Meet the Finalists...
We meet the 2013 Finalists alphabetically below as follows:
• ABLE MASON CONCRETE - Emerging • ATA RANGI - Global • AURA REDEYE SECURITY - Cyber
• BEERVANA - Vibrant • BIG EARS - Emerging • BJC ELEMENTS - Global • BP LOGISTICS - ACC
• CARNIVAL LABS - Cyber • CATALYST IT - Cyber • CLEMENGER BBDO - Creative
• EDUCA - Emerging • ENVIROCOMP - Green • FINNZ - Team • FITZBECK - Creative
• FOODSTUFFS WELLINGTON - ACC • GREENBUTTON CLOUD FABRIC - Discovering
• ikeGPS - Cyber • INSPIRED JEWELLERY - Global • iSENTIA - Supporting
• JAMES COOK HOTEL GRAND CHANCELLOR - Green
• LEARNING MEDIA - Creative • LEARNINGSOURCE - Emerging
• MANA RECOVERY- Team • NZ ART SHOW - Vibrant • NORTHSOUTH GIS NZ - Global
• NZ OPERA'S "HOHEPA - Creative • OUTWARD BOUND - Team
• RYDGES WELLINGTON - Vibrant • SMALLFISH - Supporting
• SPOTLIGHT REPORTING - Emerging • SPRINGLOAD - Creative
• STREETCAM3D by TERRALINK - Supporting • SUMMERSET GOUP HOLDINGS - Supporting
• THE HOBBIT WORLD PREMIERE - Vibrant • TIMES-7 RESEARCH - Emerging
• TODD CORPORATION - ACC • TOUGH METAL by GNS Science - Discovering
• TRANSPOWER - Green • UPPER HUTT COSSIE CLUB - Team
• VOLPARA 1.5.8 by MATAKINA- Discovering • WELLINGTON COMBINED TAXIS - Supporting
• WELLINGTON AIRPORT - ACC • WELLINGTON AIRPORT - Green • Xero - Team
............................................................................
XERO - Magic with Numbers
Finalists - TeamGold in association with Southern Cross Health Society
Xero is listed on the NZX and ASX. It is a fast growing company with teams in New Zealand, Australia the US and UK.They are the emerging leader of online accounting software that connects small businesses to their advisors and other services.
Xero’s Wellington HQ team grew steadily from 122 to 182 in 2012. Xero is Wellington-headquartered and must compete both locally and globally for world-class talent, with its specific needs for high quality staff.
Programmes include fortnightly global team meetings lead by the CEO Rod Drury from Wellington. These update staff on strategy, priorities, wins, challenges and recognise teams or individuals for work achievements.
Staff can up-skill and undertake further education, with either financial support towards their courses or time for study. They are currently hiring a Global Learning and Development Manager who will be responsible for all staff training programmes.
Xero actively encourages internal transfers/promotions - there were about 20 in 2012. They sponsor sports activity including squash, soccer and netball.
There are weekly Friday night drinks open to all Wellington staff and a great staff café area encouraging staff to get a break from their desks.
In 2012 they held a series of ‘wellness’ sessions, focusing on healthy habits, managing stress, obtaining work-life balance, and sleeping smarter.
Xero's competitive remuneration package includes incentive programmes, both Short and Long Term, encouraging everyone to contribute to achievement of company goals.
HR Manager Natasha Hubbard sums up: "At Xero we pride ourselves on not being overly corporate. We aspire to keep the vibe and energy of what makes Xero special, alive and well – professional, hard working, edgy, dynamic, fast paced, funky, stylish, and cool!"
www.xero.com/
Dominion Post Story 25/04/13
YouTube Clip
............................................................................
WELLINGTON ZOO - Animal House
Finalists - Vibrant Gold in association with Wellington Airport
Open now for 107 years - Wellington Zoo was New Zealand’s first zoo and is proud to be an iconic part of the wider Wellington Community.
Their Close Encounters mean people can get hands on with some amazing animals – cheetahs, red panda, lions, giraffes or meerkats. 364 days a year (they only close on Christmas Day!) visitors can meet the staff, learn about the animals, see a kiwi up close, make conservation connections, and watch behind the scenes at the animal hospital, The Nest Te Kohanga with it’s full programme of animal talks.
The Zoo gets excellent feedback from visitors and in 2012 earned a Certificate of Excellence from Trip Advisor – meaning their average rating was 4.5/5 across the year.
