June 2021 - Bay of Plenty Business News

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12 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS May 2021 Xero explores leadership training options with Jason, Leah and the team of SMYD Chartered Accounts. Getting the most OUT OF YOUR PEOPLE AND YOUR BUSINESS By CRAIG HUDSON I was recently asked, how do you balance looking after your people with the need to deliver commercial value? Simple – these two things are not mutually exclusive. You can be successful in business without compromising your ability to be human. I go by the adage, “where focus goes, energy flows”. If you can focus on the building blocks of success, such as developing your people, instead of success alone, then success will follow. I believe people are the most valuable resource in a business and should be the core of everything we do. The Xero leadership team went down to Waihi recently for a planning session, and there I met with Jason and Leah from SMYD Chartered Accountants, who were a finalist in the Small Partner of the Year category in the 2020 Xero Awards. We had a kōrero about wellbeing and the impact of this on business. When he and his wife Leah started their accounting practice, they had one major focus in mind – a better lifestyle and ultimate wellbeing for themselves and their family. Now that they have expanded to a larger team, they have kept employee wellbeing top of mind – allowing staff to work flexible hours, and remotely from home -–meaning they can all put their family and lifestyle commitments first, and work around those. Jason said by putting their people first, they have built an extremely loyal, motivated and engaged team who really care about their clients. And in turn, they’ve seen exponential business growth. In fact, they’ve never needed to advertise SMYD’s services because word-of-mouth is so powerful for them. And I believe that comes down to focusing on the fact that people and Craig Hudson, Managing Director New Zealand and Pacific Islands, Xero their wellbeing are at the heart of their business. Looking after your people’s wellbeing should be a priority for small business leaders. If you’re not convinced, let me give you the business case. Research commissioned by Xero and conducted by the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER) shows that for every dollar invested in organisational wellbeing, employers can get up to $12 back. This return comes from avoiding the negative impacts of poor wellbeing, by creating a positive culture in the workplace that supports the physical and mental health of staff. It doesn’t need to take a lot of time or money. It can be as simple as having one-on-one conversations with your team to get to know them better. Taking an interest in their lives – and sharing more about your own – will help build a more open and trusted environment where people feel comfortable sharing things with you. ADVERTORIAL SwipedOn Launches New Tech Products FOR THE FLEXIBLE WORKPLACE Smart Desk Management Effortlessly manage your workplace environment Easily locate and book desks on-the-go Book/reserve desks in advance Control office capacity View occupancy and history Locate key contacts such as fire warden or first aider Stress free desk allocations Customised to fit your needs Request your free SwipedOn Desks demo today www.swipedon.com/desks Tauranga-based Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) company SwipedOn, went from tech startup to offering a world-leading visitor management system with major multinational clients within five years. With the initial intent to replace the paper visitor book, enhance data privacy and create a streamlined workplace, Covid-19 delivered a true test of their ability to ensure the product would continue to evolve amidst a rapidly-changing global environment. Now, SwipedOn is helping over 7000 businesses in more than 70 countries return to work safely with features which help with Covid safe compliance and so much more. SwipedOn’s latest Development, SwipedOn Desks is proving to be a useful tool for businesses across the world as they begin to reopen their doors post-pandemic. SwipedOn Desks offers a smart and simple approach to workplace management. Businesses which are interested in keeping employees safe at work through social distancing, or those who are operating a hybrid workplace, will love the agility of the cloud-based platform. SwipedOn Desks offers any sized business the ability to manage their shared desk spaces from a central application; helping to utilise shared spaces effectively, optimising your operational costs, while giving you greater control over implementing your workplace health and safety policies. It’s the perfect fit for workplaces in need of a solution to control office capacity, view occupancy and history and operate a hybrid workplace effectively. Office zones or individual desks can be booked out to accommodate the rotation of teams and individual employees alike. Desks can be booked easily by an admin or by employees on-the-go on their smartphones. For effective social distancing, desks can be flagged as unavailable by the admin to prevent these from being booked.
