August 29, 2025 • 44 mins
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Getting caught in the strategic "messy middle" is a common struggle for Kiwi businesses – that uncomfortable space between having great ideas and actually realizing their value. Rob Erskine and Tony Rutherford, founders of Copper Fox consultancy, bring decades of commercial experience to this candid conversation about why so many business strategies ultimately collect dust.
The pair highlight several critical failures in strategic implementation: strategies that exist only in owners' heads, "drawer documents" created once every few years but never revisited, and the fundamental lack of execution planning – the missing "how" and "who" components that translate vision into action. With 97% of New Zealand businesses employing fewer than 20 people, many simply lack the bandwidth to simultaneously handle daily operations and strategic initiatives.
"Quite often strategies ask the question 'what do we want to do?' But sometimes the failing is 'how are we going to do that?'" Rob explains, pinpointing a key reason so many well-intentioned plans never materialize. Tony adds that relying solely on compliance-focused accountants rather than forward-looking commercial advisors further compounds the problem.
The conversation delves into the unique challenges facing New Zealand's business landscape – from our "batch, beamer, and boat" lifestyle mindset to the limitations of scale in a country of just 5 million people. For ambitious companies, looking beyond our shores becomes necessary, but brings additional complexities in navigating international markets and regulatory environments.
Perhaps most revealing is the discussion around risk management, with both consultants noting that while business owners intuitively understand their risks, they rarely formalize or systematically monitor them until crises emerge. This reactive approach leaves companies vulnerable, especially during economic downturns.
Ready to move your business strategy beyond the whiteboard? Rob and Tony's practical advice – building integrated teams with necessary expertise, assigning clear ownership of initiatives, and maintaining realistic resource planning – provides a roadmap for turning strategic vision into tangible business outcomes.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Today we're getting into the strategic challenges
facing Kiwi businesses,particularly those in the messy
middle, that space betweenhaving a great idea and actually
getting value from it.
I'm joined by Rob Erskine andTony Rutherford, the founders of
Copper Fox, a consultancy thatspecialises in helping mid-range
New Zealand businesses gettheir strategic planning sorted.
Rob and Tony bring decades ofexperience to the table, and
(00:26):
they'll be talking about why somany business strategies fail,
from the plans that only existin the owner's head to the ones
that are written down but neverlooked at again.
We'll also be touching onshifts in the New Zealand
economy and what that means foryour business, especially if
you're looking to scale beyondour shores.
It's a straight-talkingconversation about moving beyond
the day-to-day grind and intothe long-term planning that's
(00:47):
essential for sustainable growth.
Let's get into it.
Rob.
Tony, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for coming onboard and thanks for your time,
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Sam Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I do this to every guest just to put them on the
spot, and you can fight amongstyourselves as to who goes first
but spot and you can fightamongst yourselves as to who
goes first.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
But to invite you to tell us a little bit about
yourself, your background andwhere you're working now.
Okay, this is rob first.
I'll take the lead on this one,and yeah probably the last four
years is it somewhere aroundthere.
Tony and myself got together toform copper fox, looking at a
consultancy type operation wherewe're supporting businesses,
particularly those mid-rangebusinesses who often lack some
(01:34):
commercial.
Now You've quite often gotowners that are specialists in
everything but experts at not alot, and they've grown their
business very successfully to apoint where now they just need
some extra help.
But they don't necessarily needthat help full time, and that's
where we come into play, andquite often those businesses are
(01:56):
looking at quite a few changes.
They just don't know how tobring those into fruition.
So that's our space.
We quite enjoy problem solvingand dealing with challenges that
are in other people'sbusinesses hopefully not in ours
and yeah, it's kept us busy forthe last four years.
Prior to that, going back toprobably 1990, actually, I left
(02:18):
New Zealand and went to the UKand spent 17 years there working
, amongst other things, thebanking environment over there,
which was quite exciting andinteresting, and then had a
young family to come back to NewZealand sort of 2007, and did
CFO type roles for mid-sizebusinesses up until the point
(02:41):
where I decided to go out on myown and then joined up with Tony
.
So now over to Tony.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, so a similar story.
Actually, we were crossed overin the UK, although I was only
there for seven years, but yeah,so essentially for the last
four years almost four CopperFox has been running and our
target, as Rob says, is a sortof aspirational business owner
that wants some commercial cloutto help grow the business and
turn that sort of value dial,and that's something that we're
(03:07):
really passionate about workingwith business owners that want
that sort of expertise that wehave and that need in their
businesses.
And in that intervening period,in addition to doing CFO work,
I've run some large procurementprojects.
I was head of the Alton Ferryproject to replace the ferry
network in Auckland, so I'vedone some big transformational
projects as well.
(03:27):
And, yeah, back in 2010, I'd beabout to step out of the
conventional CFO career route tobe doing what I do, which I'm
passionate about or was sopassionate about doing.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
This ties in nicely to the broader theme that I've
been focusing on this month withstrategy execution and why
strategy often fails.
We've talked a little bit aboutthe reasons that execution dies
after the strategy has beenplanned.
We've also talked about whyit's not enough just to have a
strategy.
You guys, through your sharedexperience, have no doubt will
(04:01):
have seen many examples ofstrategy gone, strategy not gone
.
So well, From where you've comefrom, what do you find?
The most common reasons arethat a strategy paper, pack,
document, roadmap, call itwhatever it is, but why it fails
.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I guess the first one is that quite often it just
doesn't exist in paper.
It exists in the businessowner's mind and they're just
caught up in the day-to-daystuff of getting ahead and
paying their people and dealingwith clients and suppliers.
Often strategy is notdocumented, so you can't manage
towards an outcome if it's notdocumented.
That's probably the first point.
The second point is that whenit is done, it's often just done
(04:39):
at length.
Often it's sort of a 15, 20page document and it's done once
every three years or so and itjust sits in a top drawer.
So it's not shared, circulatedor refreshed.
And certainly in the environmentthat we're living in now, with
our disruption being rife aroundevery corner, strategy has to
be reviewed during the year, aswell as the business plan and
(05:01):
the financials, and we'll cometo that in time.
But essentially often it's notdocumented and if it is, it's
not refreshed.
The third problem is often it'snot shared.
To me, business by its verynature is quite small, with 97%
of the businesses in New Zealandemploying less than 20 people,
and those teams are small andoften the information is either
(05:21):
not shared with them or, evenwhen it is, there's not the
intellectual horsepower or thecapacity to actually do anything
.
That's on the strategy, rob.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, look, I think quite often strategies ask the
question what do we want to do?
But sometimes the failings ishow are we going to do that?
And that question is sometimesis not that?
That question is sometimes notanswered, and that really should
be the focus of the end of astrategy session, which is okay.
Now we want to do all thesethings.
(05:54):
How are we going to play playthat game, how are we going to
change things?
And, in in addition to that,who's going to do it?
So it's a, it's aligningresponsibilities to those that
can actually bring into playwhatever changes are needed to
fulfill those strategies thatthey're looking for, and they
could be five, 10 yearstrategies.
That's fine.
But quite often the failing iswhat are the small steps, what
(06:18):
are the next steps, even toactually get us on that journey?
Some of that is around whatTony was alluding to, which is
engagement, engagement of therest of the team.
So, sharing that foresight,that strategy, with the rest of
the team so that they can bejust as engaging in that pathway
that they're trying to follow.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, and something else that sort of disoccurs me
as well is that the strategy fora 25-year-old going into their
first business is different to asort of a 55-year-old who might
be buying into something with aperson to be quite different to
a younger person.
So that also comes into play aswell.
And just reiterating the pointis that the strategy is all
(07:10):
about the doing piece that hasto be done in order for the
business to achieve the rightsort of goals financial and
otherwise to support thebusiness owner's lifestyle
objectives.
And going back to Rob's point,often it's like a big, heavy
list of audacious goals ratherthan something that's built with
sort of the required diligenceand commercial rigor around it.
(07:33):
Because taking this in the SMEsector, these the exec teams you
only call them that in fact thewhole business for that matter.
They've got day jobs as well asthe sort of the business plan
project piece which is where thevalue is created, that whole
resource planning around peopleand money and time.
It's really misunderstood.
This is not thoroughly thoughtthrough at all.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, that's a big point actually because quite
often in these organisations youget excited about a strategy
day.
There's a lot of energy thatgoes into that day.
Then you come away and then youconfront it immediately the
next day or the next week orwhenever, with business as usual
and that gets in the way ofmaking any progress and that's
(08:17):
got to be factored into theaction plan and the list of
projects and the timeframes.
And, like Tony was saying, andthe list of projects and the
timeframes and, like Tony wassaying, the resource planning,
can it actually be done by thosethat are working currently in
the business or do you need tobring in extra resources to do
certain types of projects thatare going to make those changes
needed?
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And there's a good point.
The who piece ties into whatyou're just saying there as well
is can it be done internally ordo we need to bring anyone in?
It's not just who's going toown this or who's going to do
this.
It's a question in there thatneeds to be asked of do they
have the skills or do we havethe skills?
Neither, or to actually deliverthat.
And, to your point then, it's aquestion of do well, do we
(08:59):
train them, do we coach them onwhat they need, or do we poach
them and find them fromsomewhere else, whether it's a
full-time or a part-time role,correct, that's right.
Agree, people plays a big partin this, and july's focus on
this channel was really largelyaround people.
You raised a good point inthere, tony, about the size of
(09:20):
new zealand businesses 70 haveless than 20 owner-operators or
the owner happens to be in theexec seat.
