We live in an era where discovery is the new currency and the success with which nations can foster the climate for innovation will determine their future prosperity. This is
As the usage and processing power of smartphones increase in tandem with the rising speed of 3G and 4G data networks, mobile devices are invading the domains of single-purpose gear
In the world’s most innovative companies, senior executives don’t just delegate innovation, they keep their own hands deep in the innovation process and share five skills.
Employers are having to adopt a more flexible approach and accept that they may have to recruit someone who doesn’t necessarily tick all the boxes because of the skills shortage facing New Zealand’s jobs market.
More evidence that our economy is gathering a decent head of steam comes from the Seek New Job Ad Index which shows there was a 15% increase in the number of new jobs on offer in July compared with the same month last year and a substantial 4.2% increase on the previous month.
A research project is being undertaking to identify the necessary skills and competencies required for managers to perform duties efficiently and effectively, and to determine how these skills are acquired in New Zealand organisations. You can support this initiative by undertaking a short survey.
More than half of New Zealand employees (51%) feel their career demands more education and training than ever before, according to the latest Randstad Workmonitor report of job market sentiment. However, it also revealed that 48 percent of respondents don’t feel their organisation meets their needs and requirements in this area.
“To be successful, you must sometimes be ruthless and a bit of a nasty bugger,” says Sean Fitzpatrick, former All Black captain and author of Winning Matters: being the best you can be.
The mayhem on global investment markets this week reflects major concerns about some of the world’s big economies, but things are looking brighter Down Under, Executive Update’s economics correspondent Bob Edlin reports.
•Leadership Beyond Good Intentions •By Geoff Aigner •RRP$36.99 Leaders rarely deliver our expectations. The reason is simple. Our expectations are based on leadership fantasy. More often than not, the expectations
•The Little Black Book of Management •By Suzanne Turner • McGraw-Hill •RRP$37.00 As the author says in her introduction: “no one should read this book”. That was one of the
Former All Black captain Sean Fitzpatrick talks to Reg Birchfield about the business lessons he learned on the rugby field.
Internationally, New Zealand is seen as a country at the forefront of women taking on top leadership roles. Women filled the posts of Prime Minister, Governor General, Chief Justice and Chief Executive of Telecom in 2005. Not now. So why has New Zealand’s performance in this leadership area slipped so far behind compared with our OECD counterparts.
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.
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.
How has the conferences and conventions industry weathered the recession?
The pick and mix of politicians, parties and policies served up by our electoral system (MMP) looks bad for New Zealand’s state of health. Too much choice makes selection difficult and too many sweets erode teeth that should be chewing on crunchier, hard-to-swallow issues. By NZ Management’s political writer Colin James, economics commentator Bob Edlin and writer-at-large Reg Birchfield.
Hints of an economic recovery early in the new year, albeit tentative, were dissipated when the second devastating earthquake rocked Canterbury in February. Some sectors did expand in the March
Writing this in the UK in the week that Rupert Murdoch and his son James testified before the select committee investigating management complicity in phone hacking at News of the
Ralph Chivers The Institute of Directors (IoD) has appointed Ralph Chivers as its new CEO. He has spent most of his working life in the telecommunications industry. He was the
If I told you one in six of your employees has either had or will suffer from depression, you probably wouldn’t believe me. But those are the facts. The Ministry
What to do when your employees come seeking advice on KiwiSaver?
While confidence is returning to the New Zealand business market, hiring predictions for the second half of 2011 for the financial and accounting sectors remain modest despite two thirds of
Leadership is not process. Outstanding leaders make time to dream.” This was one of several key messages Global Women’s chair-designate Dame Jenny Shipley gave delegates in her closing address to
Dancers in wheelchairs, former Governor General, student whose leadership opportunity arose from the Christchurch earthquakes, Pacifica cultural group, young partially sighted social entrepreneur and scientist and former New Zealand of
NZ Management’s Most Reputable Organisations will be revealed next month. The survey to find the organisations that directors, CEOs and other top level leaders think are New Zealand’s most reputable,
To Mark Langley’s mind, there’s still considerable upside for organisations to tap into the latent, under developed potential of professional project management. Langley is the global CEO and president of
Business leaders helping to transform New Zealand’s economy by growing globally successful companies will be acknowledged in the 2012 New Zealand International Business Awards being coordinated by New Zealand Trade
One after the other, Rupert Murdoch, his kids, executives and collaborators – including top cops – uttered the words, or slight variations on them. “I’m not responsible!” They were, however,
Our world is changing at relentless pace. It is difficult to comprehend the changes that have taken place over the past 20 years, but it is even more of challenge
The New Zealand Institute of Management wants New Zealand managers to compete in a pan-Asian Management game. The move is a step in NZIM’s strategy to build stronger relationships with Asian managers. NZIM Northern chief executive Kevin Gaunt explains.
When National party delegates gather mid-month in their pre-election conference few will doubt that John Key will be Prime Minister after November 26. Many will strain not to consign Labour
Responsible governance at New Zealand’s giant dairy industry cooperative Fonterra is delivered through effective and constant communication. It’s all about 17,000 employees and 10,000 plus farmer shareholders being sufficiently informed to keep them moving in the same successful direction, chief executive Andrew Ferrier tells Reg Birchfield.
