Category Archives: Economy

2010 Rocked Us, Roll On 2011

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To say that 2010 was a year full challenges and opportunities is somewhat of an understatement. For many people in business it was a case of  hanging in there as a recessionary economy misfired and struggled to get up off its knees. But much worse than this, New Zealand (and in particular the south) was stricken by the triple tragedies of a huge investment business failure, a destructive earthquake and a terrible mine disaster. Whilst these events provided a much-needed distraction for the government, they were devastating for the people directly affected and shocked all of us.

When national morale takes a hit, I’ve noticed the economy tends to suffer as well. Good spirits lead to more spending which in turn leads to more optimism. It’s a virtuous circle. On the plus side, we have been sheltered a little from the storm by high global dairy prices and the fact that our banks are stable and government debt not completely out of control like elsewhere. But there’s still lots more work to be done on diversifying the economy and I don’t think we should rely entirely on the Thugby World Cup to reignite our passions in 2011. We can’t afford to sleepwalk through another year.

The government needs to be looking at providing a more aspirational science and innovation framework that goes well beyond moving the deck chairs around with yet another departmental restructuring. In the lead up to the election, we also need to start thinking about reforming our entire legal system. When a senior judge thinks it’s ok to preside over a court case involving a business partner and peeping toms get longer prison sentences than drunk drivers who kill and maim, we know we’ve got a serious problem.

On a personal level I had the immense satisfaction of working with two great teams. The first was the crew at ideegeo from whom I learn something new every day. We headed into our third year of domain renewals this month at iWantMyName and grew revenue at over 200% during the year. We also addressed some growing pains by improving our platform technology as well as our management systems as we position for the next chapter. The most exciting aspect of going global with the technology was that we secured a core following of early adopters amongst the developer community worldwide that may open some interesting doors for us in 2011. Watch this space.

My other team are the good folks at the Unlimited Potential committee who help bring the coolest events to the ICT community here in Wellington. We had a very busy year with a strong focus on promoting technology entrepreneurship through a number of well supported events. We also completed our wonderful new website. All of this was achieved in a very tough funding environment. Because of UP activities, teams got built, tech businesses were started and people found jobs. Real life social networking is important. Thanks to the supporters who made it happen and let us know if you’d like to get involved as an event partner or committee member in 2011.

Best wishes for a safe and happy holiday season and a prosperous 2011.

Innovation Investment For Tech Minnows Drys Up

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Last year the government signalled its intention to invest heavily in “primary sector innovation”. As an efficient producer of food with a huge and growing consumer market emerging on our back doorstep, it absolutely makes sense to invest in this area, but it should not be treated in isolation. It also sends a disturbing message that high carbon, environmentally damaging industries are the priority.

The official announcement of a $144M investment into the Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) springs from a promise made in 2009 to form a public-private partnership to invest into developing more innovative high value added products and services based upon our existing expertise in farming. But this funding was purloined from an almost identical programme that had already been set up just prior to the demise of the previous government. While the Nats rebranded the package, nothing happened for over a year. In the meantime the global economy tanked and the public’s attention was diverted away from the issue.

The recently announced and much lauded additional $189M in funding for high tech industries also sounds good at first glance, but is worthy of closer inspection. It’s spread over four years and is entirely targeted at larger firms. The problem here is that a lot of the most interesting ideas are being generated in smaller companies that are already being hit hard by the recession. Small companies don’t have a lobby group and tend to be way too busy innovating and simply staying afloat to complain anyway.

Starting-up and growing a tech company has always been a crucible of fire and only the best and brightest will succeed. That is why I’m sometimes a little bit ambivalent about publicly funded handouts. On the other hand, larger firms now have better access to government grants than smaller one, which seems a little unfair. New Zealand is way too reliant on commodity exports and certainly needs to add more value through innovation. But let’s not forget emerging software and high tech manufacturing companies that build and export high value products and services with almost no pollution or carbon attached.

There is a real disconnect between innovation at the coal face within small and enterprises and the resources being made available by government to stimulate these enterprises, some of which will grow to be bigger fish eventually. Under the new system, small companies will self assess their needs and receive training to improve “capability”. That is both laudable and necessary, but it doesn’t help get new products developed and to market faster.

