New Zealand SME Business Network

Greetings all,

A quick update on last months NZ Small Business Council ( ) meeting in Christchuch; apologies for lateness with this post.

The Christchurch Chambers of Commerce were tremendous hosts for the March meeting of the NZSBC. In addition to a full meeting agenda, Council members meet with a range of local small business owners.

When we started this process, I made a commitment to holding regular engagement sessions with local owner-managers and all such opportunities have provided valuable input into the work of the Council.

We also made time for presentations from local business and had two inspiring presentations from Zeffer Cider and Orbica on their journeys to success, providing great insights into the challenges small businesses face as they grow.

We also heard from MBIE about the ‘Just Transitions’ work for becoming a low emissions economy, and from NZTE on their role in helping businesses develop internationally.

As we are getting to the sharp end of our work, the Council also spent time further developing our ideas around future strategy and how government can better strategically support our critically important economy.

The NZSBC next meets on 10 April and I’ll report back then. Thanks for your ongoing support.

Morning folks - thanks for interest in the Small Business Survey.

We’ve had well over 1000 responses and I wanted to thank you for taking the time to engage in this and, importantly, think about the future of New Zealand’s small business economy.

I’ve had requests to keep the survey open from a number of industry representative bodies so they can get it out to their constituents. Based on that, the survey will remain open until Sunday 24 March.

Please distribute this widely and don’t forget to submit your own views; it’s completely anonymous.

Can you spare a few moments to take my survey? Please take the survey titled "Small Business Survey". Your feedback is important!

Do you care about the future of small business in New Zealand?

The Small Business Council wants to hear from small business owners and managers about the reality of running a small business or enterprise and what your plans are for the future.

Please take this short survey and have a say in the development of a small business strategy for New Zealand.

The survey takes 10-15 minutes to complete and your responses are anonymous.

Can you spare a few moments to take my survey? Please take the survey titled "Small Business Survey". Your feedback is important!

The NZ Small Business Council ( ) {新西兰中小企业委员会} met on Wednesday and were pleased to have the opportunity to talk strategy with Jacinda Ardern and Minister for Small Business, Stuart Nash.

As detailed in a post last year, the NZSBC has adopted the Living Standards Framework to inform our work, and we have developed 4 Strategic Themes as supersets for the development of overarching strategy & on which sub-groups of our team have been diligently working. They are:

1. Capital & Finance: How do we fuel our small business economy (other than by collateralised debt against the family home);
2. Innovation, Development & Sustainability: Where and how can we compete effectively?
3. Compliance & Enablers: How can we better create and support an enabling environment for our small business economy;
4. People & Skills: How do we better educate and capacity build within a SME context.

I’m grateful to all the members of the Small Business Council who give of their time freely and bring a wealth of intelligent-pragmatism and experience to the table.

Our meeting in March will be held in Christchurch and, as promised from the outset, we will continue our engagement with local small business owners which will happen during that meeting.

Looking ahead to February, and our first APEC Business Advisory Council ( ) meeting for 2019, my colleague Stephanie Honey highlights a key issue on which a large amount of our time will be dedicated - that of Digital Trade.

Having co-Chaired ABAC’s MSME Working Group for two years, I am now co-Chairing the Digital and Innovation Working Group, while remaining engaged with the MSME Group.

I sought this change of role to continue my advocacy for small firms and women entrepreneurs as digital engagement is critical to their cross-border success. As it is domestically.

In the near future, I can see a big overlap between my work as Chair of the NZ Small Business Council ( ) and “The Digital Economy”, a term I believe we need to drop. It’s just “The Economy”; those businesses not part of it won’t remain competitive and our acceptance of this by NZ MSMEs is alarmingly low.

As Stephanie writes, “ Digital trade has huge potential to open up new opportunities for groups that have otherwise struggled to do business across borders, including small firms, women entrepreneurs, and Maori: digital trade significantly reduces if not eliminates the challenges of scale, distance, connectivity and cost that have plagued New Zealand’s export efforts for the last century”.

