Exporting Realism — GoGlobal 2019
Balancing export inspiration with exporting reality in 2019
A story of business heroics is often uplifting yet can lack the grit and dips that often precede the lofty heights of success. GoGlobal strikes the balance right between inspired stories of success and the realistic, fraught and sometimes hollow existence it took to keep the journey long enough to turn a corner, find some luck or realise the dream.
This years morning session fired up with 20 minute slots on trade that paints the peril of exporting in today’s context where tariffs are creating barriers between big countries and political shifts have the potential to create larger disruption and unintended consequences for New Zealand manufacturers who rely on exporting to the land masses further north.
Fortunately, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade have our collective business interests at heart and on the table with 67% of our export trade already covered by free trade agreements. Their workstreams are focussed on extending these coveted trade corridors to 81% of our export trade. This is great news for New Zealand manufacturers who add the Kiwi trademark to their products before they leave New Zealand in a shipping container. They’re also a welcome mat to the markets that desire and demand the products we create.
During the conference I shared some snippets from the speakers so that those who couldn’t free up their whole day to sit at the New Zealand Made table, can at least get a flavour for what GoGlobal is all about. As an conference go-er will tell you, the best part isn’t the presenters, it’s the networking with your peers in the room. With over 250 in attendance, the collective learnings can help the next business export that first order.
Catherine Graham is currently Divisional Manager of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Economic Division. As tariffs are in a state of flux, MFAT provide a valuable tariff tool for business covering 150 countries.
Not everything has to be complex either… with one tip I’m going to be copying is to bring a few of New Zealand’s favourite brands with you.
David Wilks from Weta Workshop took us on a magical journey from the inception of Peter Jackson’s early creations, how they morphed into the biggest blockbuster movies New Zealand has created and how that has flowed into shifting how the world perceives New Zealand. Still much work to do however as while we are perceived as a beautiful location to shoot films, it’s less well known the high tech creative CGI work that is done from the Mirimar Peninsula.
Rebeccca Smith presented research on what the rest of the world thinks about Kiwis and how we need to move our collective New Zealand Story beyond natural beauty.
I first tried Pic’s Peanut Butter in 2011 at a specialty butcher in Hawke’s Bay called Gourmet Direct. They knew there was something about this peanut butter that was different. Pic reinforced the difference on stage. No added sugar. Pic went further and said its the product and the word of mouth that has made the difference as picked up on by Anna Heyward’s tweet.
The NZ US Trade Council picked up on the critical theme of knowing your customer if you want to serve them at the upper end.
Product integrity requires a full supply chain knowledge and is the domain expertise for TrackBack. While blockchain isn’t for everyone, it does deliver certainty of traceability so becomes powerful tech when combined with product labelling to deliver guaranteed provenance solutions.
Icebreaker’s Shelly Guerard gave a stunningly detailed story of how to connect with Japanese buyers through an insight that a) while older wearers enjoyed the bright outdoor colours associated with adventure b) the next generation were more urban and desired a different look to their merino.
Icebreaker went fully ‘off-brand’ to address the Japan opportunity with the support of Jeremy Moon. That success eventually led to learnings that could be applied to Icebreaker globally. This was one of those ‘had to be in the room’ moments because of the raw honesty shared.
Tier 3 and Tier 4 cities in China represent the new edge of opportunity for New Zealand exporters according to Gavin Yang from TradeMonster. If it sounds and feels daunting, then TradeMonster gets you in market without having to do it all yourself.
Google’s Celeste McCormick spoke about New Zealand’s laggard status in website speed. Sounds trivial until you realise just how demanding we are as consumers when shopping the web. 3 seconds or less or we hit the back button and head somewhere else.
Big thanks to the organisers of the event including EMA and the Export NZ team for putting on the event. Each year we invite New Zealand Made licence holders to attend the invite and will be back again for 2020.
About the event: https://www.goglobal.nz
Becoming an ExportNZ Member: https://www.exportnz.org.nz/join
Becoming a New Zealand Made licence holder: https://buynz.org.nz/