How common do you think it isthat that owner just tries to
internalise their strategy anddoesn't actually seek outside
help, either from people in thecompany or from consultants like
yourself?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I think that's the default situation and then they
can do reasonably well,certainly for the first few
years that they're operating.
You've still got the energy andoften the age and the
enthusiasm to carry it through.
But going back to Rob's pointfrom a scouting point of view,
they had the wall when makingdecisions around.
Do I hire that next person inmy team?
Do I buy a new distributioncentre or map a, build one to
(10:03):
tap the whole stock?
Do I move into a newdistribution centre or build one
to hold stock?
Do I move into a new geography?
Do I move to a differentservice line?
These are really importantdecisions that can make or break
a business and that sits onbusiness as usual.
Then you get something likeCOVID hitting or an economic
downturn than we've got at themoment and all of a sudden
they're floundering and they'rechasing deteriorating commercial
(10:23):
results with plans.
So they're being reactive tosome quite confronting
commercial realities in theirbusiness rather than
front-footing it.
The advice would be and I'm notjust quoting yourself here, I'm
quoting anyone that's workingin the same space would be to
get that trusted businessadvisor on board early so that
you can anticipate these thingsand manage your way through them
(10:45):
.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yep, yep, I absolutely agree with that.
And yeah, business advice isnot all created equal, is it
it's?
You will find there will besome advisors whether it's
because of sector specific ordomain specific within that
sector that are going to be morevaluable than others is.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
yeah, yep.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Short answer yes but on things that we confront and I
don't want to be disrespectfulto our, to our colleagues of me
andtered Accounting Procedure,because there's some very good
commercial people within thatarea.
But often business owners lookto their Chartered Accountants
to fulfil that role.
But the reality is that whereasa commercial CFO is looking
(11:27):
forward, looking at drivingcommercial outcomes, looking at
KPIs, doing the wholeforward-looking piece, the
Chartered Accounting and publicpractice is reactive, statutory,
technical, compliance-focusedand they're not working in the
business on a day-to-day basis.
So whoever needs to befulfilling that role with a
business owner needs to beimmersed in it during the good
(11:49):
times and the bad.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
This just reminded me of a conversation we had
recently, tony, with thedifference between cost
management and cost reduction,which, again not tarring all
accountants with the same brush,but often when I've seen
accountants working, their focusis on that cost reduction,
trying to keep costs down as lowas possible.
It's a very different skill setto cost management, which is
(12:12):
more about that forecasting andplanning throughout the year as
to what you need.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
That's right.
You look at the Engines Islandscenario, where they were kind
of afraid and over during theCOVID times and it took them
quite some time to bounce backbecause they didn't have the
sort of economic or thefinancial sort of strength that
some of their competitors had Ithink you hear about Singapore
Air and such.
So those that had the rightsort of scale and financial
(12:38):
backing behind them turnedaround really quickly and
reinstated what they were andour national airline was really
floundering.
That is really around puttingmoney aside for a rainy day.
It's around having that moneyto invest in the right sort of
things and just having a veryclose eye on what's happening in
the economy the local economyand internationally to make sure
that the business is primed tobounce back at the right time.
(13:01):
So looking forward rather thanlooking back.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, yeah, any thoughts to add on to that as
well, rob?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, I suppose that even in difficult times, the
attitude has got to be as you'vegot to try and be as agile as
possible.
And you've got to try and be asagile as possible and you've
got to try and build that intothe way that you operate so that
, even if you do have to react,you can respond quickly to
dramatic changes in themarketplace.
And that's not always easy in asmall business with an owner
(13:32):
who has a fixed mindset.
That's why it's always good toget people that are invested in
the business but outside thebusiness and sharing their views
on how a business can betteroperate in those types of
environments.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You talked on mindset there and the joke for many
Kiwi business owners used to bethat the focus was on the batch,
the beamer, and the boat, thebeach house for anyone
international not familiar withthe term of a batch In your
experience.
Is that still true of NewZealand business owners or have
they evolved their thinking alittle bit more?
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I think they're focusing on getting that Tesla
in the garage these days, but Ithink there's a lot of business
owners that still are focused onthat, rather than
intergenerational wealth.
There's a topic in itselfaround succession planning and
we can touch on that anothertime, but I think the focus to
answer your question, ant, isreally around short-term and
(14:28):
satiating those short-termdesires, rather than what am I
going to do with the businessand who am I going to pass it to
, and do I want to lump some orsome sort of annuity amount out
of it?
Yeah, I don't think we'vereally moved on that much beyond
that, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
No, I think the fact that sort of 90% of New Zealand
businesses are SMEs and it'sprobably, I was going to say, a
way of life, but it's an incomethat they've sought and the
standard of living like you say,the batch and the beamer and
the boat that's a lifestyle thatthey aspire to and if they've
got it, then there's not a lot.
(15:03):
They're going to do extrabecause they've got themselves
into a pretty good mindset and,like I say, standard of living,
bringing up a family where theycan go on holidays and this and
that and the other thing.
Very few of them are looking totake a business from three to
five million to 25 million andbeyond and creating a legacy for
(15:28):
, potentially, their siblings orchildren to follow in their
footsteps.
There's not always a lot of that, so back to Tony's point.
Succession planning isn'treally something that I think
about too much.
Yeah, the average and scaledoes scale come into that?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
We're talking about a New Zealand perspective here,
Country of 5 million people, asyou said, 90% are small or
medium, 70% are under 20 FTE.
We just don't appreciate scalein the way that a European or an
American market would even tosome extent an Australian market
(16:06):
, that they're only five timesthe population.
But we're not appreciating thatscale and what potential could
be if we were planning boldly,are we?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Correct.
I think it's a very differentmindset and a lot of it, I think
, is just self-limiting beliefsand desire that sort of.
I think the tall poppy syndromecomes into it as well.
I think we as New Zealanderswe're a little bit embarrassed
about being too successful, yep,and there's the old sort of
knocking machine where peoplewall quite often on the way up
(16:35):
and even looking at some of oursuccess stories who have really
struggled with this, theyapplaud them and they get to
global recognition, globalstatus.
But on the way up it's reallyhard and I don't think in the
current environment that thebanking sector are as supportive
as what they could be, andthere's a lot of businesses that
are out there hurting andhaving to look to other family
(16:57):
money and innovative ways ofraising cash to just get them
through this period.
So I think there's a number ofthings that are working against
us.
But essentially, yes, it's veryhard to grow a successful
business in New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Which then leads to if you really want to hit that
scale, your strategy should belooking broader than just New
Zealand, shouldn't it?
It should be who else?
What I'm selling and I'm goingto come back to a service-based
economy in a minute but what I'mselling, creating, delivering
to truly get that grossPotentially and we saw this with
Rocket Labs, with Xero, there'sa couple of other Kiwi success
(17:34):
stories that fit the same, butBoj as well but potentially
you've got to be looking beyondour border.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Well, what do you do?
And of course those are allsuccessful stories that have
done that, but it's obviouslybeen a very hard route to
achieve it.
Yeah, I mean, I guess, for I'minto the mix of all this,
certainly when you're movingproduct around the world.
The thrown into the mix of allthe certainly moving product
around the world is theglobalisation trend that we've
had for the last 30 odd years,where there's a commercial hedge
which is achieved by havingdifferent customers in different
(18:01):
geographies.
When COVID came in and toiletpaper ran out in the Auckland
region, it became abundantlyclear that there's risk around
there.
There's, I think.
Basically, the answer toglobalisation is that it's still
important as sort of themulti-gay that's worth the
kindings of scale in yourbusiness, but it has to be done
(18:24):
in a more of a balanced way.
So you're focusing on not onlythe far reaches of the globe and
maybe product, but also whatyou can do to cut the
intermediaries out of thatsupply chain.
So what you can do is to cutthe intermediaries out of that
supply chain, for instance, workmore efficiently and to have
some sort of resilience from theisland if one particular
channel causes it to break down.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, yeah, rob, what's your take on it?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, look, I agree, I think the New Zealand market
is a small market and so ifyou've got ambitions to grow the
(19:11):
business then definitely haveto look offshore.
Now the natural first port ofcall is Australia, because it's
so close.
So log there globally would beattractive to the types of
products that you're selling.
Then it's a case of how do youdo that?
Do you take the punt and youset up a business within those
locations, and in Australia itmight be across the various big
cities.
Likewise, in Europe it could bea number of locations in
(19:35):
specific countries.
But what do you do?
Grant offices what do you do?
Yeah, what do you do that?
What do you?
Engage in joint ventures withpeople that have maybe a network
within those countries, andthat's an easier way to tap into
the end user.
There's different ways ofsetting things up at the start,
but I think there are definitelysolutions for medium-sized
(19:58):
businesses in New Zealand thathave a product or a service that
is attractive to a foreignmarket.
There are ways, there are smartways of getting that into those
markets and then graduallyestablishing yourself in those
countries and then graduallyestablishing yourself in those
countries.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yep and this comes back to that advisory piece as
well that we talked about beforeof horses for courses with the
advisors, where Australia is nottoo dissimilar from a
regulatory perspective with NewZealand.
Obviously it's got somedifferences, but if you were
trying to get into America,there's 50 different states and
then there's the federaljurisdiction.
You've got an entire body ofred tape for want of a better
(20:40):
word to jump through.
