and
product and marketing manager
Ryan Joe involved in
the creation of the Elevation
Aotearoa’s Future (EAF.Kiwi)
initiative.
“The reality is, you’ve
got to put indigenous and
Continued on page 10
braemarhospital.co.nz