Faster, cheaper, fresher: Improving New Zealand’s supply chain

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  This morning I had the pleasure of listening to Murray Sherwin from the Productivity Commission at the 2012 New Zealand Freight Summit, which we ran in conjunction with the University of Auckland Business School. The Commission was established in 2010 with a mandate to provide analysis and recommendations on all matters relating to New Zealand’s productivity, produced a draft report on International Freight Transport services  in January this year. The report looks at factors Read more [...]

Are you in my tribe?

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We are all buying in tribes now apparently. We also want to know who's in our tribe. I've been reading a number of marketing books lately and have thoroughly enjoyed two in particular. Tribes - we need you by Seth Godin is a great little read. He argues persuasively that whilst tribes have always been part of the basic human instinct, now more than ever tribes are an instinctual part of our purchasing decisions. We not only want to know what we're getting but who we're getting it with. This is Read more [...]

The language of craving – video

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Pleasant surprise: Awards Season

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The awards season is alive and well with the announcement of the nominations yesterday for the 84th Academy Awards. Certainly it was interesting to note the blaring omission of the “Adventures of Tintin” from all of the categories except best musical score.  A disappointment I’m sure for Weta Digital’s team in Wellington. Here at Conferenz we have recently had the honour of being short listed in two categories at the inaugural Asian Conference Awards and Summit taking place in March in Read more [...]

The Role of Technology in New Zealand’s Productivity and Competitiveness

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The Innovation Management Process

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By Kevin Smit I was reading idealog recently and it was talking about the recent trip to the US by 25 Kiwi business leaders and I thought it was worth sharing. The main focus of the trip was to explore how to design the innovation process better – for both employees and clients. Amidst all of the 12 cutting-edge companies, including Facebook, Apple and Google, they visited it was interesting that Phillip Mills key takeaway came from the Stanford University Design School. Certainly it seems Read more [...]

Do we need to reinvent how we collect customer feedback?

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By Kevin Smit According to a recent USA today article, you could be hurting brand loyalty by asking your customers to fill out “another” customer feedback form. At every conference we run here at Conferenz we include a paper-based customer feedback survey for attendees. Increasingly we are getting fewer and fewer responses back, which is a big concern considering that these surveys provide us with invaluable feedback on the event and what we should consider going forward. We’ve trialled Read more [...]

Conferenz = conferences / Bright*Star = training

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By Steve Scott We have completed some internal brand focus work and are pleased to announce that from 2012 onwards all of our conferences will be offered under the Conferenz brand, and all of our training courses will be offered under the Bright*Star Training brand. We believe that this will add greater clarity to our customers about our two service offerings. Our Conferenz conferences offer neutral arenas for debate around key legislative/policy, industry or job roles. Our conference customers Read more [...]

Let Your Customers Experience Your Brand

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By Steve Scott Want to know Air New Zealand’s best customer experience asset? Is it the well thought out website and booking process? Is it the simple, well-executed automated check-in counters? Perhaps those cheeky safety videos that have become youtube hits? Well, it’s none of these. Air NZ’s secret weapon is a woman called Tania Forsyth. Tania is an air hostess working for Air NZ affiliate Air Nelson. Tania surpasses all other cabin crew when it comes to customer feedback. So, how Read more [...]

Why Your IT Project May Be Riskier Than You Think

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By Kevin Smit I was recently reading an article by Bent Flyvbjerg (Oxford University’s Saïd Business School) and Alexander Budzier (McKinsey & Co) about research they are conducting in the area of IT projects. One of the things they have discovered was that when they broke down the projects’ cost overruns, they found that the average overrun was 27%—but that figure masks a far more alarming one. Graphing the projects’ budget overruns reveals a “fat tail”—a large number of Read more [...]