November update from Kea

Kia ora, 

Welcome to Kea New Zealand’s online monthly report, showcasing our highlights for the month including Kea Connect success stories, recent connections with Kiwis and Kiwi businesses going offshore, insights from around the globe, what’s trending with our global partners and a roundup of our most popular content.

This month we talked to Jenene Crossan of Powered by Flossie about her long-term journey with Kea. We also followed up with three Kiwi start ups – Vxt, JAVLN and CarbonClick – to understand how Kea Connect positively impacted their business and supported their plans for expansion.

We have a series of insights from US, China, UK & Europe, and Australia and updates from our extensive partner network amplifying stories and successes of Kiwis all around the world.

• GROWTH THROUGH KEA CONNECT
• INSIGHTS FROM OUR GLOBAL COMMUNITY
• KEA CONNECT: SPOTLIGHT ON CLIMATE CHANGE, TELCO & FINTECH 
• TRENDING AT KEA
• IN CASE YOU MISSED IT
• CONNECTIONS THIS MONTH
• HOW KEA CAN HELP

Moving into significant revenue since 2017

Jenene Crossan, Founder of Powered by Flossie, has been engaged with Kea Connect since 2017. The past few years has seen a period of significant growth and change for the business, including moving from a B2B marketplace to a B2B software and brand repositioning. We spoke with Jenene Crossan, Founder, about her relationship with Kea Connect, what it has been like scaling a global company in the ‘new normal’. READ MORE

USA

As we move into winter here in New York, there has been an eager start to Q4. Local businesses are coming back to life and planning their projects through the end of the year despite a few unknowns around the US election and COVID lockdowns. 

Kea has seen an influx of requests from companies keen to engage with US-based expats for guidance on expanding in the current climate. We’ve been working alongside the ever-growing team of NZTE Business Development Managers to introduce World Class New Zealanders for Beachhead roles and are excited to build a successful Brand New Zealand campaign with our NZ Inc partners later this month.

Ryan Mulcock, Kea USA Regional Director

UK & EUROPE

John Alderman, World Class New Zealander, Brand Specialist & NZTE Beachheads Advisor for Europe, (Ex-Kraft Heinz, Ex- Unilever) has shared 4 insights this month for exporting to UK/Europe. With UK/Europe locked down but open for business, this is an article not to miss. READ MORE

CHINA

For New Zealand businesses looking to enter China, there are emerging opportunities around new energy vehicles (NEV)  and live streaming. The State Council unveiled a development plan spanning from 2021 – 2035 for the NEV industry that aims to accelerate China into an automotive powerhouse. This presents an opportunity for innovative New Zealand businesses in this industry to seek investment and partnership opportunities in China. Additionally, live streaming has become a new driving force for e-commerce sales, and New Zealand brands that are looking to enter China should consider this phenomenon while setting their market strategy.

Ciara Liu, Kea China Regional Director

AUSTRALIA

Recent weeks have been a period of elections and of increasing Covid freedom in Australia. Within Australia we’ve had the Queensland State election and the ACT election, the New Zealand election was followed closely here and as I write this the US election remains tight, not quite decided, and dominating news coverage. Amongst all this news it’s not been lost that Victoria has fought back strongly against Covid and this week people were able to start getting out and about after 112 days of lockdown. On top of this State and Territory borders are starting to open for domestic travel and Qantas announcing the opening of thousands of flights including the first time they will fly direct from Hobart to Perth.

Economic data has been better than expected with numbers around consumer spending, employment and housing giving some cause for short-term optimism. Continuing keys will be keeping the health situation under control, particularly as more and more opening up occurs, keeping people in jobs and giving consumers and businesses a degree of confidence in the immediate future.  

Glen Murphy, Regional Director, Australia Pacific, NZTE

HOW DO: BRANDS TAKE IMMEDIATE CLIMATE ACTION IN THE USA 

Kea harnessed our community in the USA to help inform CarbonClick’s strategy for the region.

CarbonClick makes carbon offsetting simple for all businesses and their customers. They offer a plug-in solution for e-commerce platforms, such as Shopify, as well as custom enterprise integrations. 

In a recent survey undertaken by CarbonClick, the team concluded that climate change is a main concern for every board and every CEO. Executive management teams have been charged with deploying a strategy across their organisations that reduces carbon emissions and engages customers. However, the prohibitive cost to deploy technology solutions has seen the pace of change too slow. 

CarbonClick is turning this situation on its head by engaging consumers to facilitate the change the world needs by purchasing carbon credits at point of purchase. The benefit to organisations is twofold – cost effective climate action together with enhanced brand reputation for companies seen to be doing their part.