CEO Karen Fifield says: “We are heading towards the end of our ten year Capital Development Plan and every step of the way we’ve made things better, more fun and more engaging for not just our visitors but our animals and our staff too. We are innovative, funky and not afraid of being different.”
“This week Wellington Zoo became the first zoo in the world to achieve carboNZero Certification - this means that they are carbon neutral and accredited through the internationally recognised carboNZero programme.“
In 2012 over 224,000 visited the Zoo – more than ever before - a testament to the fantastic level of community support they enjoy.
They also have over 4,000 Zoo Crew memberships and each year more than 10,000 students visit as part of school programmes. Visitation in 2012 was 11% higher than in 2011 and 17% higher than 2010 – which shows a growing popularity, when many visitor attractions are struggling.
2012 saw the opening two iconic new exhibits, Green Zoo, Green you and the Asia Precinct, leading to a 30% increase in visitation in September 2012 alone.
www.wellingtonzoo.com
............................................................................
WELLINGTON AIRPORT- Green Flights
Finalists - Green Gold in association with Greater Wellington Regional Council
With the vision to be a truly outstanding airport, Wellington Airport is a strategic regional asset with a total economic impact of $1.5 billion, sustaining 10,000 jobs.
5.4 million visitors and locals travelled through Wellington Airport in 2012. by 2030 passenger numbers will double to 10 million by 2030. Wellington Airport understands the environmental risks associated with its business operations and recognises its responsibility to manage the airport in a sustainable and environmentally responsible manner.
Specific environmental policies cover greenhouse gas reduction, energy and resource efficiency, provisions for efficiencies in aircraft operations, improving noise environment for our neighbours, wildlife management and habitat restoration, waste reduction as well as minimising any water pollution to both groundwater and the coastal marine area. They also have a range of green policies for new builds and large procurements.
Manager of Property and Planning Mike Brown adds, “these include using ramps instead of escalators or lifts where possible, double and laminated glazing, sun protection louvres, utilising natural daylight via skylights and installing low flow bathroom fittings. They use environmental range paints, highly efficient air conditioning plant and energy efficient lighting.”
Wellington is also one of the first airports in the world to introduce Avanex grass as a sustainable method of reducing the risk of bird strike.
And our new Rosenbauer Panther Fire Trucks are the first in New Zealand to meet the strict Euro 5 emission standards.”
Wellington Airport operates on a 110 hectare site compared to Auckland with 1500 hectares and Christchurch with 900 hectares meaning the airport has used all land incredibly efficiently to manage services for 5.4 million passengers and has the highest passenger throughput per square metre in Australasia.
www.wellingtonairport.co.nz
...........................................
WELLINGTON AIRPORT - Flightworthy 
Finalists - ACC Workplace Safety Award
In 2011 Wellington Airport set the ambitious goal of achieving workplace ‘Zero Harm’ (no medical treatment injuries) by 2014. The target of Zero Harm was achieved 2 years early in 2012.
The key to achieving this was a comprehensive Health and Safety Management Plan coupled with full employee engagement and ownership.
The system documents and ensures proactive safety management that is routinely subject to review in order to enhance safety performance and minimise the risk of accidents occurring.
Manager Safety and Quality Assurance Jon Eyley explains: “It starts at the top with leadership and commitment by all the Company’s directors, managers, and supervisors.
“We have health and safety inductions for all of our staff and visitors. There are clear policies and procedures provided in the Employee Handbook and reinforced on visible noticeboards and our fortnightly “health and safety tip” email sent to all staff.”
The systematic hazard identification programme, hazard register and risk assessments, which are completed by all team members, has been the key to achieving our goals.”
A range of training programmes, formal workplace inspections and regular team meetings reinforce safe behaviours.
H&S objectives are part of all employee Key Performance Indicators. Employee injury rates significantly reduced over a three year period. In the last four years the airport team has only incurred four medical treatment injuries and only three days of lost time injuries in the last two years.
www.wellingtonairport.co.nz
.........................................................................................
WELLINGTON COMBINED TAXIS - Right On Rides 
Finalists - Supporting Gold in association with Beca
Wellington Combined Taxis came into existence in 1993 after the consolidation of several Wellington taxi companies under the ‘Combined’ name. Historically they have been supplying taxi services for over 90 years. WCT is a shareholder owned and operated business.
They have 500 business class vehicles being the 2nd largest taxi fleet in New Zealand and successfully complete over 3 million journeys annually. Their callcentre handles over 2 million calls a year.
WCT is a 25% shareholder and partner of TaxiCharge - the largest taxi billing provider in NZ, catering to over 27,000 businesses and individuals.
