Clarity
Have a clear vision of your product, market definition and planning of how to achieve success.
- Plan for success and understand what it looks like. Detailed financial, personal and marketing plans are needed to achieve aspirations. Track key measurements regularly to monitor progress.
- Research the Australian market to understand where your product fits into the competitive environment.
- Ensure your product is differentiated from the competition.
- Tailor your product, service and marketing strategy for Australia.
- Commit leadership capability to ensure that a clear vision for Australia is developed.
Cash
Ensure significant financial resources are available to meet establishment costs. Many of the businesses interviewed needed to make multiple attempts at market entry.
They found they utilised contingency funds due to unforeseen events, including higher than expected costs for marketing, professional services, insurance and travel, as well as restructuring expenses.
- Recognise that financial resources will dictate the path-to-market whether that be a direct approach (e.g. customer strategy) or indirect approach (e.g. wholesaler strategy).
- Appreciate the scale of the Australian market; customers can be spread out over a large geographical area. The size of Australia makes it costly to service and the diversity across the country means that it should be seen as eight distinct markets as opposed to one.
- Ensure there are financial resources available to commit skilled leadership to the Australian operation.
- Anticipate that following the initial capital investment you need to allow for another 24 months operating funding.
Connections
Create the right networks to increase your market knowledge and access to opportunity.
- Leverage New Zealand connections whenever possible, they will assist with identifying opportunities and deepen your understanding of the market before entering into Australia.
- Have the right people active in Australia. Their presence provides access to market experience, an understanding of target customers, and reinforces the businesses’ commitment to the market.
- Recognise the value of hiring experienced Australian employees. They often have established market connections which can be very difficult to create from scratch, and have a valuable understanding of local market intricacies.
- Use all available networks in Australia to connect to the market. These include New Zealanders in Australia; New Zealand customers active in Australia; and Australian contacts.
- Carefully manage the communication between the Australian and New Zealand operations.
Capability
Have the people capability, governance structures, processes, oversight from New Zealand management and sufficient financial backing.
- Get the right advice. It is important that advice is received from experienced practitioners in both New Zealand and Australia.
- Establishing an office in Australia will be time consuming and costly. Experience in market can help reduce these costs by providing a deeper understanding of the local business environment and appropriate mitigation strategies that can be employed.
- Manage the Australian operations carefully. Ensure that appropriate oversight is in place from the New Zealand parent. People who understand the differences, and can operate in the Australian business culture are needed.
- Ensure that when business partners (e.g. within a joint venture or within distributor networks) are involved both parties to the contract have the same vision and equal benefit so as to drive success.
- Only promise what can be delivered.
Commitment
- Breaking into the market takes time and sacrifice.
- Establish a presence in Australia. It provides the impression of longevity and allows improved access to customers for management and servicing requirements.
- Be prepared to persevere when entering Australia. The business will take time to adjust to the market conditions, it can take up to 48 months and cost between $1 and $2 million to establish operations.
- Commit leadership over a sustained period of time.
More information
For more information on how your business can access opportunities across the ditch, please contact your Client Manager or our Business Services Team on 0800 555 888.
