New thinking to drive New Zealand business forward

New Zealanders have always managed to hit the mark when it comes to bright ideas, and finding creative and innovative ways of doing things - we've seen it in fashion, film and music. <?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" /?>

 

Most recently in Auckland some of our top business thinkers, innovators and exporting experts and companies have had the chance to showcase the way forward as we work to build a stronger export-led innovative economy.

 

Newthinking06 is a week dedicated to biotech, information technology and creative events, aimed at promoting a new way of thinking for New Zealand’s knowledge-based industries – one based on the power of ideas and international connections.

 

New Zealand is topping the international points tables in ease of doing business, entrepreneurship and economic freedom, yet we have some way to go to move up the OECD wealth table.

 

Certainly our economic performance is related to our physical constraints – our distance from key markets and our small size.

 

But it is also to do with our attitudes.  As a nation we need to start valuing our businesses (in particular our exporters) and we need to stop being bashful about the creation of wealth. 

 

We need to back our business stars, and be proud of them, just as we take huge pride in our film, arts and sporting stars.

 

The need for a change in attitude is also one for business, which needs to get more comfortable with the concept of adding value to their products and services, and building international networks.

 

The Labour-led government is committed to working with business to achieve these goals.

 

To create higher standards of living for all New Zealanders our country needs more firms that are innovative and that can successfully compete at the leading edge in offshore markets, and that can grab the attention of the world’s consumers.

 

New Zealand’s future will be determined by the way in which we commercialise our innovations and take them to the world and newthinking06 is designed to provide entrepreneurs and businesses with tools and networks to achieve this.

 

If we are to fast track our economic growth, adding value, international networks, innovation and technology are the way ahead.

A New Zealand Trade and Enterprise (NZTE) survey of exporters, conducted when the high New Zealand dollar was starting to bite, showed that companies exporting higher value products were faring better than those at the commodity end of markets.

 

Currently too many of us are afflicted by “old thinking”.

 

The words new thinking originally arose out of NZTE’s programme to promote New Zealand to the world as an innovative and technologically savvy country, as well as being clean and green. 

 

New Zealand New Thinking is now being used to brand New Zealand stands at international trade fairs, in marketing and in the media.

 

It is a powerful framework for reshaping the way we are seen internationally.

 

The phrase new thinking also applies to a challenge facing all New Zealanders at home.

 

If we truly want to lift our economic performance, we urgently need to do some new thinking about what and how we export.

 

If we don’t build more high growth, internationally competitive exporting companies, we won't go far on the points table of international economic success.

 

While the rest of the OECD has moved the majority of their exports into faster growing markets for more lucrative value-added goods, ours remains skewed towards commodities that are more vulnerable to fluctuating exchange rates, prices and economic downturns. 

 

Now we are trying to catch up.  Commodity-based exports will make a contribution, and already there is success in adding value to commodity-based goods. But alone they’ll never deliver the above average growth we are striving for. 

 

By working hard to transform our economy into a producer of high-value exports, New Zealand businesses will be in the position to be the price makers, rather than the price takers.

 

The organisers of events at newthinking06 – NZBio, Incubators New Zealand and KEA New Zealand, all supported by the government  – have immense knowledge and networks to help attendees understand the issues and plot ways forward.

 

Newthinking06 is also being used to acknowledge outstanding performances during the past year by business incubators, biotechnologists and Kiwis promoting New Zealand abroad.

 

Accentuating the positive is a big part of new thinking.  We are surrounded by new thinking companies which signpost the way ahead.

 

For example, in the last four years NZTE’s business incubator programme has invested $13 million in support for small high-growth potential companies, most with a technology at their heart.

 

Last year there were 17 incubators containing 157 companies which on average increased their turnover by 111 percent. They employed more than 700 people and earned revenues in excess of $27 million.

 

Our four-year-old beachheads programme has been hugely successful in kick-starting New Zealand company launches into offshore markets.  The key feature of beachheads is their ability to quickly lock member companies into local networks overseas and connections that would otherwise take them years and many dollars to develop.

 

Currently there are 70 technology-focused companies spread across six beachhead offices in the US (Silicon Valley and Fort Lauderdale), the UK (London), Dubai, Singapore and Japan (Tokyo).  By around February next year I expect to have 120 companies on board.

 

These programmes are key platforms to help our companies on to the world stage.

 

Progress has been made and newthinking06 will help us further along the road towards reshaping our attitudes and what and how we export.