If that's your vision andthat's your strategy, then part
of your roadmap needs to be wewill bring in an advisor who has
experience in offshore and intoAmerica.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
That's right.
Yes, you certainly need thatexpertise in your business, but
of there is a cost to servicethose opportunities before you
even get to the yes, no decision.
So you need to be realisticabout I know there's models out
there that price up the workingin different jurisdictions, but
you need to be very mindful.
It's not New Zealand cut andpaste.
(21:10):
It is different.
And if you say this in the caseof Australia and the US, you've
got federal laws and thenyou've got you've got the states
as well, which have differentcertain laws as well around
health and safety and employmentand such things.
So you really need to be wellinformed and have that money put
aside, because it's not toonecessarily and there's no
(21:30):
guarantee for success either.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, and it's a good point in there that there's no
guarantee for success either.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, and it's a good point in there that there's no
guarantee of success.
And even before you go downthat path of bringing the
advisor in, who's got the scale,you've got competitive lens,
competitive analysis, you've gotto be looking at the customer
need and all of that.
So it's a multi-pronged attackto go from we're selling out of
our Auckland office to we havean American office and we're
(21:55):
scaling because the competitivemarket might be very different
over there.
That's right.
So I mentioned this before andI'm going to come back to it
Service-based economy.
In your view, has New Zealandevolved too much into being a
service-based economy ratherthan a creation-based economy,
(22:16):
and does that limit thepotential for what our growth
could be as well?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Look, we've moved away from, yeah, the furniture
question.
If you're saying that thepeople taking our IP or our
product and manufacturing it orbuilding on it and creating
value and there surviving thatvalue further up the chain, as
you question, is that happening?
Yes, it's happening.
I look back to New Zealand, myearly 20s, going up in the 90s,
(22:48):
and we still had a lot ofexpertise on shore and we built
things and we manufacturedthings and as such, but yes,
we've handled all that away.
So our economy is aninput-dependent economy.
Yes, of course there are someamazing export stories out there
and of course, swankeria is astory in its own right, but yes,
(23:10):
we are, I think, handling a lotof our expertise at the VATI
chain and others are derivingVATI from it.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Rob anything to add to that?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
We're a country where we've struggled to create new
products ourselves.
Manufacturing is definitely nota strength, even though I know
a few organisations that aredoing very well in that space.
We tend to import more than weexport outside of the dairy or
(23:40):
the farming sectors or theprimary sectors.
I should say that kind of tellsyou that we're reliant on other
people creating stuff that wecan then buy and then use
ourselves either in business orin life, just to move on.
Does that create?
And we don't seem to have anappetite really to be that
(24:01):
creative.
Yes, we do see these hubs whereyou've got software that's been
and that's probably one of thestrength areas software that's
been created by young guys andso I know science is another one
.
Yeah, they're small sectors,they're not really mainstream
(24:22):
and it just yeah, I suppose.
From a New Zealand point ofview, we don't appear to have
the incentives and theattractiveness to be giving
people the opportunity to getout there and make stuff that
isn't available anywhere else.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah, I think the current government and this is
not a political comment, this isjust an observation they are
trying to do things aroundreducing the cost of compliance,
reduce the barriers foroverseas investment, for visas.
There's new innovation hubs inthe science, founding the new
ground research entity that'sjust been formed.
These are all good things, butwe're getting back to the
earlier point.
(24:59):
We've really lost our way inthe world, I think, since the
late 1980s, early 1990s, andit's a big problem to fix, and
successive governments not justthe national government here,
I'm talking about successivegovernments have just turned a
blind eye to this, and sothere's a big gap to fill, and
really there needs to be somesort of cross-party agreement on
(25:20):
the sort of investmentpriorities for New Zealand to
get us back into where we shouldbe as a first world country,
because we're lagging so farbehind.
If we have a change ofgovernment next time around,
with the Labour coalition comingback in, there's not going to
be the same focus necessarily.
So yeah, that is a concern.
We're three steps forward, twoback, and that seems to be the
feel out in the real economy too, with the business owners that
(25:42):
we speak to.
It's getting easier, but it'snot easy.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
It's a big catch-up too to achieve, yeah, and I'd
say we could spend a whole otherhour on the political side of
things, but I'd say that we'reright.
We've moved from a can-donumber-eight-wide she'll be
right mindset to more of a fixedmindset.
So we've gone from a growthmindset ultimately to a fixed
(26:08):
mindset of change, and that'sinhibiting a lot of the
businesses that I'm comingacross as well is they're
looking at it as a there's acost associated with this and I
can't afford that right now,rather than actually the
opportunity of doing this whileit's going to cost now is
exponentially greater.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
And that's a good point.
The business planning piecesits under the strategy which
Rob and I, as experts, arearound that whole resource
planning and prioritization.
It's all about that.
It's around recognizing thatthere's a cost of doing
something but there's anopportunity cost of not doing
something.
And certainly those businessesif there's 10 in a sector and
five are struggling, lots offive that aren't struggling that
(26:44):
will be gaining market share bytaking that risk and spending
the money, although the economyprobably doesn't support it at
the moment.
So what are we seeing at themoment?
We're seeing big corporates inthe government starting to spend
money, including in theregional government side of the
economy.
It's starting to filter down.
So those means that they cansee the opportunity that are out
(27:06):
there spending money investingon IT infrastructure or building
IP in their own business,whatever it might be.
Those are the ones that aregoing to succeed and thrive over
the next three to five years.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yep, yep.
Three to five years, yep, yep.
You touch on IT there, andthere's an interesting paradigm
shift that's come through in thelast five years or so.
It is accelerating, there's aswing back, and what I'm meaning
here is the shift to more of acloud-based operating model.
So if we pick on the MSPs, themanaged service partners, who
tend to operate in the middlebetween a technology provider
(27:39):
and a customer, once upon a timethey had their margin.
They sold hardware, they soldservers, they made margin on
those servers and that was abusiness model for them, as
their client base has moved awayfrom being infrastructure-led
and is more cloud-led.
We're moving to Microsoft 365,we're moving to Google Workspace
(27:59):
.
The cost has changed from theserver purchase, installation,
support, maintenance to justlicensing, managing the
throughput of licensing andthat's hit their margin, and so
they're needing to evolve aswell, and I guess we come back
to what we talked about with the.
We don't know what's around thecorner, but for some of those
(28:20):
companies they could have beenplanning for the.
What if our customers stopbuying hardware from us?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yeah, I agree.
It's the sort of thing thatthere's some things that, in
terms of a risk matrix or theimpact from likelihood, the sort
of the risk mapping, some ofthese things, really should have
been on there and should havebeen like right up there as part
of the advisory or statutoryboard review on a monthly basis,
ensuring that there's a gameplan.
Not just we'll deal with it.
It becomes a problem, butactually this has happened and
(28:47):
it's triggered this sort ofoutcome.
Therefore, this is the planthat we agreed on and we're
going to do.
That's the sort of thing.
That's how that really needs tobe done across all business,
not just the big guys.
Of course, there's always goingto be things from the business
risk that they do around stepchanges and global events such
as COVID, that nobody could haveanticipated the severity of
(29:08):
that or the duration of it.
There's some things that youcan't plan around.
The things that you weretalking about you can plan
around and there should be anaction plan attached to each of
those risks An open question foryou both here In your
experience, how good are NewZealand business owners at
having risk matrices andmanaging risk?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Look, I think the owners in their heads are aware
of the risks associated most ofthe risks associated with their
business.
Do they formalize that?
Are they disciplined aroundmanaging those risks or identify
them or monitoring them?
No, my experience is they'rereactive as opposed to proactive
.
They'll deal with somethinglike okay, health and safety now
(29:54):
is at the forefront becausedirectors themselves were
personally liable.
I've definitely seen ownerspick up the baton there and be
more proactive and engaging andbring those types of standards
up to where they need to be.
There's probably an overkill onthose standards in some areas,
but they've still got thatdirector liability associated
(30:15):
with not doing stuff or havingpeople hurt because they haven't
got the right standards in playwhere they operate from.
But even outside of thatfinancial risks, market risks,
internal, external, evenresource risks they don't
necessarily look at that.
Even risks associated with themas the owner, there's not a lot
(30:37):
that.
Look at what happens if I gethit by a bus, what happens to
the business and with SMEs,owners think they're bulletproof
.
So, yeah, I think there's alack of engagement in that space
and that puts businesses atrisk.
And when we've got a downturnin the economy and the risks
(31:00):
associated with their business.
It's often too late before theyreact to those, and we're now
starting to see a governmentdepartment and the IRD starting
to put the boot in for certainorganizations that owe their
money and going we're going tocut our losses and we're going
to put these guys intoliquidation because we can't see
them paying this back and wedon't want them to owe us any
(31:23):
more than what they do now.
Yep.
So there's those types ofsituations that they aren't
foreseen, they aren't eventhought about quite often by
these smaller organisations,even some big ones, and I think
that's a weakness in businessgenerally across new zealand
yeah, no, I definitely comeacross the same thing and you're
(31:45):
right about the personnel riskthat that isn't well it managed,
or even managed it wellvisualized.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
For many of them and I even think back, to draw back
to your point, tony, earlier,about a 25 year old's strategy
is going to be vastly differentto a 55-year-old's strategy, and
it's not just from wherethey're trying to get to with
their business, but there's atime of life piece.
So if you're trying to startyour business up and you're 25,
you've still got other lifemilestones that will come
(32:13):
through and cause disruptionmarriage, house kids maybe they
might not be on your strategy.
