Strategic Priority 5 - Data-driven outcomes

Objective

Access to better information for decision-making and connection with shareholders, partners, customers, kaimahi and alumni.

Why this is a priority

Using the right technology to drive reporting, analysis and engagement will lift business performance and improve prosperity. We will respond more easily to challenges such as managing shareholder information, unlocking insights from data, improving processes and systems, and ensuring mapping is userfriendly and reliable.

Supporting stakeholders to access the information they need means our people will connect more easily with Ātihau. They will be able to understand, participate in and benefit from activities and opportunities across the Āti Hau Group.

Key highlights

A key focus this year was building a data warehouse for all digital information. Ātihau worked with technology developers Cucumber Limited to construct the warehouse, which can store, analyse, interpret, cross-reference and generate reports.

Development has initially prioritised building two business intelligence dashboards: a financial dashboard for all levels of the organisation and one to support the apiary team.

The financial dashboard aims to make financial reporting and information more accessible across the organisation. The apiary dashboard aims to support decisions on where to place hives by analysing historical hive quality and seasonal harvest data, including which hive placements have generated more earnings.

In time, a business intelligence dashboard will be built to connect farming data to the digital warehouse.

Early work has focused on uploading financial and apiary data to the digital warehouse and learning how to use the new technology to generate useful reporting.

When fully developed, the data facility will house and report on information about activities across the business, ranging from debt and profit to quality of streams.

The intention is to connect not only managers, kaimahi and governors but also shareholders with comprehensive information about the business.

Ātihau General Manager Corporate and Finance Debbie Hyland says the development of decision support tools will expand as budgets allow. This year’s priorities were focused on the areas where we could get the biggest return, allowing us to prioritise hive placements and reduce helicopter costs through informed decision-making.

“As we build more rooms in the warehouse, there will be more ability to combine data to create comprehensive reporting and share information.”

“We’re not there yet. Building the rooms costs money, producing reports costs money. In the current economic climate, we are moving cautiously with development across the board.”

People, health & safety, wellbeing

A review was completed of the previous year’s goals for performance and strategy introduction. Annual business plans were developed and targets were set for the year ahead.

A major effort over the year has been upgrading staff housing to meet Healthy Homes Standards. A good start has been made this year, with new insulation installed across all staff housing that needed it. However, more work needs to be done.

It is pleasing to report low staff turnover compared to previous years.

As the Awhiwhenua apprenticeship programme began to wind down, there were no first-year cadets this year. The scheme will continue in the year ahead to allow second- and third-year cadets to complete their training.

Our heatlh and safety goal is to achieve zero harm. During the year we reported three lost time injuries, consistent with last year. We continue to work together to understand risks and harm, impact and to refine our health and safety plans over time.

The year has seen an increased focus on health and safety nearmiss reporting, with more near-miss incidents reported than at the end of the previous year.

Hyland says that by encouraging more reporting on near-miss incidents, we can help managers identify and address any health and safety concerns, which in turn can reduce near-miss and accident rates.