In 2009 they were very proud to be one of the first taxi companies in NZ to be certified ‘carbon neutral’. They have maintained their carbon neutral accreditation and since 2009 our carbon output has dropped a massive 27%.
WCT is a proud sponsor of events such as the World of Wearable Arts, the Hertz Rugby 7’s, Wellington Fashion Week, and The Welly Awards.
During 2012 the WCT fleet met the 90 cruise ships entering Wellington CentrePort. In partnership with CentrePort, WCT provides exclusive taxi services port side.
They provide in-kind support for local charities such as Ronald McDonald House, Mary Potter Hospice and the Cancer Society and the Radio Network Children’s Christmas.
CEO Lynne Hayman says: “Our relationship with Wellington International Airport means the majority of visitors arriving via air will be welcomed by a WCT driver and ushered into a clean modern vehicle by our friendly drivers, willing to assist in any way they can in making visitors appreciate our fantastic city.”
www.taxis.co.nz
........................................................
VOLPARA 1.5.8 - by Matakina
Finalists - Discovering Gold in association with Gibson Sheat Lawyers
One in nine women will get breast cancer during their lifetime in most Western countries. Breast cancer screening is proven to save lives but is very much “one size fits all”.
Matakina CEO Ralph Highnam said: “Volpara, has started to revolutionise breast screening worldwide by providing a personalised assessment of each woman’s risk and thus allowing clinicians to personalise each woman’s screening protocol.”
Volpara, automatically and objectively assesses breast density. The higher the breast density, the higher the chance of that woman developing cancer and the worse her chance to have that cancer detected by x-ray (mammogram).
It is now becoming the standard of care in the USA and elsewhere, that all women should be told their breast density and that women at high risk should be offered supplementary imaging.
The first version of Volpara was launched in 2011 to work on images from just one x-ray vendor, and in 2012 Volpara 1.5.8 was launched which was the world’s first multi-vendor automated breast density assessment system, and took that product into Europe, Asia and Pacific.
It is the only product cleared by the US Food and Drug Administration to give out the scores that radiologists use worldwide.
Matakina went from a start-up to a company with revenues of near $1M from sales in US, South Korea, Malaysia and New Zealand and are now in trials in nearly every country in the world.
Along with this came new offices and growth to 17 full time staff in Wellington and IT systems to support a global medical device company. So far over 1 million women have been analysed by Volpara from over 100 installations of the product. And their investment round in 2012 closed within 2 weeks of opening.
www.volparadensity.com
Recent NBR Article
YouTube Clip
................................................
UPPER HUTT COSMOPOLITAN CLUB - The Posse from the Cossie
Finalists - Team Gold in association with Southern Cross Health Society
The Upper Hutt Cossie Club was formed in 1961. Completely destroyed by fire in 2003 it re-opened in 2005 and is now one of the leading clubs in New Zealand.
The club has won many awards including the 2012 HSI Excellent in Training and the 2012 Hutt Valley Business Tourism and Hospitality awards.
Manager Dean Candy explains: "This exceptional growth is due to our modern facilities, great entertainment calendar and skilled customer-focussed staff."
They have approximately 90 full and part-time staff servicing a membership of over 7800.
The Club currently invests up to $100,000 a year on training, working closely with Service IQ (formerly HSI) and other training providers to ensure quality training.
The development of our training / upskilling is based around identifying that we have a large number of staff with different numeracy and literacy skill levels, differing levels of qualifications and differing learning styles, but we want to provide them all with the opportunity to upskill and develop within the club professionally and personally and also to provide value to the Club.
Regular leadership planning and team building sessions are held. They have Monthly Employee of the Month and Rookie of the Month awards, with the Employer of the Year spending a week at its sister club Tradies in Sydney who reciprocate the visit. The club's runner-up visits Clubs Marlborough.
As well as hosting leading national and international entertainment the club is a popular venue for functions and seminars catering for up to 300 people.
www.cossieclubs.org.nz
YouTube Clip
..............................................................
TRANSPOWER - Green Lights
Finalists - Green Gold in association with greater Wellngton Regional Council
Transpower owns and manages the towers, poles, lines, cables and substations stretching and connecting the length and breadth of the country - known as the National Grid.
Assets include 11,743 km of high voltage transmission line, 60 km of underground and submarine transmission cable, 40,674 supporting towers and poles, 178 substations and 1093 transformers
Transpower currently employs 897 employees including up to 90 part time employees - about 75% of Transpower’s employees are based in Wellington.
