The election is obviously the hot topic at present, and whatever flavour of government we end up with will have an impact on manufacturers one way or another.  If you want to hear what the various political parties have in store for you and quiz the politicians, you can hear them first hand at the Deloitte BusinessNZ Election Conference on September 8th – see below for details. 
If you can’t drag yourself away from the business – you can let the incoming government (whoever they will be) know your views by filling in our annual exporters survey.  We know many manufacturers are also exporters, so take this opportunity to let us collect all the issues together to share with policy makers and politicians, and hopefully we can tackle some of the barriers you face.

Catherine Beard
027 463 3212 or cbeard@businessnz.org.nz

The manufacturing sector continues to show expansion at a moderate but consistent level, according to the latest BNZ - BusinessNZ Performance of Manufacturing Index (PMI).

The seasonally adjusted PMI for July was 53.0 (a PMI reading above 50.0 indicates that manufacturing is generally expanding; below 50.0 that it is declining).  This was 0.4 points lower than June, although it continues the trend of the sector now being in expansion for 22 consecutive months. More...

Hear what the politicians are offering for business and the economy at the most informative election event of 2014 - the Deloitte-BusinessNZ Election Conference. Ask questions on the issues important to you, and compare their views with the results from our latest survey of businesses. More...

This is your chance to have your say to an incoming government about the issues you face as a manufacturing exporter.  What are the biggest opportunities, what are the biggest barriers, in which ways can government help, and how can ExportNZ help?

The survey takes a quick 5-10 mins, the results do not identify any individual or company and it is very useful for our advocacy to government officials and politicians.  Have your say!

Immerse yourself over one week into the original Japanese thinking behind Lean and its successful application over a range of industries. Whether you are new to the concept of Lean, or searching for that next level of achievement, you will come home with a better understanding of how a culture of continuous improvement can be embedded across your organisation. More...

NZTE’s Better by Procurement team has launched a range of online tools, checklists and services to help you tackle the tendering process. A third party benchmarking assessment service provides a detailed report on your strengths and weaknesses, plus recommendations on how to increase your win rate. A Tender Writing Resource Centre has also been created. It's aimed at small to medium-sized businesses who are new to formal pitching or tendering.

You can access the services through your Regional Business Partner, or (if you're already an NZTE member) speak to your Customer Manager.

If you want a good example of the kind of high-tech company that manufacturing expert Professor Goran Roo's been talking about, take a look at this article on Integrated Hydraulics Limited (IHL). They've been making components for hydraulic systems for the last 25 years, and have made impressive progress through state-of-the-art automation. IHL also offer a valuable perspective on the benefits of manufacturing in New Zealand, above other lower cost countries. More...

New Zealand may rank really well as being one of the least corrupt countries in the world, but that does not really equip us well to deal with this problem when we come up against it in overseas markets.  The penalties for getting this wrong can be severe, so BusinessNZ and ExportNZ have teamed up with Deloitte and Chapman Trip to develop some training and resources for businesses to set up good systems and processes for protecting themselves against the risk of bribery and corruption.  Come along to one of the training sessions coming your way soon.

Bookings for the NZTE China Business Training sessions in Auckland, Wellington, Blenheim, and Christchurch are now open. The extensive four-day programme includes need-to-know information about China, and other topics such as how to set up your company, HR, Finance, IP, strategy and marketing. More...

The School of Economics and Finance of Massey University is looking for firms interested in providing unpaid summer internship to our students and graduands.  Our students will have been trained mainly in Finance and Economics, but can cover a range of roles.  We will help match the right interns to right businesses and services.   If you have such opportunities,  please email Rong (Alice) Cheng or call 06 3569099 EXTN 84071.

You may wonder why I'm including an online fashion leadership workshop in a manufacturing newsletter. While it is targeting the fashion world – it has a great line up of international speakers and if we are trying to sell anything in this day and age we need to understand how to get cut-through in an on-line world and how to create effective marketing campaigns.

Anyone who is selling anything to retail consumers will learn applicable lessons from the latest techniques being used in the fashion industry.  As a country remote from our markets, on-line selling brings some new opportunities if we understand how to use it to our advantage.

I have one free ticket to give away to the first person who emails me for it. You can see the full programme and register here.

Missed an issue of Manufacturing News? Click here to access all previous issues in our Newsletter Archive.