Hi All, What's the best way to eat an Elephant? - One meal at a time.
I hope everyone had a great break and is ready for an awesome New Year! At the end of this month we have an opportunity to have our say (as a Cluster) about the ICT Task force report. In general I think that the report has an excellent goal and provides the beginning of a road map of how to get there. Rather than try and discuss the entire report on the forum at once what I suggest we do is discuss it section by section over the next week or so. So have a skim through the 1st few pages to the end of section 2 While you're reading, keep in mind the requests of the Taskforce for ideas on: - The draft recommendations - How to implement or action the report (also how could we as a Cluster support the initiative) - What type of group could drive the action plan forward So to start the ball rolling. what do think about the first few pages... My initial reaction to the Goal and Challenge of '100 * $100M companies in 10 years' was "Awesome" then "so how do I get Nightside there, or part way there?". As a company we have goals out to 5 years, the goal from the report gives us something to shoot for at the 10 year mark. Even if we (as a country) get half way to this target it will be a significant achievement! Another thing that comes to mind is that we (as a country) are currently developing people to become employees (e.g. you can view the entire school/tertiary system as training people to work for others) if we want to have a 100 companies at Phase D then it would also be great to have 200 at C, 500 at B. This would mean that a significantly larger pool in Phase A in needed - may be 10,000 or more? So where will these companies come from? We are actually going to need to start developing more people to become entrepreneurs (rather than just letting them pop out of the woodwork here and there). Should this be a Business / Govt / collaborative effort? The Recommendations =================== 2. Commitment Yes we want to grow - so how do we get there? Who are the companies in the $20M+ group (a list would be nice), what can be learnt from them in how they achieved their level of sales, lessons etc? Perhaps it would be good to look at a finer level of detail in Phase A of the table e.g. smaller divisions like <$1M, <$3M, etc. and focus on what can else can be done to help businesses the earlier stages. Building a larger pool in Phase A should enable more companies to 'break through' (more ideas + improved support = more chances of success). Also when you're at this level the achievements of $1M, $3M etc. in revenue are very significant - could/should these achievements be recognized in some way? Based on the figures provided in the report most NZ businesses are in the very front edge (<$5M) so a commitment from the Government to making it easier to create and run a small business in NZ would be a good start. Reducing compliance costs (and time) for these smaller businesses would have the double effect of freeing up money to enable growth and time to sell more (the benefit for those who don't want to grow as much is that they get more time and some spare cash Hmmm. sounds like a good place to focus the clusters support!) Anyway, that's enough from me, now it's your turn (if you haven't gone to sleep already.) Do you agree / disagree, have further comments? Go for it! Regards, Pete Peter Brown Managing Director Email [EMAIL PROTECTED] Nightside Test Design Ltd. 64 Greenpark St. Christchurch New Zealand Web www.nightside.co.nz Phone (+64) 3 338-0034 Fax (+64) 3 338-2034 --> via Canterbury Software email forum: Success through Connections Email your messages to [EMAIL PROTECTED] Searchable list archive: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] Leave or rejoin the list: http://canterburysoftware.org.nz/forum.htm
