New NZTE support for industry

Graeme Solloway, program lead for New Zealand Trade and Enterprise in the Australian defence market, talked at the NZDIA July Member Meeting on the implications of Budget 2020 and NZTE’s Australian Defence Program.

How NZTE can help exporters

NZTE’s purpose – to grow companies internationally – bigger, better, faster – for the good of New Zealand – is based on an understanding that New Zealand is a trading nation, and on a belief that New Zealand is good for the world.

“We’re all about adding value rather than volume,” Graeme Solloway told his physical and virtual NZDIA Member Meeting audience. “We’re in it for the long term, so we want to be involved. We want businesses who are committed to building long term markets.”

NZTE’s customers include New Zealand businesses exporting overseas, and overseas businesses looking to invest in New Zealand. In terms of exporters, the government agency has a big focus on what it refers to as the ‘Focus 700 customers’ cohort, which includes companies in the areas of technology, manufacturing, and food and beverage.

According to Mr Solloway, NZTE can “help you grow your capability, help boost your global reach, reach your customers and potential customers, understand what those markets look like… invest in your growth, and connect you into other businesses.”

“We [also] have a whole program around coalitions… these are shared opportunities where businesses come together to achieve a particular challenge in a market, and that’s something which I think there’s plenty of potential for within a defence market context.”

COVID-19 response

According to Mr Solloway, NZTE pivoted quickly in response to COVID-19, including immediately standing up a website for exporters and investors with information on the effects and impact of COVID-19. The agency ran cashflow clinics and contracted PWC, KPMG, and Deloitte to run workshops to over 400 of its customers on business continuity, which were eagerly taken up.

“We stood up a whole freight organisation, recognising that [our customers] faced tremendous air freight capacity constraints,” he added. “ And that’s now migrated over to being run out of the Ministry of Transport.”

“We made available our Beachhead Advisories Network around the world to provide support for customers that needed immediate assistance in understanding impacts in particular markets, and we pumped a whole lot more money into regional business partners that impacted on over 6,000 companies around New Zealand.”

Defence Experimental Airborne Platform (DEAP) aircraft sensor system check.

Image: Australian Government Department of Defence.

Budget 2020

Budget 2020 saw a single investment of an additional $216 million over four years into NZTE to fuel the recovery process.

NZTE is now looking at increasing its Focus customer cohort. “We’re going through a process at the moment of analysing what that size will be, whether there’ll be 900 or 1200 or something like that,” said Mr Solloway. “We haven’t made those decisions yet, but that support has been increased.”

“We’re also focusing around digital commerce capability, recognising that one of the lessons learned from the pandemic and the response is the importance of having digital capability within your company, right through digitising your entire business process.” $40 million of the 216 million injection is being put into recruiting more people in NZTE’s international offices to better support New Zealand businesses, and also to provide those people with additional tools to enable them to directly represent their customers in the market.

Strengthening the New Zealand brand is important, he notes, with Tourism New Zealand recently launching a new brand positioning. “We’ll be following on with a campaign that’s starting off with food and beverage and then through into technology.”

Australia Defence Program

NZTE’s Australia Defence Program is based on, and recognises the importance of, the Australian defence market, and the role that New Zealand businesses can play within Australian defence supply chains.

‘It’s about identification of committed customers,” Mr Solloway explained. “I have been talking with Jenny and the NZDIA team around identifying new businesses in the defence space, and we’re doing some work around capability mapping around that.”

Just recently, Mr Solloway hosted a new defence seminar with Audra McCarthy from the Defence Teaming Center in South Australia, speaking around the topic of how do you position yourself – how do you think about – the Australian defence market as a small-tomedium New Zealand business?

His team has also been engaging with Defence primes in Australia. As a result of such engagement, representatives from the shipbuilding arm of BAE Systems Australia came over from Adelaide earlier this year to talk to over 70 New Zealand businesses. Online briefings are taking place with Hanwha Defence Australia and Lockheed Martin Australia New Zealand over coming weeks, which present further opportunities for New Zealand companies to connect with primes.

“We continue to do work around amplifying, talking the New Zealand story within Australia, using our High Commission and our Defence Adviser team in Canberra, to reach into the defence infrastructure in Canberra and continue to raise that story,” he continued.

“To add to that, NZTE is recruiting two new people in Australia to work on the defence market as part of that new tranche of funding into ‘feet on the street’ internationally,” he added. “Those two people will work specifically on building our opportunities in the defence market and working with our customers, you guys, in that space.”

Mr Solloway noted that the website my.nzte.govt.nz has been launched as a new portal for New Zealand businesses. Anyone can register and doing so opens up a wealth of information and resources around particular markets, knowledge and connections.