In the first of their regular catch ups, Business Canterbury’s Leeann Watson joined John MacDonald in studio to dig into what’s happening on the business front.
They discussed how business owners are feeling, and what can be done to help them continue to gain confidence and grow in the region.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk ZB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Today's the first of what's going to be a regular
catch up with LeAnn Watson, who's Chief executive of Business Canterbury. Iileen,
good morning John. Our Business Canterbury of course used to
be the Chamber of Commerce. That's right. How come we
change the name?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Look, we've undergone quite a significant transformation across the organization
over the last three years and actually really the name
change in the new brand is probably the most sort
of publicly visual part of that transformation. But the main
name was really just to make sure that it I
guess it is more reflective of who we are and
the businesses that we support. So, you know, we're all
(00:48):
about Cannerary and we're all about supporting businesses and the
people that they employ, and so Business Cantererry just seem
to have a better ring to it, and I think
it makes us also a bit more accessible. You know,
we are still a Chamber of Commerce. That's a pretty
important international brand, so we're still a chamber. But Business
Canterbury is all about, yeah, providing that pored across the
Canary business community and the people they support.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
So surveying the business community is one of the things
you do, and you've recently been talking to businesses about
their level of confidence. What can you tell us?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, Look, so we run the quarterly Canary Business Survey.
I've been running that for quite a few years and
really since about May last year. What we've seen is
just sort of gradual increases around business confidence, which is
really positive. The last survey, which just finished last week
again has seen quite a strong uptick in business confidence.
So generally businesses are feeling much more optimistic about the
(01:41):
future and also feeling much more optimistic around their own businesses,
not only the economy that they operate in, but also
about their own businesses.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
How confident are you that that is confidence as opposed
to hope.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's a really good question. Look, I think what we
have seen in the survey, and so normally what happens
is when you see an uptick and confidence, you will say,
so see the same sort of uptick in businesses intentions
to invest in things like new plant and equipment, employing
more people. What we've seen is that has moved, but
it hasn't moved at the same pace as what business
(02:18):
confidence has so I think probably one of the big
issues is that I guess slow down of consumer demand
that we saw, you know, really hit hard last year,
but really really over the last three to four years.
It's been pretty tough that that has just taken a
while to shift. So, yes, wild businesses are very optimistic
and positive about the future. They're just a little hesitant
(02:41):
in racing out and actually employing a whole bunch of
more people and investing in plant and equipment. But it's
starting to track in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
What's made them feel more confident.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I think things like you know, the ocr drop and
drops over the last few quarters has certainly been helpful.
It's provided really strong signals for businesses that interest rates
are going to come down, that inflationary pressure you know,
will come down. Obviously, some of those things take away
while to kick in. But what we've also seen is,
you know, some recent changes in some of the government
(03:10):
announcements around just simply making it easier for people to
do business. Things like ninety day trials are back for
all businesses. You know, we've seen things like the Holidays
X being reviewed, which we know has been a real
bug beer for businesses for a long time, you know,
there's a new Ministry of regulation to actually cut out
some of the red tape and some of the compliance
burden that business's face. So those are the sorts of
(03:31):
signals that give businesses the confidence that things are going
to change.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
What do you say to people who say that perhaps
the government's going too far in the other direction? Yeah,
in terms of stuff like that worker's rights eroding all
of that stuff. What's your take on that?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah? And look, I think you know, we need to
be mindful that there does need to be a balance,
you know, for any government decisions around that. But what
we also need to make sure is that we don't
stifle business's ability to grow, to be innovative and to
be productive. And actually, the one thing that businesses you
do a really good job of and don't take lightly
is the investment that they make in people. To actually
(04:07):
employ someone and to provide the livelihood for someone is
a really big burden that businesses carry, and so they
don't make those decisions lightly to either employ people and
certainly not to let them go. And so, you know,
just making sure that you know, there are many rules
and regulations around employment laws, and so let's use those
as opposed to creating some of these other perhaps what
(04:29):
that have been blunt instruments in the past.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
What's the employment market like? Because I telling a story
I heard the second hand from someone person applied for
a retail as systant job in christ Church recently and
was told that nine hundred people had applied.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we know unemployment figures across the
country have been rising for quite some time, and you
know that is probably not too dissimilar here. Again from
the survey, more than half of those surveyed have indicated
that they are looking to employ more staff in the future,
which is really positive. Again, that is a change to
what we've seen last year. So again that's a good
(05:06):
indicat that people are now starting to shift their thinking
around that.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Do you do you know of those people yourself? I mean,
I don't know how granular you get, but do you
know that those those fifty you say, yes, So the
fifty percent of businesses who say they intend to employ
more people in the near future, do you know how
many of them let staff go and so therefore they're
looking at returning people were at or levels beyond what
(05:32):
they've been up until now, or up until recently.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Look, we don't get that granular for that particular question,
but whatcdotally, you know, we engage with businesses each day
every day across our organization, and what we have seen
is probably off the back of COVID, many people had
to make some pretty tough decisions, and you know, we
saw you know, a number of redundancies. We also saw
(05:55):
directly off the back of that, you know, record constraints
around you know, labor market shortages, and so once people
geared back up again, they were actually really hesitant around
letting people go for for those reasons, because there were
some businesses that simply couldn't operate to full capacity because
they didn't have the staff.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
So what would have stopped them? What what could have
prevented them from doing that? Though in the head of
the moment, when things were looking like them it was
going to go oh southwards big time, what could have
been done or what could have they done differently?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, oh, look, I think you know that, you know,
that's a million dollar question in a lot of cases.
