Idealog – July 26, 2019

Idealog.co.nz | The Transformation Issue

035

F

or Kiwi companies looking to grow,

our home soil has its own peculiar

set of considerations. The most

notable? Our pocket-sized domestic

market, which means New Zealand

companies on an upward trajectory can

find themselves having to expand operations

internationally well before their international competition.

NZTE general manager David Downs says the fact that

big growth for New Zealand businesses is usually linked to

international growth is unavoidable for most.

“Companies from other countries can quite

happily exist on their much larger domestic economies,”

explains Downs. “They get to grow a marketing team,

they get to work out how to do business strategy, and

they can get to the point where they’re dealing with

good intense competition, but they get to learn to do

all that ‘domestically’.

“When you come from a tiny country like New

Zealand, you’re learning those skills, but you’re having to

do that in an international market.”

That’s a challenge not to be underestimated. Different

time zones, communication issues and not to mention all

that travelling means doing business from New Zealand

is not for the faint of heart. But while historically, physical

remoteness has been one of our greatest growth inhibitors

(and sometimes still is) technology goes a long way to

bridging the gap.

“When you look at the New Zealand tech economy,

that distance can actually be a positive,” Downs says. “Look

at the time zone arbitrage between New Zealand and other

parts of the world and at the companies here in the tech

sector that use that productively.”

As well as this, thanks to that tech, building a

company that can grow quickly, garner investment and

From raising capital from

international investors, to

expanding into new markets,

to selling to an overseas buyer

• the challenges of taking
  a New Zealand company to
  international prominence are
  many, and to surmount them,
  we’ll likely need more than
  just number eight wire. So how
  do New Zealand businesses
  become more internationally
  minded? Jonathan Cotton
  talks with three entrepreneurs
  about how they’ve scaled up,
  grown a global business and
  navigated the tricky waters
  beyond New Zealand’s shores.

pique the interest of a buyer all from New Zealand is a

more realistic proposition than it’s ever been.

“I love that fact,” Downs says. “In the last ten years,

we’ve seen many, many more multinational companies

based in New Zealand. Xero is the classic example, but

there are hundreds of other companies who are serving the

global market and they’re doing it out of Raglan or Dunedin

or Palmerston North. That was unheard of a few years ago.”

But just because it’s possible, doesn’t mean it’s easy.

“The biggest single mistake we see with companies

going international is treating other markets as if they’re

just a different version of New Zealand,” Downs says.

“Whether it’s thinking that because the product works

here, it’s going to work in another country or thinking you

can get your product to market in the same way you would

here, even though other countries often have much bigger

distribution models, or agents, or resellers.”

That parochial outlook can cost us, especially when

it comes to convincing more worldly international minds

that we’ve got something valuable to offer.

“There’s a great saying that goes ‘the kumara does not

speak of its own sweetness’,” Downs says. “New Zealanders

are typically understated – we don’t generally go out there

and yell from the rooftops about how great we are – and

that’s a lovely thing. However, that doesn’t translate into

other markets particularly well, especially the US market.”

Nevertheless, New Zealand needs companies

with global aspirations who are willing to conquer

those challenges.

“We can’t just sell into our domestic market,” Downs

says, “We’ve got to have a global focus. And despite the fact

that it’s difficult and challenging and hard, New Zealand

is actually doing pretty well on this sort of stuff. There’s

always things you can improve, but anyone who’s doing

business in an international market in my mind is a hero.”

Here, we have a chat to some of those stand-out

New Zealanders that are meeting the growth challenge

to find out what difficulties and opportunities they’ve

encountered, what they might’ve done differently,

and what their advice is to those looking to follow in

their footsteps. »

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