That's entirely up to you.
House kids maybe they might notbe on your strategy.
That's entirely up to youVersus that 55-year-old who.
All of that's behind them, andthey've got a different outlook
on not just even an outlook, butthey've got a different road in
front of them as to what'sgoing to come up and disrupt
them.
Correct?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
So let's come back to execution.
We've covered a lot here, goneover some interesting ground,
but have let's come back toexecution.
We've covered a lot here, goneover some interesting ground,
but have you got any examplesfrom either of you where
companies you've worked withhave had that clear focus on
execution?
The strategy's been done,they've had the offsite, they've
eaten all the mints and thelollipops, indeed, but they've
actually come back with a properplan and they've executed.
(32:55):
Have you seen this done?
Well, you don't need to namethe companies.
Broad examples will be fine.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
A recent example this year a company I've been
involved with for probably fiveor six years now.
We had a strategy sessionearlier in the year and it was
focused on what do you want thecompany to look like in five
years' time, if not 10 years'time, and and that was fine.
(33:21):
So it was a little bit pie inthe sky, but but there was.
There was certainly some good,good stuff to come out of that,
but the important thing thatcome from that was half half the
session was around right, how,what do we have to do, how do we
do it and who's going to do it?
Around getting creating thatpathway and taking small steps
(33:45):
and then gradually buildingmomentum towards that ultimate
goal.
And we're four months down thetrack.
They deliberately picked threerelatively achievable projects
to kickstart it.
One of them included engagingthe rest of the staff.
(34:05):
They employ about 30, 35 peopleacross a few locations and so
they're bringing in, they'rechanging the culture somewhat
and showing both visually andthrough actions that they're
serious about making the changes.
So it's not just the seniormanagement team, they're getting
all people involved in thatpathway and in some of these
(34:30):
smaller projects.
So I think, in that case atleast, we're not five years down
the track, we're only sixmonths, but they're definitely
shown positive signs atexecuting on some principles
that come out of the strategythat will help them get to where
they want to be Nice.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Nice.
Thank you, tony, anything you'dwant to add or any other
thoughts?
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Yeah, without knowing the agency, I did a large piece
of work.
I was a business plan for avery large government agency it
was a household name and theirproject piece was around $100
million that they had to spendon internal OPEX projects and my
role was working betweenfinance and procurement and the
planning function aroundassessing the criteria,
(35:18):
determining the criteria,applying the criteria to all the
projects, and then you knowwhat was above the line, what
was below the line.
So above the line is yes, greenlight.
Below the line is orange or red.
We're not going to do this andanyway, use this prioritisation
software called 1000 Minds whichI think the World Health
Foundation and some of thelargest hospitals using New
Zealand collect the sort of theviews of you for the executive
(35:41):
team and key clients andsuppliers and staff and everyone
has a sort of view which isharmonized, and then you end up
with a green light of what'sgoing to be done and what's not
going to be done to spend that$100 million.
Of course, the lesson from thatis the more people you consult
although in best practice that'sthe right thing to do the
harder it actually gets to be toland on consensus and actually
(36:01):
get the green light on what youare actually going to do and in
this particular case, the CEOjust had enough said oh bugger,
this, this is what we're goingto do.
We have these six projects andthat's how we're going to spend
the money.
Going through this process Iguess it was a very robust
process.
In the case of this agency, itdidn't guarantee success, even
though they had a lot of managedspend, that we had project
(36:22):
teams and everything else.
It just essentially came downto the CEO's private wish list
and there you go.
That's the way I thinksometimes.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Executive warrant I think we used to call that when
I worked at the bank.
Executive warrant who calls theshots gets to call what the
shots actually are sometimes.
Yeah, so, just as we start towrap up, what advice have you
both got for those businessowners who are struggling to
embed that culture of executionand struggling to go from
(36:54):
strategy, from the whiteboard,to actually delivering on that?
Have you got any advice or anyframeworks that you'd recommend
they follow?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
My sort of advice, I guess, is an obvious one that I
mentioned earlier on, which isessentially you can't do
everything as a business owner.
You've got so many demands inyour personal and professional
life and you're getting pulledin every which direction.
Yeah, so build the sort of team, the integral team, as far as
you can with what you can afford, but do get that trusted
(37:23):
business advisor on board tohelp you separate the weak from
the chair and help provide thatthinking.
And that can be just anindividual or it can be a fuller
advisory board.
The roles of a consultant slashdoer in your business is
different to a coach, differentto an advisory board.
Just find somebody you cantrust to give you some direction
(37:45):
on there, and that might beyour accountant, your private
practice accountant, it might beyour banker or your lawyer.
But get that sort of experienceon board and build that
relationship with that personand it's sort of a deep
partnership and that's rightthroughout the last cycle of
your business.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah, and I think added to that is, if you go back
to your strategy, depending onwhat you're wanting to do,
you've got to get the numbersright and realistic around what
it's going to cost to make thesethings happen and quite often
you've got to.
The cost will be bringing inthe experts when you need them
(38:21):
to come in, because you justdon't have that knowledge or
expertise within the business,or you don't have the bandwidth,
or your staff don't have thebandwidth.
They might have the knowledge,but you've just got no capacity
to be able to move forward.
So I think that's important.
They've got to be realisticabout what day-to-day
(38:41):
commitments consume yourinternal resources versus what
you're trying to achieve.
And yes, they might be able toto to push through a project,
but they might have to be takenoff what they're doing on a
day-to-day basis, and that meansmaybe looking at backfilling
certain individuals.
The other key thing is, as youbreak down the strategy into
(39:05):
various action points, each oneof those has to have an owner.
They have to be internalbecause they have to have skin
in the game, and that doesn'tmean that they have to do the
doing, but they're responsiblefor what actually takes place,
including how much it costs toget from start to finish.
(39:25):
So little things like that willhelp.
But I think there's got to be areality that if there's quite a
bit of change that's to be made, it's pretty much likely that
you're going to have to bring inexternal resources to make
things happen.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
One of the things that's occurred to me as well,
which is in relation to a workI've done with quite a large
client recently where they weregoing through a refinance
process, which is, in their case, having to monitor cash flow
really closely on a day-to-daybasis and there's someone
sitting over that because thingsreally were that critical and
it's important to maintain threeviews of your cash flow your
(40:03):
day-to-day most likely scenario,when your client's most likely
to pay you.
When do you have to meet yourpayroll?
When you're most likely to payyour suppliers.
But also, on either side ofthat, doing that best.
And in that worst scenario andcertainly in the current climate
where there's been, I guess,quite a low degree of confidence
in the economy, that's thatworst scenario that might be 70%
(40:24):
of your most likely Be able totrade your way through that
timeline and be quite clear onwhat your business model is at
that, so you can sustain yourbusiness.
Actually saying, if it is atworst, this is what we're going
to have to do.
We're going to have to reduceour headcount by this.
We're going to have to deferthis capital.
We're going to have to put oursupplier terms.
We're going to have torenegotiate our customer terms
(40:45):
that are paying us earlier.
What does that look like?
And just following on fromthere, not having a short-term
focus which is what Rob wasrelating to as well, having a
sort of that long-term focus, ifyou're going to go to your bank
or to your equity partner andsay, look, we need some more
money, things are tight Don'tlook at the projection through
the end of the current year andsee for financial year 31 March
(41:08):
and say this is what we need todo at worst scenario in order to
transfer it to there.
Where's the money going to comefrom?
What additional investment canwe do?
What can we get from the bank?
What can we get from the secondtier lender?
Actually have that sort of inplace so that you know what
you're going to do in order toget through those difficult
times.
Nice, in place so that you knowwhat you're going to do in
order to get through thosedifficult turns.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Nice, great tips there, guys.
Thank you for that Finalthought, easiest question of the
day.
If people want to find out moreabout you both or about Copper
Fox, where do they go?
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Well, we've got websites.
We wouldn't be veryprofessional without one.
So that is wwwcopperfoxorg.
We've got our contact detailsthere, rob and I, robeskin at
copperfoxorg, tonyrutherford atcopperfoxorg.
Our mobile numbers are on thewebsite and there's an 0800
number too, if you want to gethold of this.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Nice Thanks to both there.
Any final thoughts from eitherof you, Rob or Tony?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
or Bo.
Look, it was enjoyable chattingabout this sort of stuff.
This is what we do.
I wouldn't say every day, butwe get involved in the sort of
conversion from strategy toaction plans all the time.
It's stuff we enjoy becauseit's you get involved in owners
who are energized, they want tomake some changes.
They've got, in some cases,high ambitions and it's nice to
(42:22):
be able to convert that intoreality through simplification
of that strategy and workingwith them and helping them just
make things happen.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yeah, I agree with that.
I coined the term which I hadrecently with a fellow colleague
.
It's around deep partnership.
That's something that Rob and Ireally believe in.
It's tied into our sort ofcopper fox values, which are
also on the website too, but welike to be there through the
good times and the bad.
Now, the reality is thatprobably 80% of our clients come
to us when they're in some formof distress.
It doesn't just have to bethere.
(42:55):
If you're aspirationally minded, you've got a little bit of
cash and you want someone totalk to on a short-term basis, a
few hours a week, we canaccommodate there.
So we'd like to be there forbusinesses that are aspirational
and that just want to be guidedalong the way, not to those
that are struggling and needsome last minute help.
It's good for us to be in earlyand be in for the long term,
(43:18):
nice.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Thank you for that, both of you, and thanks for your
time today.