Transpower’s Sustainability Team is a voluntary group made up of employees from throughout the organization.
Greg Lemaire who led this enthusiastic team until recently says: "The team is self-organising and driven by its own mission, vision, and values. We have gained support and respect from every level of the organisation from the CEO down."
Early on the team campaigned for additional bike racks and improved shower facilities as well as cycle safety training sessions. Cycle use went right up and Transpower was presented with the Most Cycle Friendly Employer Award (Wellington Region) in 2012.
Other initiatives include Volunteer Days, phone recycling, major waste recycling systems, computer recycling, the distribution of 800 reusable coffee cups and programmes for blood donation and eyeglass recycling.
The team promotes and participates in Earth Hour, Spring to the Street and Bike to Work Day.
Their bottom-up leadership has resulted in visibility at Corporate level by way of our Corporate and Social Responsibility (CSR) programme which is a Transpower KPI. The Team’s work is always consistent with and enhances "Transpower’s Commitment to Sustainability" which was signed by our CEO in 2010.
www.transpower.co.nz
..............................................................................................
TOUGH METAL by GNS Science - Hard Cases
Finalists - Discovering Gold in association with Gibson Sheat Lawyers
GNS Science has developed a technique to implant atoms (ions) in the surface of metal to change the property of metal components used in industry. The atomic-scale enrichment bonds chemically and physically with the metal surface making it up to 10 times stronger than conventional 'untreated' metal.
The ion implanter they have designed and built brings big-dollar surface treatment technology to small-scale manufacturers. It is faster, cheaper, more versatile, easier to operate and provides vastly superior results to conventional surface treatment technologies such as heat treatment, powder coating, and chemical treatment.
The toughened metals produced have desired properties such as corrosion and wear resistance, water repellence, increased hardness, or particular electrical properties.
Industrial parts will last longer perform better and save money. Potential applications include medicine, agriculture, manufacturing, energy production, transport, and construction.
GNS has sold a prototype to an engineering and manufacturing company in Tauranga which is assisting them to commercialise this innovative technology.
The product is patented the team believe there is nothing equivalent in the world. When commercially proven, this innovation will be capable of delivering a large revenue stream to Wellington and New Zealand.
Its small footprint, absence of moving parts and low electronic complexity enables easy use by small manufacturers.
Business Development Manager Joe Manning sums it up: “In the US the estimated loss due to metal wear and corrosion is about US$500 billion-a-year, so the consequential annual loss is 1-2% of the US GDP!”
www.gns.cri.nz
...............................................................
TODD CORPORATION - Safe Sites
Finalists - ACC Workplace Safety
The Todd Corporation is a family owned business and is one of New Zealand’s largest and most successful companies. With a history that spans over 125 years, they have a wide range of interests, involving oil and gas, electricity generation and energy retailing, property development, healthcare and wine with a team of 1300.
2012 has seen an outstanding improvement in Todd’s health, safety and environmental performance. A key achievement was a 76% reduction in our Total Recordable Case Frequency Rate (TRCFR), translating into 24 fewer seriously injured staff as compared with the previous year, and moving them from the lower quartile safety performance in 2011 to top quartile performance in 2012 when benchmarked against similar organisations.
A challenge facing the development of a single HSE MS was the Todd Corporation’s diverse business portfolio, each with their unique set hazards and risk profiles.
Ranging from process safety and environmental exposures faced by oil and gas exploration, through to the personal safety situations associated with growing and harvesting grapes, to issues relating to public safety exposures relating to the manufacture and distribution of natural health products.
At the heart of Todd’s HSE MS are hazard identification and risk management, process assessment and improvement, management leadership and accountability, incident reporting and investigation, and emergency response.
Group HSE Manager Michael Jones explains: "There are numerous intangible benefits that Todd has realised from our programme. Namely the simplification of our business systems and increased business clarity. We have reduced business risk and streamlined our training and document maintenance requirements. It has also enhanced a single corporate culture and improved our corporate profile in the public domain."
www.toddcorporation.com/content/health-safety-environment
Dominion Post Story 27/7/11
.........................................................................
TIMES-7 RESEARCH - Tag Wrestlers 
Finalists - Emerging Gold in association with Yellow
Times-7 is a specialist manufacturer of high-end UHF RFID antennas based in Gracefield, Lower Hutt.