Postscript: In response to my friends at TechNZ. My comments above refer to the new funding. There remain avenues for small firms to access co-funding for small projects from the existing funding pool.

Does Shakedown Have Silver Lining?

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Christchurch based politician Jim Anderton will no doubt be regretting his comment last week that it would take a “seismic shift” for incumbent Christchurch mayor Bob Parker not to lose the local body election fight that they are both engaged in. At 4.35am last Saturday morning, New Zealand’s second largest city was struck by an earthquake of similar strength to that which destroyed Haiti. In fact Parker, ever the gentleman showman, has risen to the occasion and must be privately elated that he has a new public platform on which to perform. The timing is also perfect for other politicians who are ever mindful of the lessons from 9/11 and New Orleans.

When old Mr Hubbard went to the cupboard and found it bare recently, the subsequent receivership of poorly managed South Canterbury Finance (SCF) and its labyrinthine and multitudinous related entities also hit the Canterbury region like a shock wave. It was a painful reminder of why we cannot continue to prime our economic machine purely on the basis of milk exports and highly leveraged property assets. Investors in the failed firm received an immediate payment under a government guarantee scheme totalling $1.7 billion. Whilst some of this cash will no doubt be recovered, it’s appalling that SCF went unchecked for so long. Ordinary taxpayers and legitimate businesses have had to shoulder this burden.

Most of the SCF payout will likely disappear into holiday trips to Surfer’s Paradise and safe but low interest earning bank accounts of the grey brigade.Very little will actually be reinvested into the productive part of the New Zealand economy. Consequently, the earthquake is a “god-send” for central government too. Apart from the immediate distraction from existing economic problems, it will validate investing hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure repairs. Road builders, plasterers and brick layers from all over the country will be fully engaged for months, possibly years. That may be quite a good thing.

I don’t wish to minimise the effects on Christchurch residents as they were thrown from their beds on Saturday morning. It must have been a terrifying ordeal and the ongoing psychological trauma of aftershocks will continue to play on minds. But I partially agree with some commentators who suggest that New Zealand has a high level of preparedness and that we will come through this. Now that the dust has settled, we might even see some benefits arise from this event. If nothing else, there will be a lot of learnings that can be passed on to those of us that live in other parts of the country with a history of high seismicity.

Air Affair Needs Pre-Flight Check

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You have to give credit where it’s due. Air New Zealand’s spin doctors have had a delicious time making their engagement with Virgin Blue sound like a huge bonus for customers. Unfortunately the reality of the situation is somewhat different. Our national airline’s lusty desire for consummating a union with Virgin may sound like a match made in heaven but it should not be allowed to get airborne without a proper pre-flight inspection.

The two airlines plan to merge and rationalise all their trans-Tasman operations in order to compete more effectively. With Qantas and its low cost offspring Jetstar making rapid inroads into market share and a host of other carriers dumping excess capacity in the region the blue team are taking a beating. It makes perfect economic sense for the airlines to work together, but there is no upside for passengers – especially those from Wellington, where ANZ and PBN already face little opposition. 

No matter what spin the airlines put on the alliance proposal, there are only two possible outcomes for consumers if it proceeds – fewer flights and higher prices between New Zealand and Australia. That is the sole objective because it is the only way the airlines can get revenue per seat to a sustainable level. The net result is that eventually one brand will cease to exist. Given that Air New Zealand is entrenched, it is likely to be Pacific Blue that dies. This will also reduce competition on the domestic scene. That would be a shame because both companies are highly innovative and have excellent customer service standards.

In any event New Zealand’s domestic market has never been able to sustain more than two airline brands historically and somebody will blink eventually. Then the era of cheap airfares will be over, at least for a while. On the other hand Singapore’s Tiger Airways is waiting in the wings – so to speak, although with its appalling customer service record it is questionable whether Tiger’s arrival would be either beneficial or long-lived.

There are however two possible benefits of the proposed alliance to consider. Firstly, Air New Zealand gains access to Virgin’s domestic feeder traffic and marketing machine. That would be a plus for the New Zealand tourism industry and a long awaited return to the Australian market since Air New Zealand’s near death experience with its misjudged acquisition of Ansett back in 2000. Secondly, with more A320s on the way, Air New Zealand will have more capacity irrespective of its partnership status. There may be scope to launch some kind of new low cost option to address this section of the market and placate the regulators.