I really appreciate it, tonyand Rob.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Yeah, thanks, anthony , that's been great.
Thanks, aaron.
Today we're getting into the strategic challenges
facing Kiwi businesses,particularly those in the messy
middle, that space betweenhaving a great idea and actually
getting value from it.
I'm joined by Rob Erskine andTony Rutherford, the founders of
Copper Fox, a consultancy thatspecialises in helping mid-range
New Zealand businesses gettheir strategic planning sorted.
Rob and Tony bring decades ofexperience to the table, and
(00:26):
they'll be talking about why somany business strategies fail,
from the plans that only existin the owner's head to the ones
that are written down but neverlooked at again.
We'll also be touching onshifts in the New Zealand
economy and what that means foryour business, especially if
you're looking to scale beyondour shores.
It's a straight-talkingconversation about moving beyond
the day-to-day grind and intothe long-term planning that's
(00:47):
essential for sustainable growth.
Let's get into it.
Rob.
Tony, welcome to the show.
Thanks so much for coming onboard and thanks for your time,
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (00:55):
Sam Great to be here.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
I do this to every guest just to put them on the
spot, and you can fight amongstyourselves as to who goes first
but spot and you can fightamongst yourselves as to who
goes first.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
But to invite you to tell us a little bit about
yourself, your background andwhere you're working now.
Okay, this is rob first.
I'll take the lead on this one,and yeah probably the last four
years is it somewhere aroundthere.
Tony and myself got together toform copper fox, looking at a
consultancy type operation wherewe're supporting businesses,
particularly those mid-rangebusinesses who often lack some
(01:34):
commercial.
Now You've quite often gotowners that are specialists in
everything but experts at not alot, and they've grown their
business very successfully to apoint where now they just need
some extra help.
But they don't necessarily needthat help full time, and that's
where we come into play, andquite often those businesses are
(01:56):
looking at quite a few changes.
They just don't know how tobring those into fruition.
So that's our space.
We quite enjoy problem solvingand dealing with challenges that
are in other people'sbusinesses hopefully not in ours
and yeah, it's kept us busy forthe last four years.
Prior to that, going back toprobably 1990, actually, I left
(02:18):
New Zealand and went to the UKand spent 17 years there working
, amongst other things, thebanking environment over there,
which was quite exciting andinteresting, and then had a
young family to come back to NewZealand sort of 2007, and did
CFO type roles for mid-sizebusinesses up until the point
(02:41):
where I decided to go out on myown and then joined up with Tony
.
So now over to Tony.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Yeah, so a similar story.
Actually, we were crossed overin the UK, although I was only
there for seven years, but yeah,so essentially for the last
four years almost four CopperFox has been running and our
target, as Rob says, is a sortof aspirational business owner
that wants some commercial cloutto help grow the business and
turn that sort of value dial,and that's something that we're
(03:07):
really passionate about workingwith business owners that want
that sort of expertise that wehave and that need in their
businesses.
And in that intervening period,in addition to doing CFO work,
I've run some large procurementprojects.
I was head of the Alton Ferryproject to replace the ferry
network in Auckland, so I'vedone some big transformational
projects as well.
(03:27):
And, yeah, back in 2010, I'd beabout to step out of the
conventional CFO career route tobe doing what I do, which I'm
passionate about or was sopassionate about doing.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
This ties in nicely to the broader theme that I've
been focusing on this month withstrategy execution and why
strategy often fails.
We've talked a little bit aboutthe reasons that execution dies
after the strategy has beenplanned.
We've also talked about whyit's not enough just to have a
strategy.
You guys, through your sharedexperience, have no doubt will
(04:01):
have seen many examples ofstrategy gone, strategy not gone
.
So well, From where you've comefrom, what do you find?
The most common reasons arethat a strategy paper, pack,
document, roadmap, call itwhatever it is, but why it fails
.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
I guess the first one is that quite often it just
doesn't exist in paper.
It exists in the businessowner's mind and they're just
caught up in the day-to-daystuff of getting ahead and
paying their people and dealingwith clients and suppliers.
Often strategy is notdocumented, so you can't manage
towards an outcome if it's notdocumented.
That's probably the first point.
The second point is that whenit is done, it's often just done
(04:39):
at length.
Often it's sort of a 15, 20page document and it's done once
every three years or so and itjust sits in a top drawer.
So it's not shared, circulatedor refreshed.
And certainly in the environmentthat we're living in now, with
our disruption being rife aroundevery corner, strategy has to
be reviewed during the year, aswell as the business plan and
(05:01):
the financials, and we'll cometo that in time.
But essentially often it's notdocumented and if it is, it's
not refreshed.
The third problem is often it'snot shared.
To me, business by its verynature is quite small, with 97%
of the businesses in New Zealandemploying less than 20 people,
and those teams are small andoften the information is either
(05:21):
not shared with them or, evenwhen it is, there's not the
intellectual horsepower or thecapacity to actually do anything
.
That's on the strategy, rob.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Yeah, look, I think quite often strategies ask the
question what do we want to do?
But sometimes the failings ishow are we going to do that?
And that question is sometimesis not that?
That question is sometimes notanswered, and that really should
be the focus of the end of astrategy session, which is okay.
Now we want to do all thesethings.
(05:54):
How are we going to play playthat game, how are we going to
change things?
And, in in addition to that,who's going to do it?
So it's a, it's aligningresponsibilities to those that
can actually bring into playwhatever changes are needed to
fulfill those strategies thatthey're looking for, and they
could be five, 10 yearstrategies.
That's fine.
But quite often the failing iswhat are the small steps, what
(06:18):
are the next steps, even toactually get us on that journey?
Some of that is around whatTony was alluding to, which is
engagement, engagement of therest of the team.
So, sharing that foresight,that strategy, with the rest of
the team so that they can bejust as engaging in that pathway
that they're trying to follow.
Speaker 3 (06:39):
Yeah, and something else that sort of disoccurs me
as well is that the strategy fora 25-year-old going into their
first business is different to asort of a 55-year-old who might
be buying into something with aperson to be quite different to
a younger person.
So that also comes into play aswell.
And just reiterating the pointis that the strategy is all
(07:10):
about the doing piece that hasto be done in order for the
business to achieve the rightsort of goals financial and
otherwise to support thebusiness owner's lifestyle
objectives.
And going back to Rob's point,often it's like a big, heavy
list of audacious goals ratherthan something that's built with
sort of the required diligenceand commercial rigor around it.
(07:33):
Because taking this in the SMEsector, these the exec teams you
only call them that in fact thewhole business for that matter.
They've got day jobs as well asthe sort of the business plan
project piece which is where thevalue is created, that whole
resource planning around peopleand money and time.
It's really misunderstood.
This is not thoroughly thoughtthrough at all.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Yeah, that's a big point actually because quite
often in these organisations youget excited about a strategy
day.
There's a lot of energy thatgoes into that day.
Then you come away and then youconfront it immediately the
next day or the next week orwhenever, with business as usual
and that gets in the way ofmaking any progress and that's
(08:17):
got to be factored into theaction plan and the list of
projects and the timeframes.
And, like Tony was saying, andthe list of projects and the
timeframes and, like Tony wassaying, the resource planning,
can it actually be done by thosethat are working currently in
the business or do you need tobring in extra resources to do
certain types of projects thatare going to make those changes
needed?
Speaker 1 (08:38):
And there's a good point.
The who piece ties into whatyou're just saying there as well
is can it be done internally ordo we need to bring anyone in?
It's not just who's going toown this or who's going to do
this.
It's a question in there thatneeds to be asked of do they
have the skills or do we havethe skills?
Neither, or to actually deliverthat.
And, to your point then, it's aquestion of do well, do we
(08:59):
train them, do we coach them onwhat they need, or do we poach
them and find them fromsomewhere else, whether it's a
full-time or a part-time role,correct, that's right.
Agree, people plays a big partin this, and july's focus on
this channel was really largelyaround people.
You raised a good point inthere, tony, about the size of
(09:20):
new zealand businesses 70 haveless than 20 owner-operators or
the owner happens to be in theexec seat.
How common do you think it isthat that owner just tries to
internalise their strategy anddoesn't actually seek outside
help, either from people in thecompany or from consultants like
yourself?
Speaker 3 (09:40):
I think that's the default situation and then they
can do reasonably well,certainly for the first few
years that they're operating.
You've still got the energy andoften the age and the
enthusiasm to carry it through.
But going back to Rob's pointfrom a scouting point of view,
they had the wall when makingdecisions around.
Do I hire that next person inmy team?
Do I buy a new distributioncentre or map a, build one to
(10:03):
tap the whole stock?
Do I move into a newdistribution centre or build one
to hold stock?
Do I move into a new geography?
Do I move to a differentservice line?
These are really importantdecisions that can make or break
a business and that sits onbusiness as usual.
Then you get something likeCOVID hitting or an economic
downturn than we've got at themoment and all of a sudden
they're floundering and they'rechasing deteriorating commercial
(10:23):
results with plans.
So they're being reactive tosome quite confronting
commercial realities in theirbusiness rather than
front-footing it.
The advice would be and I'm notjust quoting yourself here, I'm
quoting anyone that's workingin the same space would be to
get that trusted businessadvisor on board early so that
you can anticipate these thingsand manage your way through them
(10:45):
.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
Yep, yep, I absolutely agree with that.
And yeah, business advice isnot all created equal, is it
it's?
