Most innovative approach

Ongoing innovation and a supply chain that enables fast and flexible reaction to consumer demand are resulting in rapidly growing international sales for Invercargill firm Essential Resources.

Co-owners Nicola Smith and Geraldine Sloane started the business in 2001, and describe themselves as an innovative educational publisher of supplementary teaching materials. They live, eat, breathe, sleep and dream about making teachers’ lives easier.

The pair started exporting to Australia in 2003, expanding into the United Kingdom two years ago. Today exports account for about 60 percent of sales, says Managing Director Nicola Smith.

The company sells a large product range of 300-plus primary, secondary and pre-school resources, in both printed and ebook formats. On-demand printing enables effective stock management. By operating a fully integrated operation, from print through to despatch, the company is able to maintain tight control throughout the value chain.

Ms Smith says international sales are made via direct marketing to teachers. This means Essential Resources can build close relationships with its customers, enabling it to quickly understand and respond to their needs.

 “Our customers all want interesting and relevant support resources to help them focus on the job of teaching and education. This underpins our business. We produce 60-plus new releases each year, ensuring our range of publications remain abreast of educational trends and are always relevant to teachers.”

Staff regularly attend international trade shows to promote products and the Essential Resources brand. The shows provide opportunities to tap into new trends in teaching and curriculum delivery, to network with potential authors and educational advisors, and to identify new export markets.

“As well as developing our existing export business, we see significant opportunities to expand into markets where English is an additional language, including Hong Kong and Singapore, India, South America and Europe.”

This company is also a finalist in the Best business operating internationally – under $10m category.

www.essentialresources.co.nz

GMP Pharmaceuticals, an Auckland contract manufacturer for the global natural health product market, has almost doubled export annual earnings in the past two years, to about $20 million in 2009.

The company is a TGA (Therapeutic Goods Administration) and GMP (Good Manufacturing Practice) licensed contract manufacturer. It not only contract manufactures and packs health products and nutraceuticals, but also offers customers a wide range of other services.

Mr Patel says GMP Pharmaceuticals’ ability to provide end to end solutions to customers makes the company a one stop shop for health food manufacturers. He says this is a unique and innovative business model in this industry.

“We are a wholesale manufacturer of pharmaceutical products that has developed an innovative mode of client engagement that goes beyond purely manufacturing. We can be involved intimately in a client’s development, offering services ranging from assistance in developing the product concept before it goes to market, assisting with product trails, support in design and development of packaging, contract manufacturing, and acting as a distributor for the client if they required.

“We also offer product and IP registration, along with product launches and retail display in international markets.”

Mr Patel says in addition to the one stop shop approach, GMP Pharmaceuticals has introduced an additional service – AUNEW. This is a retail outlet in China that New Zealand clients can use to display and sell their products. This system allows the companies to test the market before investing in full entry.

GMP Pharmaceuticals currently exports to about 20 countries directly and many more indirectly via small New Zealand businesses and independent entrepreneurs. Key markets are China, Korea and Australia.

Mr Patel says the company recently acquired a 9,000 square metre factory next door to its East Tamaki facility in order to increase its capacity for growing the business.

www.gmp.net.nz

With more than 180 banks already contracted to its technology, M-Com is a global leader in mobile banking and mobile payment solutions and is set to have tens of millions of consumers around the world using its software.

“Our growth metrics are looking very encouraging, Our revenues and staff numbers doubled last year and both metrics are set to double again this year.” says M-Com’s Chief Executive Officer Adam Clark.

“We have a majority market share in Australasia, and are on track to achieve the same in the United States – where our partner has a 40 percent share of the 14,000-odd financial institutions.”

“On the strength of that leadership position, we have made excellent progress in a number of key territories within the emerging markets where banks are demanding the same robust, scalable solutions. We now have live deployments on all five continents,” says Clark.

Established in 2000, M-Com spent its first few years developing its intellectual property, and then started commercially selling that IP.

“We are unique in that we offer software product, not software development services. This means all intellectual property collated from customer deployments is owned by us and reused to extend our product advantage. It also lowers the business risk for banks looking to use our software.”