June 2021 BAY OF PLENTY BUSINESS NEWS 13 Tauranga software firm PUTS LEGAL TEAMS FIRST By RICHARD RENNIE Tauranga legal software company LawVu has been quietly building its client base, capacity and staff numbers in its central city offices as it looks well over the horizon for more business opportunities. Founded by Sam Kidd and long-time local resident Tim Boyne, LawVu is a suite of software services aimed at increasing the productivity of in-house legal teams in large corporate entities and multinationals. The company was recently nudged into the national limelight with the announcement in early May that it has done a deal with a large, but as yet un-named social media company. Telstra as a client in Australia, a company with the largest in-house legal counsel in the Southern Hemisphere. Funding to expand has come from local investor Craig Wearne who liked the idea from the get-go. LawVu recently secured $2.5 million of funding through a convertible notes offering, run by Australian venture capital company AirTree Ventures, supported by NZ Growth Capital Partners. “Generally funding has not been too great an issue, we have always been able to convince investors about the value of what we are offering firms, and really it has been more of a case of waiting for the market to catch up to the idea,” said Boyne. LawVu was born in 2015 when Tim Boyne took his 10 years’ experience working in the IT team for local legal firm Sharp Tudhope and joined with Kidd who had experience in a project management software startup. “My experience at the law firm was that at the end of every month pulling together all the reports for the big company clients,” SAID Boyne. “It was incredibly painful on our side, and had to be repeated by the client. I thought there had to be an easier way to keep track of things.” ‘GO TO’ PRODUCTIVITY TOOL Partnering with Kidd and being able to apply his experience from his project management software saw them develop what is becoming the “go to” productivity tool for in-house counsel. The pair’s big break came when they landed Boyne said the legal counsel sector has been largely unchanged over the past 20 years and has missed out on many of the digital productivity tools other sectors have benefitted from. “For example, 15 percent of lawyers are tracking contractual obligations and deadlines on PostIt notes. Feedback we get is that having LawVu has helped significantly reduce wasted time for mundane tasks like document searching, meaning teams can focus on more higher value projects and activities. “One city council saved 40 percent on their expenditure on outside counsel spend, while another firm’s team of lawyers saved an hour a day each by not having to search for documents in the usual way.” The company has found Australia a good starting point as an overseas market, with firms generally being larger and two to three years ahead of their New Zealand equivalents in adopting new technology. But New Zealand clients include not only the big players of Zespri and Fonterra, but also LIC, Sky and Harcourts. REVENUE TRIPLED Last year despite Covid’s disruptions the company tripled its revenue and will be looking to further capital fund raising later this year in the US$10 million range as it continues to expand its Tauranga office base from its current 30 staff. Boyne says if he had one wish for Tauranga city, it would be to see more of a hub develop around Tim Boyne: co-founder of Taurangabased legal software company LawVu. a cluster of tech-focused firms, helping reduce the region’s reliance upon its physical resources. “You need good companies to attract good people, particularly as more and more people have spouses, who may also wish to work here coming with them.” Now with 70 staff spread around Tauranga and the world in offices in the US, Ireland and Australia, Boyne said there was no constraint being based here, and no plans to leave the city. Australia is currently the company’s largest market, but the US beckons and the company is intent on becoming the “go to” option for in-house legal teams around the world. “We are all about landing and expanding at this stage.” ADVERTORIAL 2DEGREES NETWORK COMES OF AGE • $1b total investment in mobile and broadband offering • Ericsson announced as 5G partner for 2degrees bring world-class expertise • 5G network build to launch in late 2021 One billion dollars. That’s how much 2degrees has invested in its network since the telco opened its doors in 2009. And with the recent announcement of Ericsson as its 5G partner, 2degrees will offer even more to Kiwis from late 2021. 2degrees Chief Technology Officer Martin Sharrock says many Kiwis will be surprised to learn how far the network has come, with most still having fond (though out of date) memories of 2degrees as a start-up. “Most Kiwis are unaware how much we’ve grown. We have our sights set on delivering New Zealand’s best 5G network, on top of the $1b we’ve already invested in our nationwide mobile and broadband offering. “We started replacing the core of our network in 2020 and we can now accelerate the build out of 5G with planned upgrades to existing sites. Ericsson is a global leader in mobile communications technology, and they will help us to bring New Zealanders a world-class 5G network,” says Mr Sharrock. “We’re excited about 5G and we’re aiming to have our first sites live in Auckland and Wellington during 2021. The network will expand to the other main centres, with plans for 700 sites.” In addition to enabling the 5G network build, partnering with Ericsson will allow 2degrees to double its current 4G capacity and provide an event better customer experience, backup up by 100% Kiwi-based customer care. “To be able to evolve our network to 5G, we’ll also be getting in and replacing the heart of our network so every one of our mobile customers will benefit,” he said. Sharrock was keen to point out other improvements to the 2degrees 3G / 4G network and said a myth he is keen to bust is that old fashioned idea that 2degrees still uses a competitor network to top up its services, which is no longer the case. “Our new infrastructure agreement was signed last year and roll out of that is just wrapping up. It signals the end of the idea of roaming and will ensure all our customers will receive ‘the full 2degrees experience’, especially in rural areas or on regional roads.” That means that with almost 1800 sites, the 2degrees mobile network now covers 98.5% of places Kiwi’s live and work. The network was recently rated first for ‘most responsive network’ and first equal for its ‘excellent consistent quality’ by Tutela.
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June 2021 - Bay of Plenty Business News

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