You will find there will besome advisors whether it's
because of sector specific ordomain specific within that
sector that are going to be morevaluable than others is.
Would you agree with that?
Speaker 2 (11:04):
yeah, yep.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Short answer yes but on things that we confront and I
don't want to be disrespectfulto our, to our colleagues of me
andtered Accounting Procedure,because there's some very good
commercial people within thatarea.
But often business owners lookto their Chartered Accountants
to fulfil that role.
But the reality is that whereasa commercial CFO is looking
(11:27):
forward, looking at drivingcommercial outcomes, looking at
KPIs, doing the wholeforward-looking piece, the
Chartered Accounting and publicpractice is reactive, statutory,
technical, compliance-focusedand they're not working in the
business on a day-to-day basis.
So whoever needs to befulfilling that role with a
business owner needs to beimmersed in it during the good
(11:49):
times and the bad.
Speaker 1 (11:50):
This just reminded me of a conversation we had
recently, tony, with thedifference between cost
management and cost reduction,which, again not tarring all
accountants with the same brush,but often when I've seen
accountants working, their focusis on that cost reduction,
trying to keep costs down as lowas possible.
It's a very different skill setto cost management, which is
(12:12):
more about that forecasting andplanning throughout the year as
to what you need.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
That's right.
You look at the Engines Islandscenario, where they were kind
of afraid and over during theCOVID times and it took them
quite some time to bounce backbecause they didn't have the
sort of economic or thefinancial sort of strength that
some of their competitors had Ithink you hear about Singapore
Air and such.
So those that had the rightsort of scale and financial
(12:38):
backing behind them turnedaround really quickly and
reinstated what they were andour national airline was really
floundering.
That is really around puttingmoney aside for a rainy day.
It's around having that moneyto invest in the right sort of
things and just having a veryclose eye on what's happening in
the economy the local economyand internationally to make sure
that the business is primed tobounce back at the right time.
(13:01):
So looking forward rather thanlooking back.
Speaker 1 (13:05):
Yeah, yeah, any thoughts to add on to that as
well, rob?
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Yeah, I suppose that even in difficult times, the
attitude has got to be as you'vegot to try and be as agile as
possible.
And you've got to try and be asagile as possible and you've
got to try and build that intothe way that you operate so that
, even if you do have to react,you can respond quickly to
dramatic changes in themarketplace.
And that's not always easy in asmall business with an owner
(13:32):
who has a fixed mindset.
That's why it's always good toget people that are invested in
the business but outside thebusiness and sharing their views
on how a business can betteroperate in those types of
environments.
Speaker 1 (13:47):
You talked on mindset there and the joke for many
Kiwi business owners used to bethat the focus was on the batch,
the beamer, and the boat, thebeach house for anyone
international not familiar withthe term of a batch In your
experience.
Is that still true of NewZealand business owners or have
they evolved their thinking alittle bit more?
Speaker 3 (14:06):
I think they're focusing on getting that Tesla
in the garage these days, but Ithink there's a lot of business
owners that still are focused onthat, rather than
intergenerational wealth.
There's a topic in itselfaround succession planning and
we can touch on that anothertime, but I think the focus to
answer your question, ant, isreally around short-term and
(14:28):
satiating those short-termdesires, rather than what am I
going to do with the businessand who am I going to pass it to
, and do I want to lump some orsome sort of annuity amount out
of it?
Yeah, I don't think we'vereally moved on that much beyond
that, to be honest.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
No, I think the fact that sort of 90% of New Zealand
businesses are SMEs and it'sprobably, I was going to say, a
way of life, but it's an incomethat they've sought and the
standard of living like you say,the batch and the beamer and
the boat that's a lifestyle thatthey aspire to and if they've
got it, then there's not a lot.
(15:03):
They're going to do extrabecause they've got themselves
into a pretty good mindset and,like I say, standard of living,
bringing up a family where theycan go on holidays and this and
that and the other thing.
Very few of them are looking totake a business from three to
five million to 25 million andbeyond and creating a legacy for
(15:28):
, potentially, their siblings orchildren to follow in their
footsteps.
There's not always a lot of that, so back to Tony's point.
Succession planning isn'treally something that I think
about too much.
Yeah, the average and scaledoes scale come into that?
Speaker 1 (15:44):
We're talking about a New Zealand perspective here,
Country of 5 million people, asyou said, 90% are small or
medium, 70% are under 20 FTE.
We just don't appreciate scalein the way that a European or an
American market would even tosome extent an Australian market
(16:06):
, that they're only five timesthe population.
But we're not appreciating thatscale and what potential could
be if we were planning boldly,are we?
Speaker 3 (16:14):
Correct.
I think it's a very differentmindset and a lot of it, I think
, is just self-limiting beliefsand desire that sort of.
I think the tall poppy syndromecomes into it as well.
I think we as New Zealanderswe're a little bit embarrassed
about being too successful, yep,and there's the old sort of
knocking machine where peoplewall quite often on the way up
(16:35):
and even looking at some of oursuccess stories who have really
struggled with this, theyapplaud them and they get to
global recognition, globalstatus.
But on the way up it's reallyhard and I don't think in the
current environment that thebanking sector are as supportive
as what they could be, andthere's a lot of businesses that
are out there hurting andhaving to look to other family
(16:57):
money and innovative ways ofraising cash to just get them
through this period.
So I think there's a number ofthings that are working against
us.
But essentially, yes, it's veryhard to grow a successful
business in New Zealand.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
Which then leads to if you really want to hit that
scale, your strategy should belooking broader than just New
Zealand, shouldn't it?
It should be who else?
What I'm selling and I'm goingto come back to a service-based
economy in a minute but what I'mselling, creating, delivering
to truly get that grossPotentially and we saw this with
Rocket Labs, with Xero, there'sa couple of other Kiwi success
(17:34):
stories that fit the same, butBoj as well but potentially
you've got to be looking beyondour border.
Speaker 3 (17:41):
Well, what do you do?
And of course those are allsuccessful stories that have
done that, but it's obviouslybeen a very hard route to
achieve it.
Yeah, I mean, I guess, for I'minto the mix of all this,
certainly when you're movingproduct around the world.
The thrown into the mix of allthe certainly moving product
around the world is theglobalisation trend that we've
had for the last 30 odd years,where there's a commercial hedge
which is achieved by havingdifferent customers in different
(18:01):
geographies.
When COVID came in and toiletpaper ran out in the Auckland
region, it became abundantlyclear that there's risk around
there.
There's, I think.
Basically, the answer toglobalisation is that it's still
important as sort of themulti-gay that's worth the
kindings of scale in yourbusiness, but it has to be done
(18:24):
in a more of a balanced way.
So you're focusing on not onlythe far reaches of the globe and
maybe product, but also whatyou can do to cut the
intermediaries out of thatsupply chain.
So what you can do is to cutthe intermediaries out of that
supply chain, for instance, workmore efficiently and to have
some sort of resilience from theisland if one particular
channel causes it to break down.
Speaker 1 (18:42):
Yeah, yeah, rob, what's your take on it?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Yeah, look, I agree, I think the New Zealand market
is a small market and so ifyou've got ambitions to grow the
(19:11):
business then definitely haveto look offshore.
Now the natural first port ofcall is Australia, because it's
so close.
So log there globally would beattractive to the types of
products that you're selling.
Then it's a case of how do youdo that?
Do you take the punt and youset up a business within those
locations, and in Australia itmight be across the various big
cities.
Likewise, in Europe it could bea number of locations in
(19:35):
specific countries.
But what do you do?
Grant offices what do you do?
Yeah, what do you do that?
What do you?
Engage in joint ventures withpeople that have maybe a network
within those countries, andthat's an easier way to tap into
the end user.
There's different ways ofsetting things up at the start,
but I think there are definitelysolutions for medium-sized
(19:58):
businesses in New Zealand thathave a product or a service that
is attractive to a foreignmarket.
There are ways, there are smartways of getting that into those
markets and then graduallyestablishing yourself in those
countries and then graduallyestablishing yourself in those
countries.
Speaker 1 (20:17):
Yep and this comes back to that advisory piece as
well that we talked about beforeof horses for courses with the
advisors, where Australia is nottoo dissimilar from a
regulatory perspective with NewZealand.
Obviously it's got somedifferences, but if you were
trying to get into America,there's 50 different states and
then there's the federaljurisdiction.
You've got an entire body ofred tape for want of a better
(20:40):
word to jump through.
If that's your vision andthat's your strategy, then part
of your roadmap needs to be wewill bring in an advisor who has
experience in offshore and intoAmerica.
Speaker 3 (20:50):
That's right.
Yes, you certainly need thatexpertise in your business, but
of there is a cost to servicethose opportunities before you
even get to the yes, no decision.
So you need to be realisticabout I know there's models out
there that price up the workingin different jurisdictions, but
you need to be very mindful.
It's not New Zealand cut andpaste.
(21:10):
It is different.
And if you say this in the caseof Australia and the US, you've
got federal laws and thenyou've got you've got the states
as well, which have differentcertain laws as well around
health and safety and employmentand such things.
So you really need to be wellinformed and have that money put
aside, because it's not toonecessarily and there's no
(21:30):
guarantee for success either.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
Yeah, and it's a good point in there that there's no
guarantee for success either.
Speaker 1 (21:33):
Yeah, and it's a good point in there that there's no
guarantee of success.