Mr Clark says M-Com can lay claim to many other world first innovations, among them real-time credit card payments by mobile phone, and being first to offer an ASP platform that supports thousands of banks from one single software instance, and that ‘on-boards’ a new bank within 30 minutes.

“Our enterprise grade mobile banking and payment platform, BankAnywhere, is internationally recognised as having the broadest reach, largest solution-set and most comprehensive set of deployment options available to successfully take mobile banking and payment services to market.”

This company is also a finalist in the Best business operating internationally – under $10m category.

www.mcom.co.nz

Pumpkin Patch is generating annual sales of close to $400 million, more than 80 percent from international markets as it pursues its vision of being a truly global kidswear brand.

During the past 20 years the company has grown from a mail order business operated out of a garage to an international business, its products sold in more than 527 locations, of which 230 are company-owned stores.

“We have done what few, if any other specialty apparel brands have managed to do, exported our iconic Kiwi brand into 22 markets around the globe,” says Chief Financial Officer Matthew Washington. Today Pumpkin Patch is being worn by kids in Australia, United States and the United Kingdom, and in the fast developing markets of the Middle East, India, China and Malaysia.

He says global expansion has been achieved through a mix of channels – from its own retail stores and e-commerce, to department stores, and franchise partners.

Technology is seen as vital to global growth and Pumpkin Patch’s continuing large investment in this area continues to result in innovative and efficient solutions to delivering the products in the right place at the right time.

Design is also core to its success, with the company launching quality, unique children’s clothing on a regular basis – typically with new styles flowing into stores weekly.

“Our design prowess has resulted in a line of children’s clothing that's instantly recognisable as Pumpkin Patch,” says Mr Washington. “We are continually looking to improve on our designs and monitor closely the success of lines to see what sells well and what doesn’t.”

Pumpkin Patch’s innovative business approach is visible through the number of ranges that they produce for international markets and in the way they put their collections together and display them in stores. This means that someone who comes in for a skirt may end up buying a complete outfit as it’s easy to see how everything fits together.

This company is also a finalist in the Best business operating internationally – over $50m category, and the Best use of design in international business category.

The New Zealand Merino Company Limited (NZM) is an integrated sales, marketing and innovation company for nature’s performance fibre, New Zealand Merino.

Established in 2001, NZM was a small levy funded organisation with an annual turnover of $5 million, recalls Chief Executive John Brakenridge.

Today NZM has turnover of $115 million per year and is a fully commercial company, generating between $10 and $15 million annually in additional value for New Zealand Merino growers.

NZM’s has been so successful that it is now starting to run out of wool. Rather than look for offshore supply, NZM has embarked on a $36 million project over five years, in association with the Government’s Primary Growth Partnership, where wool will be grown for specific retail markets and the NZM model will be extended to a range of other income streams for New Zealand sheep farmers such as meat, lanolin and leather goods. 

NZM’s philosophy is ‘to do things differently’ and to challenge the very traditional wool industry in order to achieve its objectives. In doing so it has lifted New Zealand Merino fibre out of the commodity basket, differentiating it from its competitors and won clients in the highest end of the fashion market including SmartWool in the US, Loro Piana, Reda and John Smedley in Europe, Nikke in Japan and Icebreaker in New Zealand.

“Although a tiny resource by international standards, we have positioned New Zealand Merino for its scarcity value, backed by a marketing story played out against a spectacular high-country backdrop,” says Mr Brakenridge.

NZM’s business model is to develop sustainable relationships in the marketplace and create customised marketing programmes with their brand partners. Today half of NZM’s sales are through direct supply contracts, rather than auction, which Mr. Brakenridge says provides growers with price stability and sustainability.

Furthermore NZM created the Zque brand of New Zealand Merino fibre. Zque gives confidence to retailers and consumers that the fibre was produced with standards around stewardship of livestock, management of the environment and socially responsible practices, and that the resulting products are of the highest quality.

This company is also a finalist in the Best business operating internationally – over $50m category.

www.nzmerino.co.nz