There is a certain inevitability about all of this, so it’s important that any deal gets properly examined. Australia handles such proposals through the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, but in New Zealand it will likely be a Cabinet level decision. Considering that the New Zealand government is the majority shareholder in one of the applicant companies, that would seem to be a slight conflict of interest. Hopefully a compromise can be hammered out that both ensures the viability of airline services and protects competition in the market.

Research Week Brings Science Leaders Together

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A winter retreat for scientists interested in medical research and biotechnology is bringing some of the world’s finest science researchers together for a week long convocation.

Queenstown has for many years played host to a number of research meetings across a diverse range of topics from molecular biology to neuroscience. Now these meetings are being clustered into a knowledge fest being labelled as Queenstown Research Week. It’s an opportunity for local researchers to mingle with and learn from some of the world’s leading minds from within the medical and biotech arenas.

It is also an opportunity for investors to hear about opportunities within biotech and to promote science commercialisation in general. No doubt there will also be some quiet analysis during the coffee breaks on whether or not there is any substance to Craig Venter’s recent pronouncement that life had been created in a test-tube.

Irrespective of one’s position on that particular topic, one thing is certain. Medical and biotechnological science is advancing at a rapid rate and such fields create wonderful opportunities to improve human quality of life, address environmental problems and deliver economic gains – provided these technologies are viewed with a robust ethical overlay.

Bright Tech to Lead Recovery

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The collapse of financial institutions during the recession led to the destruction of billions of dollars of wealth and made us question the sanity behind investing exclusively in property or risky finance companies. But a renaissance in angel investing and a surge of interest by economic development organisations in the tech sector is opening up new opportunities.

Grow Wellington is the regional economic development body that offers business programmes for enterprises across Kapiti Coast, Wairarapa, Hutt Valley and Wellington city. Recently Grow Wellington launched the Bright Ideas Challenge in an effort to identify and motivate the region’s closet entrepreneurs and help get good ideas supported and funded. The challenge invites aspiring entrepreneurs to submit a 100 word description of their business idea in return for advice and coaching. The top 200 ideas will be eligible for KickStart, a business startup programme. There is $25,000 in seed funding on offer plus the chance to meet investors and inspirational leaders in business.

With high value technology ventures and small businesses driving the economic recovery globally, at Unlimited Potential we thought it a good idea to get behind the Bright Ideas Challenge and to encourage our entrepreneurial members from the ICT sector to put their best foot forward. So when you go to the Bright Ideas submission page, make sure you click on Unlimited Potential in the dropdown box. UP will use its industry networks and events to support nominated ICT projects that graduate from the challenge.

Paul Spence is currently Unlimited Potential co-chair, CEO at tech startup iWantMyName and the New Zealand moderator for Silicon Valley based StartupDigest. You can contact him on Twitter @GeniusNet.

More CRI Babies Needed

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The government’s recent report examining funding and strategic governance of New Zealand’s Crown Research Institutes (CRI) echoes what has been known for years by most participants in the nation’s technology innovation system. The existing funding model is broken and there are too many stakeholders, resulting in inefficiencies. But restructuring the bureaucracy alone will not be sufficient to ensure better returns from State investment in science.

The CRIs are tasked with a variety of social and economic objectives that range from enhancing and protecting the value of our primary sector through to identifying and managing environmental risks. A profit based model and traditional business metrics clearly does not work. The convoluted bidding process for funding of limited duration also does not ensure good science gets done; in some cases it actually impedes the process.

 There is certainly no shortage of excellent scientific research being done within these institutions right now and there remains potential to spin off more baby companies in the future. Here’s a few examples.

  • There are two existing spin-offs involved in high temperature semi-conductors and cable technology, an area that has huge economic returns and is largely untapped.
  • Last year’s New Zealand young scientist of the year (and W2W event  speaker) John Watt is working with CRI staff to look at the commercial applications of nano-particles in reducing motor vehicle emissions.
  • Government owned companies are sitting on huge amounts of seismic data that has the potential to attract oil and mineral prospecting, with comcomitant economic benefits.