But you know, I think there are a lot of
learnings from off the back of COVID, and I know
that you know, these obviously all sorts of inquiries being done,
and I think what, you know, what we would say
to businesses is make sure that you've explored all avenues
available to you rather than letting people go. And many
(06:50):
of those businesses did do that. You know, they cut
back hours, you know, they looked at job sharing. You know,
they provided you know, long term extra lead for businesses
or people operating in those organizations. You know that that
was a really tough situation with you know, the fact
that we closed our immigration as well, and so perfect storm.
(07:11):
You know, we had COVID, you know, when we started
coming out of COVID and building back up again, you know,
our borders were closed for a lot longer than any
other country. You know, prior to that, we thought that
in New Zealand was seen as the place to come
as a migrant. You know, when we reopened, we were
about fourth or fifth or sixth or whatever the number
was on the queue. So all of a sudden, we
(07:31):
went quite as attractive as what we thought we were,
and you know, we had to get back out there
globally and talk about the fact that we welcomed people
back into the country and we're still we're still paying
the price for that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I know, business around the all around the country hurting,
but what sort of cumulative effect do you think there's
been here in Canterbury, earthquakes, everything else. COVID is that is,
is there an overall impact from that all the businesses
just deal with the particular crisis at a time then
move on.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yeah, that's a great question. One of the questions that
we do ask in the survey is and I think
we started asking it in about July twenty two, around
how prepared businesses were for ongoing disruption. And what we've
seen in the last survey was a significant shift, in fact,
the highest shift that we've seen in the survey since
July twenty two around businesses are being well and truly
(08:23):
prepared for ongoing disruption and the mindset shift. So previously
people reacted to disruption. Now what they're doing is they're
having conversations and they're preparing for what the next disruption
might look like. And actually, I think, and this might
be you know, me being the one I can Tabrian,
but I do believe and I strongly believe this because
(08:44):
we have faced so much adversity in this city and
in this region that has prepared our business community and
our residents to actually deal with that disruption. You know,
they're much more agile around, thinking ahead, around you know,
pivoting to a to a new way of operating. You know,
when we went into COVID, most businesses across the country
(09:04):
had already worked from home because of the earthquakes, and
so we you know, we were able to stand up
businesses really really quickly in that sort of hybrid working environment.
And so I think the fact that we have faced
that adversity has actually set us up really well and
built a level of resilience into our business community. And
I think we've seen that the way that we responded is.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
An amazing Think it was only fourteen years when the
quake happened and you had businesses trying to get them
to get servers out and things like that. Well, none
of those issues these days.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
No, And actually, you know, out of any crisis and
horrific situation, you know, you do have to reflect often
around you know what has that actually given us? And
I think that ability to be much more agile, you know,
we've we've now got better I guess relationships and connections
with our customers and with our people without without the
(09:53):
people that we employ. You know, we understand more about
who they are as people as opposed to just employees,
and they bring their false elves to work, and we
understand some of the pressures that they have outside of work,
and I think all of those things are actually so
linings from what you know, some of that adversary that
we've actually faced.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
We're an election year. We're going to be electing a
new council, not just us but everywhere, and I'm interested
to know what your assessment is of what the business
community is expecting from candidates and their new council.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, it's another great question, John, Look, I think for
we will do a little bit of work around this
in our next survey, and we'll run a couple of
focus groups with our members to really ask and drill
down into some of those sorts of questions. But by
and large, when we talk to most businesses, what they
want to understand is of the money that has been spent,
(10:45):
what are the outcomes that we're getting and are we
making sure that the council are using that money well?
So are they getting value for the money that has
been spent on lots of different things across the city.
