Despite this week’s setback of more earthquake damage in Canterbury, the flow of heartening economic data continued yesterday with news of a lift in consumer confidence and in manufacturing. This followed Wednesday’s release of statistics which showed the biggest jump in consumer spending in more than four very long years for retailers. Executive Update’s economics correspondent Bob Edlin reports.
There’s plenty happening in this year’s Leadership Week being held in the first week in July and which highlights the relevance and value great leadership provides for New Zealand and showcases the work being done to develop our nation’s leadership capability.
In a global economic context this week, concern about a breakdown in US-China ties was a common thread running through the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Jakarta, which brought together hundreds of government officials, business leaders and academics.
Over the past three months, executives around the world have grown more pessimistic about their nations’ economies but the outlook for their companies remains positive, McKinsey & Co’s latest Global Survey reveals.
The Department of Labour has flagged that it may be about to get heavy with businesses over employment contracts, reminding all employers that from July 1 2011, they must keep copies of employment agreements or terms and conditions of employment for all staff, signed by both parties.
The variety and speed at which clever new products and services are coming into the market is mind boggling. But it is often the processes that lead to the creation of new technologies that may prove more enduring. These also are being innovated and hold the key to success in the more open and collaborative business environment of the future.
Business leaders say their marketing departments are still unable to clearly demonstrate the bottom-line value of their campaigns and are not the business growth generators they should be, according to damning research by the Fournaise Marketing Group.
“Connecting this economy with the rest of the world and growing companies of scale is absolutely core to the survival of this country,” says Peter Chrisp, New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s new CEO. “We’ve got this self-belief. We’ve got such huge assets in New Zealand. We’ve got this deep ingenuity as a country. But we have to step up our aspirations.”