But the CRIs encountered problems in the past through attempting to self fund the commercialisation of new science. Attracting smart money and building linkages offshore  must surely be the key to growing our knowledge based companies faster. The CRIs will have to find a new business model that reaches out globally, whilst balancing the need to retain some control of intellectual property and return value to NZ. They also need to make this process happen a lot quicker than in the past.

You can follow us on Twitter @GeniusNet

Is “Productivity” the Wrong Goalpost?

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A recent research report1, looking at the reasons for New Zealand’s relatively poor economic performance, has some fascinating theories as to why we have paradoxically lagged behind other developed nations despite many structural advantages. It also raise questions about whether aiming for “productivity” parity with Australia is the right goal for New Zealand.

The report, authored by Professor Philip McCann, observes that New Zealand has struggled to compete on the OECD ladder since the economic reforms of the mid-1980s, despite its notable status as a free economy. In fact GDP per capita has been eroding steadily for over 40 years, a trend that shows little sign of abating. Few now doubt that this reduction in income has increasingly serious implications in regards to the affordabiity of the lifestyle currently enjoyed by New Zealanders.

In a world where human and financial capital are highly mobile, McCann theorises that economic geography, rather than macro-economic settings, constrains New Zealand from achieving its full economic potential. McCann says that focusing on a “productivity” gap with Australia is entirely the wrong approach, when in fact we should be looking at how we can leverage regional advantages. Only through regional cooperation can we hope to position for better growth.

He says that New Zealand has been constrained in adapting fully to the era of globalisation because of its small scale and distance to global markets. He also observes that worldwide economic growth is now being concentrated within larger cities and hyper connected regions. Such regions attract creative people and are increasingly associated with knowledge-based, high value economic activities, according to work by other researchers.

Because of the intense competition for talent and capital from power-house “global cities” on the Pacific Rim such as Shanghai, Singapore and Sydney, second tier cities (like Auckland or Adelaide for example) have no choice but to actively strengthen the existing web of interrelationships that bind them together on a sub-regional basis, suggests Professor McCann. Unfortunately, enormous reductions in capital flows during the recession have only added urgency to addressing the challenge of regionalisation.

The World Bank reported2 that from a peak of $296 billion (U.S. dollars) in foreign direct investment (FDI) into Asia during 2007, the figure had dropped to around $88 billion in 2009 as European and American institutions reviewed their investment strategies. Despite a forecast investment rebound to about $120 billion in 2010, the refinancing needs of the region have been estimated in the order of $200 billion per annum, leaving a substantial deficit to be covered by borrowing. This situation is likely to have considerable flow-on effects to neighbouring countries and trading partner nations across the Asia-Pacific rim.

So where does this leave New Zealand? A 2009 survey by Financial Times subsidiary publication FDI Magazine placed both Auckland and Wellington in the top ten of 133 Asia-Pacific cities in terms of quality of lifestyle. Auckland also surpassed many others by ranking an impressive number 10 with its FDI attraction strategy. But New Zealand cities ranked poorly in terms of infrastructure, education and the ability to create jobs through foreign investment or by leveraging technology and intellectual property. So whilst we can attract people for lifestyle reasons, our conversion rate is somewhat less impressive in respect of wealth creation.

MacDiarmid Institute physicist Shaun Hendy has been looking at patent data from the OECD. His study3 showed that Australia was well ahead of New Zealand on numbers of patents filed per capita, but that this was to be expected because data also suggested that larger cities produced more patents anyway. However he found that individual inventor productivity did not increase markedly with city size. This suggests that there are quite likely other influences such as quality of educational institutions, existence of research networks and availability of funding. Interestingly, the role of social effects and “knowledge spillover” on science researcher productivity has yet to be fully explored in this context.

Might the government’s well intentioned but controversial efforts to bridge the perceived “productivity gap” with Australia possibly be aiming at the wrong set of goal posts? Unless we fully acknowledge the importance of attracting and connecting people and capital on a regional basis we risk having to compete in isolation with much more powerful players throughout Asia-Pacific. A joint Australia-New Zealand investment showcase planned for March seems like the perfect opportunity to demonstrate a commitment to regional cooperation. But the government will have to ensure that the talk is followed up with decisive and timely actions as well as a leadership vision.

