July 28, 2011

Demand for business mentoring is high with many long established companies seeking help for the first time, according to Business Mentors New Zealand (BMNZ), suggesting that the pick up in the economy has yet to filter through to many in the SME market.

Executive Update Edition 26

A world investment report released this week shows that while global trade and production are back to pre-GFC levels, foreign direct investment is not.

New Zealanders are rapidly adopting social media and it is increasingly influencing our purchasing decisions, according to the latest in an ongoing series of annual studies exploring consumer opinions on customer experiences.

The average salary package advertised on New Zealand’s largest jobs site, seek.co.nz, rose by 3.1% between January and June this year – and the growth in pay packets is strongest in provincial areas.

High-profile corporate failures don’t just happen. As a new study reveals, they occur because boards and executives are fatally blind to fundamental risks to their business model and reputation and too focused on pursuing growth at any cost.

The annual New Zealand Institute of Chartered Accountants (NZICA) remuneration and employment survey, released this week, reveals that those at the top of the profession on average have taken a small pay cut over the last year and have been pressured to do more for less.

The relief for exporters was only temporary, but the NZ dollar fell from its post float high against the US dollar – it had hit US 87.65c on Wednesday night – after the Reserve Bank left the official cash rate unchanged yesterday at 2.5%. Even so it was heading north again, edging once more over US 87c, by the end of the day. However, RBNZ governor Alan Bollard saw some benefits in the currency’s strength, as Executive Update’s economics correspondent Bob Edlin reports. 

“Leaders have no respect for the status quo. Nothing satisfies them. They are always searching for the new whatever,” says scientist and entrepreneur Sir Ray Avery, recent recipient of the Sir Peter Blake Medal for Leadership and Kiwibank’s 2010 New Zealander of the Year.