Responsible governance at New Zealand’s giant dairy industry cooperative Fonterra is delivered through effective and constant communication. It’s all about 17,000 employees and 10,000 plus farmer shareholders being sufficiently informed to keep them moving in the same successful direction, chief executive Andrew Ferrier tells Reg Birchfield.
So, the cat is out finally of the bag, eh? New Zealand is not-so-clean-and-green. Almost feel bit relieved… so what’s the big deal? The big deal is this: New Zealand
Founder, Deloitte/Management magazine Top 200 Awards. Photographed By Jan-Michael David, July 18, 2011.
You’ve been working hard, you are business expert and everyone knows how good you are at your job and now that special day has come that the boss invites you
A proposal to introduce a capital gains tax, formally confirmed in Labour’s tax policy announcement yesterday, would appear to have the support of the new head of the Government’s economic adviser, The Treasury. Its new secretary Gabriel Makhlouf says such a tax would rebalance a distortion in the economy that favours property investment, as Executive Update’s economic correspondent Bob Edlin reports.
New Zealand can turn global interest in “green growth” into economic growth by responding effectively to fundamental changes now occurring around the world in consumer preferences, business strategies and government policies.
Most marketers understand how Facebook works very well from a personal standpoint – but some of the recent rules and changes that Facebook has made in how it treats business users make it easy to commit a Facebook faux pas.
The twice-delayed release of GDP growth figures for the March quarter, finally tabled yesterday, took everyone by surprise with the economy growing by an impressive 0.8% – well above what even the most optimistic forecasters had plumped for.
Entries are being invited for the 2011 Kensington Swan Responsible Governance Award, a major category award within this year’s 22nd annual Deloitte/Management magazine Top 200 Awards programme.
Given the same sales tools, level of education, and propensity to work, why do some salespeople succeed where others fail? The evidence suggests that the personalities of truly great salespeople play a critical role in determining their success.
The rules for customer engagement have changed dramatically over the past decade, and few companies have kept pace. Learn from McKinsey experts and three senior executives how to navigate the transition underway.
“Wall Street seems all too ready to return to the same untenable business practices that brought it to its knees less than three years ago. And some in government who claim to be representing Main Street seem all too ready to help,” says Sheila C Bair, who stepped down last week as chair of the USA’s banking regulatory agency, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp (FDIC).
More evidence that Auckland is leading the economic recovery comes from the latest quarterly ASB Bank’s NZ Regional Economic Scoreboard which shows it’s out in front of the rest of the country in the economic stakes. The next best performing areas are Waikato, Bay of Plenty and Wellington.
CEOs in New Zealand and Australia, as well as around the globe, have set bullish growth targets for this year, and are demanding significant increases in workforce productivity to meet them, according to new research from global management consultancy Hay Group. The report also found an alarming number of businesses are mismanaging performance management.
The construction/building/engineering, information technology, telecommunications, manufacturing and utilities sectors are all looking to hire more staff in the next three months according to the latest Hudson Report Employment Expectations Survey. At the other end of the scale, education, government healthcare, and retail industries are reporting decreasing hiring intentions.
Leadership’s looming crisis World enterprise is facing leadership shortage of crisis proportions. The problem, increasingly obvious over the past decade, is worsening more rapidly than expected. It is acute in
After, by its own admission, being outflanked on the social media front, Google has launched its most comprehensive social media platform yet which some observers say will challenge not only Facebook, but Skype, Twitter and even Microsoft and Apple’s cloud offerings.
If you’re like most senior executives, you want your organisation to be exemplary. But if you’re honest with yourself, you also know that it’s not and that, in fact, you’re not even sure what exemplary means or how you’ll ever get there. McKinsey & Co has some tips to help you along the long and winding road to high, sustainable organisational performance.
Given the brouhaha surrounding EMA CEO Alasdair Thompson’s ill-chosen comments about women and productivity, here’s some interesting topical research on Harvard Business Review’s blogs site – it shows while there’s little correlation between a team’s collective intelligence and the IQs of its individual members, the more women a group includes the higher its collective intelligence rises.
The Treasury economic forecasts released in conjunction with last month’s Budget copped plenty of criticism for being overly optimistic and based on a number of tenuous assumptions. However, they are slightly more conservative than the latest NZIER’s quarterly consensus forecasts of 11 economic and financial agencies.
Eight years ago last month, Reserve Bank governor Alan Bollard told New Zealand directors that he was concerned about the state of corporate governance in the finance and banking sector, both at home and abroad. NZ Management asked him whether the problems he identified then have been acted on.