They also want to make sure that when the council
makes decisions that they understand the either the intended or
the unintended consequences on businesses. And yes, we know that,
(11:08):
you know, the council serves both businesses and the general
residents and rate payers, but we also know that actually
the business rate payers do pay a higher proportion of rates,
and so we need them to understand that unless we
have a strong business community, we will not have a
strong community. And the two go hand in hand. So
we've been talking to the council for quite some time
(11:29):
around them getting closer to the business community, understanding what
their needs are, understanding what the decisions that they make
around the council table how they might actually impact the
business community.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Last year, I think it was you said that the
council was not business friendly. You still feel that way.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
I think they can do a better job of really
understanding and engaging with the business community, and they have
their There have been good in roads into that. You know,
we worked really closely with the christ chich City Council
and the surrounding councils. You know, I go and meet
with you know, with the me's and the CEOs from
all of the Canterbury councils, and we have lots of
(12:06):
good conversations to understand, you know, what their priorities are.
I give them a bit of an outline of what
we're hearing and seeing from the business community, but I
think they can continue to do more and making sure
that that filters right through the organization is really really important.
So at work in progress, and I think you know,
we will hold the council and the candidates to account
as we head into the local body elections this year.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
This might be unfair, but can you think of a
specific example of what a council could do to support
a business?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah? I can. So we're hearing a lot at the
moment around procurement, and procurement from both local government and
central government has been a bit of a bugbear for
many businesses for a long time. So you know that
both local and central government have procurement rules and what
I think needs to be looked at is whether or
not those rules are still fit for purpose and if
(12:56):
we want to drive our local and national economies, then
we actually need to make sure that the procurement from
local and central government reflects that. And so how do
we make sure that when the council are tendering for
big pieces of work, that there is some waiting put
towards a local business and understanding the full cost of
(13:16):
life for that particular project, rather than going for either
the cheapest quote or whatever else they might build into that.
So I think, I mean, that's one sort of high
level example, but that will make a significant difference if
we get that right.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
For more from Category Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
to news talks It'd be christ Church from nine am weekdays,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Canterbury Mornings podcast with John McDonald
from News Talk ZB.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
Today's the first of what's going to be a regular
catch up with LeAnn Watson, who's Chief executive of Business Canterbury. Iileen,
good morning John. Our Business Canterbury of course used to
be the Chamber of Commerce. That's right. How come we
change the name?
Speaker 3 (00:26):
Look, we've undergone quite a significant transformation across the organization
over the last three years and actually really the name
change in the new brand is probably the most sort
of publicly visual part of that transformation. But the main
name was really just to make sure that it I
guess it is more reflective of who we are and
the businesses that we support. So, you know, we're all
(00:48):
about Cannerary and we're all about supporting businesses and the
people that they employ, and so Business Cantererry just seem
to have a better ring to it, and I think
it makes us also a bit more accessible. You know,
we are still a Chamber of Commerce. That's a pretty
important international brand, so we're still a chamber. But Business
Canterbury is all about, yeah, providing that pored across the
Canary business community and the people they support.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
So surveying the business community is one of the things
you do, and you've recently been talking to businesses about
their level of confidence. What can you tell us?
Speaker 3 (01:18):
Yeah, Look, so we run the quarterly Canary Business Survey.
I've been running that for quite a few years and
really since about May last year. What we've seen is
just sort of gradual increases around business confidence, which is
really positive. The last survey, which just finished last week
again has seen quite a strong uptick in business confidence.
So generally businesses are feeling much more optimistic about the
(01:41):
future and also feeling much more optimistic around their own businesses,
not only the economy that they operate in, but also
about their own businesses.
Speaker 2 (01:50):
How confident are you that that is confidence as opposed
to hope.
Speaker 3 (01:57):
It's a really good question. Look, I think what we
have seen in the survey, and so normally what happens
is when you see an uptick and confidence, you will say,
so see the same sort of uptick in businesses intentions
to invest in things like new plant and equipment, employing
more people. What we've seen is that has moved, but
it hasn't moved at the same pace as what business
(02:18):
confidence has so I think probably one of the big
issues is that I guess slow down of consumer demand
that we saw, you know, really hit hard last year,
but really really over the last three to four years.
It's been pretty tough that that has just taken a
while to shift. So, yes, wild businesses are very optimistic
and positive about the future. They're just a little hesitant
(02:41):
in racing out and actually employing a whole bunch of
more people and investing in plant and equipment. But it's
starting to track in the right direction.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
What's made them feel more confident.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
I think things like you know, the ocr drop and
drops over the last few quarters has certainly been helpful.
