Big, Bold and Brash vs Small, Stealthy and Strategic?

WPMA Update
29 November 2016

Media Release from Rotorua & Gisborne

Big, Bold and Brash vs Small, Stealthy and Strategic?

WPMA held another two in its series of regional meetings last week in Rotorua and Gisborne. This follows rapidly on the back of business luncheons for members and local politicians in Napier and Invercargill. The theme of the regional meetings was: "Are business conditions right for growth in the regions?".

The debate is always going to be very lively when you invite industry expert and agent provocateur par excellence, Dennis Nielsen, to be your keynote speaker. Dennis did not disappoint; challenging the Rotorua audience with the need to significantly grow the scale / efficiency of their businesses and compete much more aggressively on the world stage. Unless you have the teeth, muscle and aggression of the Rottweiler dog you are inevitably going to get crushed in world timber trade. Dennis gave us plenty of evidence of "Rottweiler Economics" playing out in the timber industry around the world.

Other opinions in the room were not having a bar of this. The answer for the NZ wood industry was to be a strategic, niche market player and there was growing evidence around the country that is what we are now moving towards. Certainly, evidence gathered by WPMA points to this - wood processing is the fastest innovator in NZ manufacturing. Warren Parker argued that it is niche processors in the NZ dairy sector that are most profitable. The night's debate raged on......

Brian Stanley's address reminded us that, with industry innovating to stay ahead of the competition, it is vital that government clearly defines its support role. This is particularly important around tackling the unfair trade barriers that beset NZ exporters. You may have heard Brian on the radio this week commending on the PM and Trade Minister for getting agreement for an FTA upgrade with China and Hon. McClay for making sure that the wood industry features strongly in the upgrade negotiations. Stuart Nash (Labour Forestry Spokesperson) was on hand in Rotorua to set out how a Labour Government proposed to support the industry both domestically and on the trade front.

In Gisborne, and in partnership with Activate Tairawhiti, we were able to ground-truth what was being debated in Rotorua. Presentations by both Juken NZ (Brendan Smith) and Wood Engineering Technology (Peter Pettit) showed how a well established industry player and a newcomer were successfully playing (or planning to play) the strategic approach on world markets (sorry Dennis, no Rottweilers in Gisborne!).

The audience in Gisborne was keen to discuss how skills' development could better underpin economic growth in a region where the wood industry offers so much potential. It was fortunate then that we had Kim Holland from Activate Tairawhiti and Matthew Vandy from Competenz in the room to outline what these agencies were doing to build capability in the Gisborne workforce.

On Thursday night I joined our Japanese members at the Japan NZ Business Council Dinner in Wellington where talk was of NZ's strength in exporting its creativity and ideas. It described what we are seeing in WPMA member companies as we travel around the country - that David can beat Goliath as long as he has five smooth stones to hand ie as long as we have industry, investors, regulators, science providers and educators all working as NZ Inc.....then we can take on the world.

Many thanks to Competenz, Jacks, Scion and Juken NZ for supporting these Regional Meetings. These promise to become even more engaging as we move into the 2017 Election Year.

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