• By Venkat Ramaswamy & Francis Gouillart • Free Press • RRP$38.99 As management buzz words go, “co-creation” is not the catchiest. It’s bit of head-scratcher. But, as the saying
•By Sean Fitzpatrick • Penguin • RRP$42.00 If watching your kid’s footy team thrash their unhappy mate’s by more than the now recommended 35-point margin offends you, don’t read this
Economic recovery from the global financial crisis won’t happen without a more innovative approach to enterprise. Global thought leader in innovation and best-selling business book author, Professor Venkat Ramaswamy, says co-creative enterprises are the way of the future.
The New Zealand Institute of Management (NZIM) has appointed Gary Sturgess, chief executive of Hospice South Auckland, as its new national chairman. He succeeds professional director Phillip Meyer. Sturgess joined
World enterprise is facing a leadership shortage of crisis proportions. The problem, increasingly obvious over the past decade, is worsening more rapidly than expected. It is acute in New Zealand and looks set to become even more so. Writer-at-large Reg Birchfield reports on the implications of alarming new research released to NZ Management for this special leadership issue.
The Government made no secret it was borrowing more than it needed in the year to 30 June 2011. Early in May, Prime Minister John Key told Parliament the Government’s
There has never been greater need for leadership. In an economically sputtering post-GFC world we face some of the greatest challenges mankind has had to confront. convergence of environmental, social
Simon Bennett Recruitment company The Madison Group has appointed Simon Bennett as chief executive officer and aims to surpass its current double digit growth, to break $100 million turnover in
A short stint in front of prime time television sees us peppered with public health messages. By turn we’re urged to exercise, eat well, drink less, look after our mental
With business loans hard to get as banks continue to be risk-averse, invoice financing is starting to gain ground as the funding method of choice for firms in growth mode.
Merger and acquisition activity in New Zealand is sitting at around 20 percent of its pre-global financial crisis level according to Chas Cable of Deloitte. But it is starting to
Director and board evaluation involves board members undertaking a constructive but critical review of their own performance, identifying strengths, weaknesses and then implementing plans for further professional development. Director evaluation is essential for good governance says Iain McCormick.
Governance expert and author Doug Matheson has so far identified five key lessons from the GFC and its ensuing recession as he researches the changing state of governance for a new book. He shared some of his findings at a recent Institute of Directors presentation.
Encouraging New Zealand managers to “globalise” in order to improve the international growth potential of their businesses is the aim of pilot programme being developed by The University of Auckland
Executives with healthcare, infrastructure, financial services and green energy expertise will be in big demand to power the global economy’s growth over the next 20 years, according to recruitment company
Despite continuous growth in research and development (R&D) spending, many senior leaders remain deeply concerned about their organisation’s ability to innovate. New research by Booz & Company points to an
Ninety percent of privately owned businesses are expecting positive growth in the next year, according to the 2011 ANZ Privately-Owned Business Barometer report, but the survey also shows the resilience
Mental illness affects one in five New Zealanders in any given year, says the Mental Health Foundation, and many of them are employees. The foundation has put together comprehensive advice
After decade of painstaking research, team from Harvard Business School, London School of Economics, McKinsey & Company, and Stanford has systematically surveyed global management and concluded that American firms are,
Commodity prices will surge by over 180 percent in the next 20 years because of climate change, population growth and burgeoning middle classes, report on global food supply by Oxfam
A small team of New Zealand and Australian medical specialists and entrepreneurs have won two prestigious British health services awards for a software package they have developed to save patients from hospital medical misadventure. Reg Birchfield talked with UK-based Kiwi Sam Hollander, a director of the venture.
World enterprise, according to growing body of research, is facing leadership crisis. Businesses are becoming too complex, too competitive and yes, too confused about the future to govern and manage
Iwi trusts and assets are among the fastest growing and most dynamic sectors of the New Zealand economy. Wiwini Hakaria is helping Maori directors and trustees master the rules of the governance game.
Sarah Robb O’Hagan, in charge of global brand management for PepsiCo’s Gatorade sports drink, says the secret to success is to know who you are, and who you are not.
The New Zealand Institute of Management’s new national chairman Gary Sturgess knows what he wants to accomplish during his tenure at the top. NZIM is, he says, “more relevant today” than it has ever been.
Foreign policy is trade, Sir Robert Muldoon said 35 years ago. Murray McCully and John Key have in effect been saying the same since they took office. Actually, trade is
Global engineering consultancy Beca Group can’t tick all the boxes on a contemporary scale of responsible governance criteria, but few organisations have treated their people and the environment as consistently well for as long as it has. Reg Birchfield talked with Richard Aitken and Keith Reynolds about Beca’s approach to governing responsibly.
Director and board evaluation involves board members undertaking a constructive but critical review of their own performance, identifying strengths, weaknesses and then implementing plans for further professional development.
Governance expert and author Doug Matheson has so far identified five key lessons from the GFC and its ensuing recession as he researches the changing state of governance for a new book. He shared some of his findings at a recent Institute of Directors presentation.
Iwi trusts and assets are among the fastest growing and most dynamic sectors of the New Zealand economy. Wiwini Hakaria is helping Maori directors and trustees master the rules of the governance game.
The Christchurch earthquakes, the most serious of which have struck in the middle of the working day, have reinforced the need to have good health and safety practices in place
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.
