Leading a multi-national company takes guts, hard work and determination but without good governance, structure, and processes there is risk for shareholders – no matter how hard you work.
New Zealand’s leaders are shrinking their own ambitions in isolation. Revved Co-founder Rochelle Moffitt wants to put them in a room together instead.
Taupō’s The Cozy Corner isn’t just a café, it’s a community hub where inclusivity, wellness, and sustainability meet. With a menu that caters to every dietary need, a great team culture, and a commitment to values-driven business, owner Camilla Baker has built an eco-friendly café that sets the standard for hospitality with heart.
New Zealand small businesses are facing one of the biggest shifts in customer discovery since the rise of Google Search, as AI-powered tools change how consumers find, compare and choose who to hire.
More than 80 percent of people don’t independently verify AI-generated information. As AI becomes the first place customers go for answers, that trust is creating a new challenge for New Zealand businesses.
We’re told the economy and the environment are locked in a trade-off. Autex’s Jonathan Mountfort says that’s a false choice, and shows how circular thinking is already building a healthier version of both.
New Zealand research into scientist-entrepreneurs has identified an “IP paradox”: Intellectual property is seen as essential to start-up success, yet often experienced as a costly, complex barrier. Here’s what the findings mean for founders, investors and the wider SME community.
AI is having its “peak hype” moment, but beneath the noise there is a very practical question most New Zealand business owners are asking: Will this actually help my business run better, or is it just another shiny tech distraction?
Most of the AI conversation right now is about what the technology will eventually do for everyone. Not much of it covers what you should actually start doing, this week, to make sure your business can use any of it. Let’s change that.
Keynote speaker, educator, author, recording artist and Solo Meo Award winner Julia Grace, has turned her mental health journey into inspiring talks, workshops, and performances across New Zealand and beyond. She’s also made a success of being an entrepreneur in the process.
Setting a big, bold goal feels like strategy. It isn’t. Ryan Sproull explains why picturing success can actually work against you, and what to do instead.
After a punishing economic cycle Kiwi businesses are emerging into something of a stabilisation period. Cautiously optimistic, past the worst, but with operating costs still biting and reinvestment held back. Why the next six months will define the recovery, and what business owners need to be doing in that period.
New data from Employment Hero shows New Zealand’s small and medium business sector continuing to add headcount in May, even as wage growth stalled completely on an annual basis, highlighting a labour market where businesses are growing cautiously rather than competing hard for talent on pay.
Turning a dreaded parenting challenge into a science-powered solution, ISpy Nits is making head lice detection accurate, stigma-free, and even fun for kids, and in the process earning Kate Ricketts a well-deserved David Award.
After burnout and a corporate career, Nikki Taylor started her own business at 44, and discovered that midlife isn’t a crisis, but a chance for clarity, on what kind of work, and life, actually fits.
New Zealand’s productivity gap with countries like Finland isn’t about effort, it’s about clarity. Elliot Royce argues that as businesses grow, complexity quietly crowds out a shared understanding of what actually creates value, turning productivity into a symptom rather than the real problem.
A pilot programme’s runaway demand has exposed just how many promising New Zealand startups are being turned away by traditional bank lending.
New Zealand’s sustainable innovators remain confident about growth, but a new report shows many are struggling to access the capital and conditions needed to actually scale.
New Zealand’s small business productivity has flatlined, with the country continuing to trail Australia and the UK, even as Deloitte’s latest CFO survey shows finance leaders remain confident about growing their businesses despite economic uncertainty.
Solar retailer Lodestone Energy is opening up its “virtual rooftop” solar product to residential and small business customers for the first time, choosing Hawke’s Bay as the launch region for its new EASY Plan.
New Zealand tourism businesses are committed to becoming more sustainable, but new research shows the journey from good intentions to genuine change is anything but straightforward.
Spacebar Design won Most Innovative Business at The David Awards 2025, also taking out the Supreme Award, recognition that cements its role as a trailblazer in sustainable interior design.
New Zealand’s longest-running sustainability awards programme is calling for entries, with expanded categories and a direct pathway to a global million-pound prize.
Kiwibank has become the first New Zealand bank to roll out open banking across all its digital channels for both individual and business customers, delivering most of the data‑sharing capability required by regulators six months ahead of its statutory deadline.
Christchurch’s Tait Communications has been named PwC Hi-Tech Company of the Year at the 2026 NZ Hi-Tech Awards, capping a record-breaking night for New Zealand’s third-largest export sector.
Full-scale loyalty programmes are expensive, complex and slow to roll out, but a gift card programme can deliver many of the same benefits in a fraction of the time, and customers pay you upfront for the privilege.
