northland chamber

LEADER COLUMN DECEMBER 2011
It has been another tough year and many Northland businesses have continued to struggle to maintain their market share or to grow their business. We have a relatively small population and a comparatively low regional GDP which means there is only so much money in Northland that people can afford to spend on goods and services. . As reflected in the recent Chamber of Commerce Northern Region Business Confidence Survey while both our population and economy will grow in the future this growth is likely to be slow and consumers are likely to remain cautious

This does not mean there are not opportunities for businesses to grow, only that this growth may require the owners to look at new ways of doing things. On the positive side with Whangarei being the first New Zealand town to receive Ultra-fast Broadband and Northland also well placed to benefit from the Rural Broadband Initiative, there is potential for Northland businesses to both increase markets and reduce their day to day operating costs.

There will be potential costs in initially adopting this new technology. This will come through connection fees, software development, hardware upgrades and just general costs associated with businesses changing the way they operate. How this will be done will vary depending on the nature of particular businesses and the willingness of their owners to adopt new ways of doing things.

While these costs may make some Northland businesses reluctant to adopt UFB, there are a number of things that this technology would enable them to achieve that they cannot do at present. Northland businesses are virtually exclusively very small enterprises and operating with a limited somewhat isolated market. Fast, reliable data transfer can overcome lack of scale and location. The Whangarei retailer need no longer rely just on those local customers who walk into their shop. There are now almost 2 billion people worldwide connected to the internet. Through innovative marketing local businesses can enjoy access to a large portion of this market.

They can reassess their communication systems and there will be a number of savings small businesses will be able to make in this area. Also through the use of “cloud” technology it will make financial and customer management systems that were once the exclusive domain of large corporates available to small businesses. While this new technology may not be right for all businesses, it is surely worth any business taking the opportunity to explore ways to reduce their operating costs and increase their market share.