And even before you go downthat path of bringing the
advisor in, who's got the scale,you've got competitive lens,
competitive analysis, you've gotto be looking at the customer
need and all of that.
So it's a multi-pronged attackto go from we're selling out of
our Auckland office to we havean American office and we're
(21:55):
scaling because the competitivemarket might be very different
over there.
That's right.
So I mentioned this before andI'm going to come back to it
Service-based economy.
In your view, has New Zealandevolved too much into being a
service-based economy ratherthan a creation-based economy,
(22:16):
and does that limit thepotential for what our growth
could be as well?
Speaker 3 (22:27):
Look, we've moved away from, yeah, the furniture
question.
If you're saying that thepeople taking our IP or our
product and manufacturing it orbuilding on it and creating
value and there surviving thatvalue further up the chain, as
you question, is that happening?
Yes, it's happening.
I look back to New Zealand, myearly 20s, going up in the 90s,
(22:48):
and we still had a lot ofexpertise on shore and we built
things and we manufacturedthings and as such, but yes,
we've handled all that away.
So our economy is aninput-dependent economy.
Yes, of course there are someamazing export stories out there
and of course, swankeria is astory in its own right, but yes,
(23:10):
we are, I think, handling a lotof our expertise at the VATI
chain and others are derivingVATI from it.
Speaker 1 (23:16):
Rob anything to add to that?
Speaker 2 (23:20):
We're a country where we've struggled to create new
products ourselves.
Manufacturing is definitely nota strength, even though I know
a few organisations that aredoing very well in that space.
We tend to import more than weexport outside of the dairy or
(23:40):
the farming sectors or theprimary sectors.
I should say that kind of tellsyou that we're reliant on other
people creating stuff that wecan then buy and then use
ourselves either in business orin life, just to move on.
Does that create?
And we don't seem to have anappetite really to be that
(24:01):
creative.
Yes, we do see these hubs whereyou've got software that's been
and that's probably one of thestrength areas software that's
been created by young guys andso I know science is another one
.
Yeah, they're small sectors,they're not really mainstream
(24:22):
and it just yeah, I suppose.
From a New Zealand point ofview, we don't appear to have
the incentives and theattractiveness to be giving
people the opportunity to getout there and make stuff that
isn't available anywhere else.
Speaker 3 (24:38):
Yeah, I think the current government and this is
not a political comment, this isjust an observation they are
trying to do things aroundreducing the cost of compliance,
reduce the barriers foroverseas investment, for visas.
There's new innovation hubs inthe science, founding the new
ground research entity that'sjust been formed.
These are all good things, butwe're getting back to the
earlier point.
(24:59):
We've really lost our way inthe world, I think, since the
late 1980s, early 1990s, andit's a big problem to fix, and
successive governments not justthe national government here,
I'm talking about successivegovernments have just turned a
blind eye to this, and sothere's a big gap to fill, and
really there needs to be somesort of cross-party agreement on
(25:20):
the sort of investmentpriorities for New Zealand to
get us back into where we shouldbe as a first world country,
because we're lagging so farbehind.
If we have a change ofgovernment next time around,
with the Labour coalition comingback in, there's not going to
be the same focus necessarily.
So yeah, that is a concern.
We're three steps forward, twoback, and that seems to be the
feel out in the real economy too, with the business owners that
(25:42):
we speak to.
It's getting easier, but it'snot easy.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
It's a big catch-up too to achieve, yeah, and I'd
say we could spend a whole otherhour on the political side of
things, but I'd say that we'reright.
We've moved from a can-donumber-eight-wide she'll be
right mindset to more of a fixedmindset.
So we've gone from a growthmindset ultimately to a fixed
(26:08):
mindset of change, and that'sinhibiting a lot of the
businesses that I'm comingacross as well is they're
looking at it as a there's acost associated with this and I
can't afford that right now,rather than actually the
opportunity of doing this whileit's going to cost now is
exponentially greater.
Speaker 3 (26:23):
And that's a good point.
The business planning piecesits under the strategy which
Rob and I, as experts, arearound that whole resource
planning and prioritization.
It's all about that.
It's around recognizing thatthere's a cost of doing
something but there's anopportunity cost of not doing
something.
And certainly those businessesif there's 10 in a sector and
five are struggling, lots offive that aren't struggling that
(26:44):
will be gaining market share bytaking that risk and spending
the money, although the economyprobably doesn't support it at
the moment.
So what are we seeing at themoment?
We're seeing big corporates inthe government starting to spend
money, including in theregional government side of the
economy.
It's starting to filter down.
So those means that they cansee the opportunity that are out
(27:06):
there spending money investingon IT infrastructure or building
IP in their own business,whatever it might be.
Those are the ones that aregoing to succeed and thrive over
the next three to five years.
Speaker 1 (27:16):
Yep, yep.
Three to five years, yep, yep.
You touch on IT there, andthere's an interesting paradigm
shift that's come through in thelast five years or so.
It is accelerating, there's aswing back, and what I'm meaning
here is the shift to more of acloud-based operating model.
So if we pick on the MSPs, themanaged service partners, who
tend to operate in the middlebetween a technology provider
(27:39):
and a customer, once upon a timethey had their margin.
They sold hardware, they soldservers, they made margin on
those servers and that was abusiness model for them, as
their client base has moved awayfrom being infrastructure-led
and is more cloud-led.
We're moving to Microsoft 365,we're moving to Google Workspace
(27:59):
.
The cost has changed from theserver purchase, installation,
support, maintenance to justlicensing, managing the
throughput of licensing andthat's hit their margin, and so
they're needing to evolve aswell, and I guess we come back
to what we talked about with the.
We don't know what's around thecorner, but for some of those
(28:20):
companies they could have beenplanning for the.
What if our customers stopbuying hardware from us?
Speaker 3 (28:26):
Yeah, I agree.
It's the sort of thing thatthere's some things that, in
terms of a risk matrix or theimpact from likelihood, the sort
of the risk mapping, some ofthese things, really should have
been on there and should havebeen like right up there as part
of the advisory or statutoryboard review on a monthly basis,
ensuring that there's a gameplan.
Not just we'll deal with it.
It becomes a problem, butactually this has happened and
(28:47):
it's triggered this sort ofoutcome.
Therefore, this is the planthat we agreed on and we're
going to do.
That's the sort of thing.
That's how that really needs tobe done across all business,
not just the big guys.
Of course, there's always goingto be things from the business
risk that they do around stepchanges and global events such
as COVID, that nobody could haveanticipated the severity of
(29:08):
that or the duration of it.
There's some things that youcan't plan around.
The things that you weretalking about you can plan
around and there should be anaction plan attached to each of
those risks An open question foryou both here In your
experience, how good are NewZealand business owners at
having risk matrices andmanaging risk?
Speaker 2 (29:31):
Look, I think the owners in their heads are aware
of the risks associated most ofthe risks associated with their
business.
Do they formalize that?
Are they disciplined aroundmanaging those risks or identify
them or monitoring them?
No, my experience is they'rereactive as opposed to proactive
.
They'll deal with somethinglike okay, health and safety now
(29:54):
is at the forefront becausedirectors themselves were
personally liable.
I've definitely seen ownerspick up the baton there and be
more proactive and engaging andbring those types of standards
up to where they need to be.
There's probably an overkill onthose standards in some areas,
but they've still got thatdirector liability associated
(30:15):
with not doing stuff or havingpeople hurt because they haven't
got the right standards in playwhere they operate from.
But even outside of thatfinancial risks, market risks,
internal, external, evenresource risks they don't
necessarily look at that.
Even risks associated with themas the owner, there's not a lot
(30:37):
that.
Look at what happens if I gethit by a bus, what happens to
the business and with SMEs,owners think they're bulletproof
.
So, yeah, I think there's alack of engagement in that space
and that puts businesses atrisk.
And when we've got a downturnin the economy and the risks
(31:00):
associated with their business.
It's often too late before theyreact to those, and we're now
starting to see a governmentdepartment and the IRD starting
to put the boot in for certainorganizations that owe their
money and going we're going tocut our losses and we're going
to put these guys intoliquidation because we can't see
them paying this back and wedon't want them to owe us any
(31:23):
more than what they do now.
Yep.
So there's those types ofsituations that they aren't
foreseen, they aren't eventhought about quite often by
these smaller organisations,even some big ones, and I think
that's a weakness in businessgenerally across new zealand
yeah, no, I definitely comeacross the same thing and you're
(31:45):
right about the personnel riskthat that isn't well it managed,
or even managed it wellvisualized.
Speaker 1 (31:52):
For many of them and I even think back, to draw back
to your point, tony, earlier,about a 25 year old's strategy
is going to be vastly differentto a 55-year-old's strategy, and
it's not just from wherethey're trying to get to with
their business, but there's atime of life piece.
So if you're trying to startyour business up and you're 25,
you've still got other lifemilestones that will come
(32:13):
through and cause disruptionmarriage, house kids maybe they
might not be on your strategy.
That's entirely up to you.
House kids maybe they might notbe on your strategy.
That's entirely up to youVersus that 55-year-old who.
All of that's behind them, andthey've got a different outlook
on not just even an outlook, butthey've got a different road in
front of them as to what'sgoing to come up and disrupt
them.
Correct?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
That's right.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
So let's come back to execution.
We've covered a lot here, goneover some interesting ground,
but have let's come back toexecution.
We've covered a lot here, goneover some interesting ground,
but have you got any examplesfrom either of you where
companies you've worked withhave had that clear focus on
execution?