Bibliography:

  1. McCann, Philip. (2009). Economic geography, globalisation and New Zealand’s productivity paradox. Motu Research Group Public PolicyPaper
  2. Seward, J. (2009). Would a regional fund help get Asia through the financial crisis? World Bank weblog – East Asia and Pacific on the Rise.
  3. http://sciblogs.co.nz/a-measure-of-science/2009/12/16/the-productivity-of-inventors-in-cities/

A bullet point summary of the McCann report can be found here:

http://www.motu.org.nz/files/docs/McCann_seminar_slides.pdf

Photo Credit: Luke Appleby

2009 – A Year of Challenges

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pohuIt’s fair to say that, in more ways than one, 2009 was a year full of challenges. But it was not without its rewards.

Perhaps the greatest personal satisfaction for me was the huge amount of progress we made with iWantMyName, our first (and by no means last) spin-off project from ideegeo. But during 2009 many establishment organisations simply ran out of good ideas and took short-sighted decisions to make layoffs, rather than use their existing human capital to innovate and prepare for the upturn.

So it was a great source of pride at ideegeo that we not only earned some export dollars this year, but we also added employees and extended our product offering. All this was achieved without needing to raise capital and under the dark clouds of the harshest global economic conditions that most of us have known.

Clearly, recovery from the recession in 2010 will not originate at the hands of tired, greedy old firms that treat their human assets like factory farmed cows. The recovery will come from small, agile, innovative new ventures that can grasp opportunities and quickly add value. The corporate model is dying a slow death as internal divisions, failure to innovate and lack of a sense of responsibility to the community eats away at its heart. 

This fact was illustrated powerfully in 2009 as traditional media corporations struggled to come to terms with the new environment and as morally corrupt financial institutions paid bonuses to managers, even as governments were bailing them out of irrecoverable losses. In short it was a sorry state of affairs for big business and hopefully we will see some better leadership on this front in 2010.

Another major theme for business in 2009 was the coming of age of hosted software. The “cloud” services scene was boosted by aggressive competition from Google, rapid improvements in the scalability and reliability of hardware and an enthusiastic user base. Fortunately, at iWantMyName we were able to leverage this sea change by offering free customisation for our customers across a wide range of popular applications. 2010 looks exciting too as we add more services and scale up through partnerships and organic growth.

All the very best for a safe and enjoyable festive season and thanks for reading @GeniusNet.

Ready, Fire, Aim – How Kiwi Culture Impacts Value Creation

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Despite exceptional rates of entrepreneurialism and a highly innovative culture, New Zealand continues to lag in terms of economic performance. But a new study commissioned by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise points to some of our self limiting cultural attributes.

Being a nation built upon successive waves of largely working class migrants, it comes as no surprise that practical self reliance and a tendency to under-value intellectual assets and capabilities, feature strongly in our national psyche. Sometimes the very attributes that make us strong, can also be our undoing.

Perhaps that it is why I have found it refreshing to work with some recently arrived skilled migrants. It has forced me to confront some of my own self-limiting behaviours and to adjust my success horizon. In fact it has challenged me to redefine exactly what success looks like.

The NZT&E report suggests that it’s not just about working smarter to create more economic value, it’s also about capturing that value. It is not sufficient simply to be innovative (which we are already). I think what they are trying to say is that we undervalue the intangible assets like intellectual property and customer relationships.

The report author proposes adding value by not only addressing the cultural peculiarities that sometimes afflict us but also by ensuring that we create value through other channels such as licensing and transfer of intellectual assets. For example at ideegeo we not only provide domain management through iWantMyName, but we also license out the software to other registrars.

It is also suggested in the study that we have deeply embedded cultures within our organisations and a “commodity trading psyche” that sometimes impedes us from getting to know our offshore customers. We need to get better at relationship building. Perhaps the producers of goods, targetted by this report, could learn from how web based businesses create value through open communication environments, knowledge-sharing and the construction of social capital as a means to building intangible value within business.