It's provided really strong signals for businesses that interest rates
are going to come down, that inflationary pressure you know,
will come down. Obviously, some of those things take away
while to kick in. But what we've also seen is,
you know, some recent changes in some of the government
(03:10):
announcements around just simply making it easier for people to
do business. Things like ninety day trials are back for
all businesses. You know, we've seen things like the Holidays
X being reviewed, which we know has been a real
bug beer for businesses for a long time, you know,
there's a new Ministry of regulation to actually cut out
some of the red tape and some of the compliance
burden that business's face. So those are the sorts of
(03:31):
signals that give businesses the confidence that things are going
to change.
Speaker 2 (03:35):
What do you say to people who say that perhaps
the government's going too far in the other direction? Yeah,
in terms of stuff like that worker's rights eroding all
of that stuff. What's your take on that?
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Yeah? And look, I think you know, we need to
be mindful that there does need to be a balance,
you know, for any government decisions around that. But what
we also need to make sure is that we don't
stifle business's ability to grow, to be innovative and to
be productive. And actually, the one thing that businesses you
do a really good job of and don't take lightly
is the investment that they make in people. To actually
(04:07):
employ someone and to provide the livelihood for someone is
a really big burden that businesses carry, and so they
don't make those decisions lightly to either employ people and
certainly not to let them go. And so, you know,
just making sure that you know, there are many rules
and regulations around employment laws, and so let's use those
as opposed to creating some of these other perhaps what
(04:29):
that have been blunt instruments in the past.
Speaker 2 (04:31):
What's the employment market like? Because I telling a story
I heard the second hand from someone person applied for
a retail as systant job in christ Church recently and
was told that nine hundred people had applied.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
Yeah, yeah, I mean, we know unemployment figures across the
country have been rising for quite some time, and you
know that is probably not too dissimilar here. Again from
the survey, more than half of those surveyed have indicated
that they are looking to employ more staff in the future,
which is really positive. Again, that is a change to
what we've seen last year. So again that's a good
(05:06):
indicat that people are now starting to shift their thinking
around that.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
Do you do you know of those people yourself? I mean,
I don't know how granular you get, but do you
know that those those fifty you say, yes, So the
fifty percent of businesses who say they intend to employ
more people in the near future, do you know how
many of them let staff go and so therefore they're
looking at returning people were at or levels beyond what
(05:32):
they've been up until now, or up until recently.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Look, we don't get that granular for that particular question,
but whatcdotally, you know, we engage with businesses each day
every day across our organization, and what we have seen
is probably off the back of COVID, many people had
to make some pretty tough decisions, and you know, we
saw you know, a number of redundancies. We also saw
(05:55):
directly off the back of that, you know, record constraints
around you know, labor market shortages, and so once people
geared back up again, they were actually really hesitant around
letting people go for for those reasons, because there were
some businesses that simply couldn't operate to full capacity because
they didn't have the staff.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
So what would have stopped them? What what could have
prevented them from doing that? Though in the head of
the moment, when things were looking like them it was
going to go oh southwards big time, what could have
been done or what could have they done differently?
Speaker 3 (06:29):
Yeah, oh, look, I think you know that, you know,
that's a million dollar question in a lot of cases.
But you know, I think there are a lot of
learnings from off the back of COVID, and I know
that you know, these obviously all sorts of inquiries being done,
and I think what, you know, what we would say
to businesses is make sure that you've explored all avenues
available to you rather than letting people go. And many
(06:50):
of those businesses did do that. You know, they cut
back hours, you know, they looked at job sharing. You know,
they provided you know, long term extra lead for businesses
or people operating in those organizations. You know that that
was a really tough situation with you know, the fact
that we closed our immigration as well, and so perfect storm.
(07:11):
You know, we had COVID, you know, when we started
coming out of COVID and building back up again, you know,
our borders were closed for a lot longer than any
other country. You know, prior to that, we thought that
in New Zealand was seen as the place to come
as a migrant. You know, when we reopened, we were
about fourth or fifth or sixth or whatever the number
was on the queue. So all of a sudden, we
(07:31):
went quite as attractive as what we thought we were,
and you know, we had to get back out there
globally and talk about the fact that we welcomed people
back into the country and we're still we're still paying
the price for that a little bit.
Speaker 2 (07:42):
I know, business around the all around the country hurting,
but what sort of cumulative effect do you think there's
been here in Canterbury, earthquakes, everything else. COVID is that is,
is there an overall impact from that all the businesses
just deal with the particular crisis at a time then
move on.