Looking for Cloud Nine: Leveraging the benefits of digital trade for New Zealand - Tradeworks Digital trade drives more economic growth than import/export – but regulation lags behind - New Zealand is negotiating new trade rules here.

owners are mounting a massive push for ‘net neutrality’ ahead of this weeks’ Senate vote. Great to see organised advocacy on such an important issue for

Small businesses mount massive push for net neutrality ahead of Senate vote It’s national Small Business Week, and business owners across the country are calling on lawmakers to support a Congressional Review Act…

This photo belies the energy, commitment and of course time that members of the (SBC) gave to our third full day meeting yesterday.

It’s early days for the SBC and, despite myriad wide ranging and disparate issues, we are making good headway in developing work streams that hone in on how to strategically support the development of New Zealand’s economy using the Living Standards Framework as our roadmap and with a staged-horizons vision out to 2040.

Yesterday we heard from members of the Tax Working Group and we hope to have an opportunity to provide input into their thinking about tax for small business.

Thanks to owners and business association representatives Chris Simpson Vaughan Winiata Sunil Kaushal Sonia McConnachie Satish Kamath Toss Grumley Jo Eddington Debbie Humphrey Dwayne Jones Bede Ashby Ken Choe Jill Brinsdon Glenn Marvin who joined us after our meeting and for sharing thoughts on issues important to you. We appreciated being able to engage with you and intend to continue such engagement in the future.

For those interested to learn more about the , please click on this link: https://treasury.govt.nz/information-and-services/nz-economy/living-standards

Establishment of a Small Business Council by Government.

The Summit held in January this year triggered, what has now become, the Council.

The work mandated for the initial 12 month period will focus on developing a sustainable plan for govt to move forward with in respect of sustainable strategic support for New Zealand’s economy and recommendations as to the most appropriate structure to deliver this support.

Government acknowledges reliance on SMEs, implements Small Business Council Small business set to become a bigger focus for New Zealand economy.

Does this ring true for you as an SME business owner - is January, March and May.your most difficult months when it comes to getting paid or having a positive cash flow?

Keen to hear your stories - particularly about slow paying larger businesses.

Worst months for small businesses New data spells out when NZ's vital small businesses can struggle most.

Looking forward to getting home to my tūrangawaewae, , this week and attending, and speaking at, Te Hekenga, the Māori business conference. It's perfect timing on the back of the Summit which was well represented by and .

Home Te Hekenga III is the third National Hui for Māori Business Networks and Māori SME’s throughout the country. The Conference is held every two years and aims to bring together representatives of the Maori Business Networks around Aotearoa to share ideas.

It’s been a privilege to serve as Convenor (Chair) of the Govt appointed Small Business Development Group (SBDG) over the past five years and I’m delighted to be handing over to a new leadership team recently appointed by Hon Jacqui Dean, MP for Waitaki and Minister for Small Business.

My congratulations to Sonia McConnachie , Owner and Director of consumer and shopper marketing agency, Commando, who has been appointed Convenor, and Jerry Ho, Chairman of the New Zealand Green Industry Association, appointed as Deputy Convenor.

I have served with Sonia over the past five years and can vouch for her energy and dedicated support to the development of our SME ecosystem. Jerry joined the SBDG a year ago and brings a wealth of knowledge in small business together with a deep seated understanding of NZ-China economic relationships.

I wish Sonia and Jerry well in these important roles advising government on issues affecting SMEs while ensuring that the voice of the small businesses owner is heard in policy development. I look forward to giving them my full continued support.

Tenby Powell

For information on the SBDG click on the link below:

Small enterprise | Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment Small enterprises of up to 20 employees are an important part of the New Zealand economy.

The Government Appointed Small Business Development Group is Recruiting New Members

Hi Folks,

On behalf of the Minister for Small Business, Hon Jacqui Dean, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment is seeking expressions of interest from Small Business owners to serve as a member of the Small Business Development Group (SBDG).

The SBDG provides advice to government on issues affecting small business. Many of the current SBDG members are now is their fifth year of service and it's time to recruit new members.

A number of you have previously asked how to join the SBDG and this is your opportunity to apply. The Ministry supports diversity and welcomes applicants from all regions, sectors and backgrounds.

For further information about the role and how to apply, please go to http://www.mbie.govt.nz/about/who-we-are/our-partners/board-appointments/current-board-vacancies

Applications close at 5pm Friday, 17 March 2017.

Current board vacancies | Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment On behalf of the responsible Ministers, the Ministry is seeking expressions of interest for the following board positions.