As they focus on growth in the USA, Strategic Advisor Melanie Reece sought key insights from large e-commerce retailers around the importance of climate change to their business and customers, their responses, and any key insights to help inform CarbonClick’s strategy for the USA. 

Kea introduced Melanie to Vice President of a renowned Kiwi retail brand who successfully entered the USA, and International Sales Manager of a natural skincare brand making leaps and bounds in the USA.

REVOLUTIONARY TECH-START UP TAKES ON UK TELCO MARKET

Kea helped Christchurch based tech start-up, Vxt, get a holistic view of the telco market in the UK to help shape their strategy.

Vxt is a software company revolutionising small business communications by providing a smart voicemail platform. Using artificial intelligence and other technology, Vxt’s mobile app saves user’s time by allowing them to read their voicemails, forward voicemails to email, prioritise messages and automate tasks.  

Founded in November 2018, Vxt have launched the platform in Canada and UK with 20,000 installs and 1,000 paying customers. See here for a short product demo.

Their vision is to be a holistic telco provider which is a challenger to the conventional telco services.  As they look to their next phase of growth, they are focusing on distribution channels, partnerships and a reseller strategy.  Co-Founder, Luke Campbell, sought expert advice from our community to help them understand the telco market in the UK, and provide advice that could steer their approach for obtaining new partnerships and reseller relationships in the UK. Kea facilitated introductions with Luke to two Telco experts with significant senior executive experience.

KEA HELPS KIWI-LED FINTECH SHAPE APPROACH TO UK MARKET ENTRY

Kea facilitated introductions for JAVLN to help them further their understanding of and approach to UK market entry. 

The insurance intermediary market has been underserviced with technology for many years and JAVLN, Kiwi-led fintech company, believes it is ripe for disruption. JAVLN sells SaaS to insurance intermediaries, enabling them to better manage their businesses more efficiently – reducing the time for a broker to get quotes from multiple insurers from minutes to seconds. They do this with automation, API connectivity to insurers and modern workflows. 

With entry into the UK market, CEO Dale Smith wanted to obtain insights on key trends in the insurance and brokerage space that will help them shape their approach with prospective clients. Specifically, Dale had initial questions on how the UK market approach compares to Broker Groups / Memberships, the key software vendors for SaaS insurance brokers, where the split between direct and intermediated insurance lies. 

Kea identified six members we determined best suited to help JAVLN, and to date has introduced Dale to one  former and one current insurance provider CEO’s both NZ & UK based.

XERO HELPS SMALL BUSINESSES RECOVER AND PLAN FOR CONTINUITY

Xero have released a study which reveals how small businesses globally have reacted to COVID-19 and managed business continuity. The study offers five key recommendations to help small businesses both recover, and take practical action for continuity, resilience and success. 

HEALTHCARE PLATFORM WINS VELOCITY $100K  CHALLENGE

Rosterlab, a healthcare-centric rostering service provider is this year’s winner of the flagship competition within Velocity – New Zealand’s leading university entrepreneurship development programme. Rosterlab uses state-of-the-art artificial intelligence to build the ideal rosters for hospitals. Learn more about simple-to-use web application for roster creation, and the other innovative winners of the challenge here.

AGRIBUSINESS CHANGES MEAT INDUSTRY

Silver Fern Farms has introduced a new data-driven solution for forecasting offal yield. Through Digital Lean, A Callaghan Innovation programme, Silver Fern Farms identified a business opportunity around predicting offal yield, and used tech -driven methodologies to find solutions. They now are on a path to make large export gains through its data-driven solution. Read more here. 

KPMG INVESTS IN WORLD CLASS LEARNING 

In collaboration with LinkedIn, KPMG has launched Digital Now – a large scale two-year digital learning program. This initiative focuses on enabling KPMG employees to be future-ready, and ensure they are equipped for what’s next. Running across KPMG Asia Pacific, this program marks a significant investment in world class learning for KPMG’s employees in the region. See the full announcement here.

RETURNING KIWIS COULD BE TRANSFORMATIONAL

The Kea Welcome home Survey highlighted that an historic opportunity is landing, Kea CEO Toni Truslove wants to know what New Zealand is going to do about it.  READ MORE

EMMY AWARD WINNING KIWI, BAZ IDOINE

Baz Idoine has worked on some of Hollywood’s biggest productions. We spoke to him about his recent work on The Mandalorian, which won him an Emmy for Outstanding Cinematography.  READ MORE

CHOOICE: ADVOCATION FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Chooice was created in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown as a way for Kiwi businesses to sell their products. We spoke to the team about how Kiwis living all around the world can get involved.   READ MORE

SECTORS KEA CONNECT SUPPORTED THIS MONTH