Speaker 3 (07:59):
Yeah, that's a great question. One of the questions that
we do ask in the survey is and I think
we started asking it in about July twenty two, around
how prepared businesses were for ongoing disruption. And what we've
seen in the last survey was a significant shift, in fact,
the highest shift that we've seen in the survey since
July twenty two around businesses are being well and truly
(08:23):
prepared for ongoing disruption and the mindset shift. So previously
people reacted to disruption. Now what they're doing is they're
having conversations and they're preparing for what the next disruption
might look like. And actually, I think, and this might
be you know, me being the one I can Tabrian,
but I do believe and I strongly believe this because
(08:44):
we have faced so much adversity in this city and
in this region that has prepared our business community and
our residents to actually deal with that disruption. You know,
they're much more agile around, thinking ahead, around you know,
pivoting to a to a new way of operating. You know,
when we went into COVID, most businesses across the country
(09:04):
had already worked from home because of the earthquakes, and
so we you know, we were able to stand up
businesses really really quickly in that sort of hybrid working environment.
And so I think the fact that we have faced
that adversity has actually set us up really well and
built a level of resilience into our business community. And
I think we've seen that the way that we responded is.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
An amazing Think it was only fourteen years when the
quake happened and you had businesses trying to get them
to get servers out and things like that. Well, none
of those issues these days.
Speaker 3 (09:32):
No, And actually, you know, out of any crisis and
horrific situation, you know, you do have to reflect often
around you know what has that actually given us? And
I think that ability to be much more agile, you know,
we've we've now got better I guess relationships and connections
with our customers and with our people without without the
(09:53):
people that we employ. You know, we understand more about
who they are as people as opposed to just employees,
and they bring their false elves to work, and we
understand some of the pressures that they have outside of work,
and I think all of those things are actually so
linings from what you know, some of that adversary that
we've actually faced.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
We're an election year. We're going to be electing a
new council, not just us but everywhere, and I'm interested
to know what your assessment is of what the business
community is expecting from candidates and their new council.
Speaker 3 (10:23):
Yeah, it's another great question, John, Look, I think for
we will do a little bit of work around this
in our next survey, and we'll run a couple of
focus groups with our members to really ask and drill
down into some of those sorts of questions. But by
and large, when we talk to most businesses, what they
want to understand is of the money that has been spent,
(10:45):
what are the outcomes that we're getting and are we
making sure that the council are using that money well?
So are they getting value for the money that has
been spent on lots of different things across the city.
They also want to make sure that when the council
makes decisions that they understand the either the intended or
the unintended consequences on businesses. And yes, we know that,
(11:08):
you know, the council serves both businesses and the general
residents and rate payers, but we also know that actually
the business rate payers do pay a higher proportion of rates,
and so we need them to understand that unless we
have a strong business community, we will not have a
strong community. And the two go hand in hand. So
we've been talking to the council for quite some time
(11:29):
around them getting closer to the business community, understanding what
their needs are, understanding what the decisions that they make
around the council table how they might actually impact the
business community.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
Last year, I think it was you said that the
council was not business friendly. You still feel that way.
Speaker 3 (11:45):
I think they can do a better job of really
understanding and engaging with the business community, and they have
their There have been good in roads into that. You know,
we worked really closely with the christ chich City Council
and the surrounding councils. You know, I go and meet
with you know, with the me's and the CEOs from
all of the Canterbury councils, and we have lots of
(12:06):
good conversations to understand, you know, what their priorities are.
I give them a bit of an outline of what
we're hearing and seeing from the business community, but I
think they can continue to do more and making sure
that that filters right through the organization is really really important.
So at work in progress, and I think you know,
we will hold the council and the candidates to account
as we head into the local body elections this year.
Speaker 2 (12:28):
This might be unfair, but can you think of a
specific example of what a council could do to support
a business?
Speaker 3 (12:35):
Yeah? I can. So we're hearing a lot at the
moment around procurement, and procurement from both local government and
central government has been a bit of a bugbear for
many businesses for a long time. So you know that
both local and central government have procurement rules and what
I think needs to be looked at is whether or
not those rules are still fit for purpose and if
(12:56):
we want to drive our local and national economies, then
we actually need to make sure that the procurement from
local and central government reflects that. And so how do
we make sure that when the council are tendering for
big pieces of work, that there is some waiting put
towards a local business and understanding the full cost of
(13:16):
life for that particular project, rather than going for either
the cheapest quote or whatever else they might build into that.
So I think, I mean, that's one sort of high
level example, but that will make a significant difference if
we get that right.
Speaker 1 (13:30):
For more from Category Mornings with John McDonald, listen live
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or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
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