Companies lack skills to make the most of Asia’s growth

MEDIA RELEASE

Tuesday, 18 October 2011

NZ companies lack skills to make the most of Asia’s rapid growth - report
Many New Zealand companies do not have the management skills to make the most of growing opportunities in Asia, a new report commissioned by the Asia New Zealand Foundation (Asia:NZ) has found.

The report by business commentator Rod Oram, Getting to Know the Neighbours: Building New Zealand-Asian business relationships, draws on the knowledge and experience of companies already engaged with Asia.

The report outlines the rapid development of Asian economies and the opportunities they present to New Zealand. In the year ended February 2011, New Zealand’s merchandise exports to Asia were worth $17.65 billion, 19 percent higher than the previous year. The rapid growth of New Zealand’s trade with China suggests it could overtake Australia as our largest trading partner within a matter of years, Mr Oram writes.

He identifies a wide range of initiatives that would improve the ability of New Zealand companies to make the most of opportunities in Asia.

In an audio interview accompanying the report, Mr Oram says “soft” skills, such as language and cross-cultural understanding, are important to succeeding in Asia. But the bigger issue for New Zealand companies is that “their hard business skills are very inadequate when it comes to working overseas”.

“We really need to focus on ways to help companies develop those hard skills. Yes, we want to develop the soft skills as well, but not in isolation.

“You could learn about language, you could learn about social customs and how people think in a different country. But it seems to me it’s going to be far more effective if people are doing that whilst they are also learning about market development in a particular country, or strategic analysis in a particular country.”

Mr Oram interviewed senior executives at leading New Zealand companies Fonterra, Tatua Co-operative Dairy Company, Beca, Icebreaker, Snowy Peak and Comvita for the report.

The experiences and learnings of those companies are grouped into eight main themes. They include building Asian connections in New Zealand; working with differing business cultures; hiring staff in Asia; and language and culture issues. The report notes that manufacturing in Asia is not simply about low-cost production but increasingly about accessing technology not readily available in New Zealand.

Mr Oram says businesspeople can do a lot to develop their skills while they are still in New Zealand. Recent immigrants and students from Asia present a “barely tapped” potential resource.

Getting to Know the Neighbours: Building New Zealand-Asian business relationships is the first in a series of reports on business culture in Asia commissioned by the Asia New Zealand Foundation (Asia:NZ).

Asia:NZ is a non-profit, non-political organisation dedicated to building New Zealand’s links with Asia.

To read the report and listen to the audio interview with Rod Oram, click here: http://www.asianz.org.nz/our-work/knowledge-and-research/outlook-series

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