Inside MOXX Brands, the Kiwi FMCG company growing at 512 percent and rewriting the export playbook in the process.
Hawke’s Bay’s Rockit has landed one of China’s most bankable celebrities as its brand ambassador.
Demand for Tapuwae Roa’s Tupu Accelerator keeps climbing, with a new cohort of ten high-growth Māori-founded ventures welcomed for the programme’s third consecutive year.
A new Christchurch start-up wants to turn the security cameras already watching your warehouse into a real-time safety system that spots risk before it becomes an incident.
With the upcoming launch of her fine dining restaurant and bar BOSSI in Auckland, owner-operator Jenna Carter reflects on the rewards and challenges of opening up a business mid-pandemic. Delving into the world of hospitality and opening a deli mid-pandemic was never part of Jenna Carter’s five-year business plan, but for the owner of Auckland’s authentic Italian delicatessen DELI di BOSSI and soon-to-open fine dining restaurant and bar BOSSI, it provided an opportunity to carve out her unique vision and bring her family’s heritage to life. Located in the laneway of Auckland’s prestigious Pacifica building, DELI di BOSSI offers fine sliced meats and cheeses, freshly-made pasta and bread, aromatic coffee, and specialised Italian street food. BOSSI will open across the
Julian So reflects on three key customer service mistakes he’s made, and the lessons he learned from them. As a business owner, I always strive to provide quality customer service. I am always grateful for the positive feedback from customers telling our team that they enjoy working with us because they can see the value we offer them as their trusted advisor. We know our stuff, communicate regularly and deliver on what we promise – on time. But I haven’t always got it right, having made mistakes and a few ‘stuff-ups’ along the way. Every business loses clients and customers. Over the past four years, I have had three customers decide not to continue our business relationship due to a
Formalise your work from home policies or lose out in the war for talent, a leading New Zealand tech recruitment agency is warning. Managing director and founder of specialist IT and digital recruitment company Imara Limited, Barry Hardy, said job candidates are wary of so-called negotiated agreements or vague promise. They want the ‘work from home’ condition set in stone before they accept a role. Handshake deals got many businesses through the pandemic doldrums, but now that the worst of the disruption is hopefully in the past, companies that are comfortable with allowing remote work to continue should consider a formalised ‘work from home structure’. “The lockdowns and virus protocols forced businesses to become more flexible and employees adjusted
Wellington-based deep-tech startup Marama Labs has been selected to participate in the first-ever Startup Battlefield 200 cohort at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference in Silicon Valley. The TechCrunch team chose a final class of 200 exemplary startups from thousands of applications worldwide to feature on the show floor in San Francisco on October 18-20. The global startup community event brings together 10,000 attendees, leagues of investors and hundreds of press and media outlets from across the globe. Marama Labs develops scientific instrumentation and cloud software for rapid and cheap chemical analysis of liquids such as wine, pharmaceuticals and wastewater. Its flagship CloudSpec platform enables spectroscopy to be performed directly on cloudy samples – for chemical analysis and data analytics to improve
The Government is introducing new measures with the aim of ensuring New Zealand’s small businesses get paid on time. A Business Payment Practices disclosure regime is being established to improve information and transparency around business-to-business payment practices across the economy, says Small Business Minister Stuart Nash. “Small businesses account for more than 97 percent of all businesses in New Zealand. Late and overdue payments have a negative impact, causing unnecessary stress and uncertainty, while extended payment terms can cause real harm – particularly when a supplier has no choice but to accept them on a ‘take it or leave it’ basis,” Nash says. Large firms (those with revenue over $33 million a year) will be required to publicly report on their own payment
Silicon Valley-based technology multinationals and their like, wherever they are headquartered, have been turning to Waikato technologists to solve their problems for years, writes David Hallett. Commercial sensitivity means only those technologists working at the bleeding edge of technology even know about these projects. They are sworn to secrecy. But ongoing relationships like these means the Waikato’s technology sector has continued to grow despite the COVID-19 pandemic and there are many opportunities in this region for those willing to make the move. The Cultivate Trust recently launched the Tech in the Tron campaign, a collective of private businesses, education providers, and public entities who are enthusiastic about growing the Waikato technology ecosystem, to encourage five hundred skilled workers and their
Upcoming event
Thursday 24 September 2026 | 5:00pm – 7:00pm
📍 The Icehouse, Textile Centre, Level 4, 117 Saint Georges Bay Road, Auckland
If you’re looking to unlock capital to help your business grow then our Funding that Accelerates Your Business networking event and panel discussion on September 24 is for you.
Latest issue
Practical AI insights, Kiwi tech innovators, and the tools helping Kiwi SMEs compete on a global stage. It’s all packed into this special tech issue of NZBusiness.
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