The strategy's been done,they've had the offsite, they've
eaten all the mints and thelollipops, indeed, but they've
actually come back with a properplan and they've executed.
(32:55):
Have you seen this done?
Well, you don't need to namethe companies.
Broad examples will be fine.
Speaker 2 (33:01):
A recent example this year a company I've been
involved with for probably fiveor six years now.
We had a strategy sessionearlier in the year and it was
focused on what do you want thecompany to look like in five
years' time, if not 10 years'time, and and that was fine.
(33:21):
So it was a little bit pie inthe sky, but but there was.
There was certainly some good,good stuff to come out of that,
but the important thing thatcome from that was half half the
session was around right, how,what do we have to do, how do we
do it and who's going to do it?
Around getting creating thatpathway and taking small steps
(33:45):
and then gradually buildingmomentum towards that ultimate
goal.
And we're four months down thetrack.
They deliberately picked threerelatively achievable projects
to kickstart it.
One of them included engagingthe rest of the staff.
(34:05):
They employ about 30, 35 peopleacross a few locations and so
they're bringing in, they'rechanging the culture somewhat
and showing both visually andthrough actions that they're
serious about making the changes.
So it's not just the seniormanagement team, they're getting
all people involved in thatpathway and in some of these
(34:30):
smaller projects.
So I think, in that case atleast, we're not five years down
the track, we're only sixmonths, but they're definitely
shown positive signs atexecuting on some principles
that come out of the strategythat will help them get to where
they want to be Nice.
Speaker 1 (34:52):
Nice.
Thank you, tony, anything you'dwant to add or any other
thoughts?
Speaker 3 (34:55):
Yeah, without knowing the agency, I did a large piece
of work.
I was a business plan for avery large government agency it
was a household name and theirproject piece was around $100
million that they had to spendon internal OPEX projects and my
role was working betweenfinance and procurement and the
planning function aroundassessing the criteria,
(35:18):
determining the criteria,applying the criteria to all the
projects, and then you knowwhat was above the line, what
was below the line.
So above the line is yes, greenlight.
Below the line is orange or red.
We're not going to do this andanyway, use this prioritisation
software called 1000 Minds whichI think the World Health
Foundation and some of thelargest hospitals using New
Zealand collect the sort of theviews of you for the executive
(35:41):
team and key clients andsuppliers and staff and everyone
has a sort of view which isharmonized, and then you end up
with a green light of what'sgoing to be done and what's not
going to be done to spend that$100 million.
Of course, the lesson from thatis the more people you consult
although in best practice that'sthe right thing to do the
harder it actually gets to be toland on consensus and actually
(36:01):
get the green light on what youare actually going to do and in
this particular case, the CEOjust had enough said oh bugger,
this, this is what we're goingto do.
We have these six projects andthat's how we're going to spend
the money.
Going through this process Iguess it was a very robust
process.
In the case of this agency, itdidn't guarantee success, even
though they had a lot of managedspend, that we had project
(36:22):
teams and everything else.
It just essentially came downto the CEO's private wish list
and there you go.
That's the way I thinksometimes.
Speaker 1 (36:33):
Executive warrant I think we used to call that when
I worked at the bank.
Executive warrant who calls theshots gets to call what the
shots actually are sometimes.
Yeah, so, just as we start towrap up, what advice have you
both got for those businessowners who are struggling to
embed that culture of executionand struggling to go from
(36:54):
strategy, from the whiteboard,to actually delivering on that?
Have you got any advice or anyframeworks that you'd recommend
they follow?
Speaker 3 (37:03):
My sort of advice, I guess, is an obvious one that I
mentioned earlier on, which isessentially you can't do
everything as a business owner.
You've got so many demands inyour personal and professional
life and you're getting pulledin every which direction.
Yeah, so build the sort of team, the integral team, as far as
you can with what you can afford, but do get that trusted
(37:23):
business advisor on board tohelp you separate the weak from
the chair and help provide thatthinking.
And that can be just anindividual or it can be a fuller
advisory board.
The roles of a consultant slashdoer in your business is
different to a coach, differentto an advisory board.
Just find somebody you cantrust to give you some direction
(37:45):
on there, and that might beyour accountant, your private
practice accountant, it might beyour banker or your lawyer.
But get that sort of experienceon board and build that
relationship with that personand it's sort of a deep
partnership and that's rightthroughout the last cycle of
your business.
Speaker 2 (38:00):
Yeah, and I think added to that is, if you go back
to your strategy, depending onwhat you're wanting to do,
you've got to get the numbersright and realistic around what
it's going to cost to make thesethings happen and quite often
you've got to.
The cost will be bringing inthe experts when you need them
(38:21):
to come in, because you justdon't have that knowledge or
expertise within the business,or you don't have the bandwidth,
or your staff don't have thebandwidth.
They might have the knowledge,but you've just got no capacity
to be able to move forward.
So I think that's important.
They've got to be realisticabout what day-to-day
(38:41):
commitments consume yourinternal resources versus what
you're trying to achieve.
And yes, they might be able toto to push through a project,
but they might have to be takenoff what they're doing on a
day-to-day basis, and that meansmaybe looking at backfilling
certain individuals.
The other key thing is, as youbreak down the strategy into
(39:05):
various action points, each oneof those has to have an owner.
They have to be internalbecause they have to have skin
in the game, and that doesn'tmean that they have to do the
doing, but they're responsiblefor what actually takes place,
including how much it costs toget from start to finish.
(39:25):
So little things like that willhelp.
But I think there's got to be areality that if there's quite a
bit of change that's to be made, it's pretty much likely that
you're going to have to bring inexternal resources to make
things happen.
Speaker 3 (39:42):
One of the things that's occurred to me as well,
which is in relation to a workI've done with quite a large
client recently where they weregoing through a refinance
process, which is, in their case, having to monitor cash flow
really closely on a day-to-daybasis and there's someone
sitting over that because thingsreally were that critical and
it's important to maintain threeviews of your cash flow your
(40:03):
day-to-day most likely scenario,when your client's most likely
to pay you.
When do you have to meet yourpayroll?
When you're most likely to payyour suppliers.
But also, on either side ofthat, doing that best.
And in that worst scenario andcertainly in the current climate
where there's been, I guess,quite a low degree of confidence
in the economy, that's thatworst scenario that might be 70%
(40:24):
of your most likely Be able totrade your way through that
timeline and be quite clear onwhat your business model is at
that, so you can sustain yourbusiness.
Actually saying, if it is atworst, this is what we're going
to have to do.
We're going to have to reduceour headcount by this.
We're going to have to deferthis capital.
We're going to have to put oursupplier terms.
We're going to have torenegotiate our customer terms
(40:45):
that are paying us earlier.
What does that look like?
And just following on fromthere, not having a short-term
focus which is what Rob wasrelating to as well, having a
sort of that long-term focus, ifyou're going to go to your bank
or to your equity partner andsay, look, we need some more
money, things are tight Don'tlook at the projection through
the end of the current year andsee for financial year 31 March
(41:08):
and say this is what we need todo at worst scenario in order to
transfer it to there.
Where's the money going to comefrom?
What additional investment canwe do?
What can we get from the bank?
What can we get from the secondtier lender?
Actually have that sort of inplace so that you know what
you're going to do in order toget through those difficult
times.
Nice, in place so that you knowwhat you're going to do in
order to get through thosedifficult turns.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
Nice, great tips there, guys.
Thank you for that Finalthought, easiest question of the
day.
If people want to find out moreabout you both or about Copper
Fox, where do they go?
Speaker 3 (41:35):
Well, we've got websites.
We wouldn't be veryprofessional without one.
So that is wwwcopperfoxorg.
We've got our contact detailsthere, rob and I, robeskin at
copperfoxorg, tonyrutherford atcopperfoxorg.
Our mobile numbers are on thewebsite and there's an 0800
number too, if you want to gethold of this.
Speaker 1 (41:55):
Nice Thanks to both there.
Any final thoughts from eitherof you, Rob or Tony?
Speaker 2 (42:00):
or Bo.
Look, it was enjoyable chattingabout this sort of stuff.
This is what we do.
I wouldn't say every day, butwe get involved in the sort of
conversion from strategy toaction plans all the time.
It's stuff we enjoy becauseit's you get involved in owners
who are energized, they want tomake some changes.
They've got, in some cases,high ambitions and it's nice to
(42:22):
be able to convert that intoreality through simplification
of that strategy and workingwith them and helping them just
make things happen.
Speaker 3 (42:34):
Yeah, I agree with that.
I coined the term which I hadrecently with a fellow colleague
.
It's around deep partnership.
That's something that Rob and Ireally believe in.
It's tied into our sort ofcopper fox values, which are
also on the website too, but welike to be there through the
good times and the bad.
Now, the reality is thatprobably 80% of our clients come
to us when they're in some formof distress.
It doesn't just have to bethere.
(42:55):
If you're aspirationally minded, you've got a little bit of
cash and you want someone totalk to on a short-term basis, a
few hours a week, we canaccommodate there.
So we'd like to be there forbusinesses that are aspirational
and that just want to be guidedalong the way, not to those
that are struggling and needsome last minute help.
It's good for us to be in earlyand be in for the long term,
(43:18):
nice.
Speaker 1 (43:20):
Thank you for that, both of you, and thanks for your
time today.
I really appreciate it, tonyand Rob.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
Yeah, thanks, anthony , that's been great.
Thanks, aaron.
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