The team of six led by CEO Antony Dixon, develop Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) systems, which is a wireless non-contact system that use radio-frequency electromagnetic fields to transfer data from an RFID ‘tag’ attached to an object for automatic identification and tracking. The RFID ‘antenna’ is critical for the accurate detection and efficient transfer of information in an RFID system.
Initially focusing on commercializing RFID for use in airport baggage handling and electronic sports timing, Times-7 has built on its expertise in these areas to use its patented core design for slim, low profile RFID antennas in new business sectors.
With the patented Times-7 ‘SlimLine’ range of antennas now leading the market and offering high performance, robust, and aesthetically attractive RFID antenna products, Times-7 is now moving into new areas, such as conference and people tracking, retail and customer interaction, and logistic & supply chain asset management.
Increasing their market reach and influence in the global RFID industry, Times-7 has now established an international business network through the appointment of a master distribution, authorized reseller framework & integrated solutions provider network in North America and Europe.
In 2012, Times-7’s revenue growth was 37% ahead of the previous year, and exports amounted to 88% revenue. In late 2012, Times-7 was awarded a large contract with a Fortune-500 publically listed company, equivalent in value to the previous years revenue.
www.times-7.com
Hutt News Story 10/7/12
................................................................................................
THE HOBBIT WORLD PREMIERE - Red Carpet Rollout 
Finalists - Vibrant Gold in association with Wellington Airport
The Hobbit World Premiere aimed to provide a visual feast not only for Wellington but the 100+ international media attending.
With massive sculptures at the airport, the Embassy Theatre and the NZ Post building, you could not miss it. The flags, banners and giant billboards around the city signaled that it was World Premiere time again. The 500m carpet and a branded plane flying low over the city added to the spectacle. The Hobbit Market was also a major attraction.
The premiere took months of planning requiring 40 full time contractors for the month of November, as well as over 1100 other staff and contractors.
The economic impact report of the premiere showed an $11.5 million returnfor the city.
The premeire was watched by millions globally, with live feeds streamed around the world showcasing Wellington and New Zealand. Priceless promotion for our city.
The live feed had over 1 million users online throughout the event - the highest following of any Warner Bros live stream to date.
This was accompanied by the massive coverage of the international media crews who ran stories on every media platform from print, online, TV, blogs and Twitter.
Event Director Jamie Wilson said: "Warner Bros informed us after the fact the event had the highest media interest of any premiere they have ever done. The live feed on the web was viewed by more people than ever before and the WB team and executives said they had never seen anything like this and were blown away."
www.chameleonevents.co.nz
Dominion Post Story 28/11/12
YouTube Clip
..............................................................................................
SUMMERSET GROUP HOLDINGS - Village People
Finalists - Supporting Gold in association with Beca
Summerset is a leading nationwide retirement village operator with a focus on providing residents with a continuum of care.
The integration of care facilities into Summerset's Villages provides residents with the knowledge that care is available for them should their needs change.
Summerset is the third largest operator, and the second largest developer of retirement villages in New Zealand, with 16 villages across the country.
They also have four land sites in Karaka, Hobsonville, Ellerslie and Lower Hutt, bringing the total number of sites to 20.
Summerset provides a range of living options and aged-care facilities and services to almost 2000 residents and was named best retirement village operator in New Zealand and Australia at the Australasian Over-50s Housing Awards in 2010, 2011 and 2012.
Summerset's highly experienced senior management team is led by CEO Norah Barlow who has been chief executive since 2001. She joined the company in 1999, when the business was a relatively small operator primarily on the Kapiti Coast.
Today they operate villages in Aotea, Dunedin, Hamilton, Hastings, Havelock North, Levin, Manukau, Napier, Nelson, Palmerston North, Paraparaumu, Taupo, Trentham, Wanganui and Warkworth.
They have 450 full time employees nationwide, with 50 based in the Wellington head office and 110 working in the greater Wellington region.
Summerset had very strong financial and business results in 2012 as they continue to build on the gains made following their entry onto the NZX.
In 2012 the company exceeded $100 million in gross sales of occupation rights for the first time. The first dividend of 2.4 cents was announced and Summerset were very proud to enter into the NZX50 in December 2012.
www.summerset.co.nz
Dominion Post Story 21/04/13
...................................................
STREETCAM3D by Terralink - Road Movies
Finalists - Discovering Gold in association with Gibson Sheat Lawyers
StreetCam3D National Data Capture Project is a Wellington innovation and a New Zealand first.
Launched in September 2012, StreetCam3D is the only project of its kind in the country – a mobile mapping platform that captures a realistic, highly accurate and measurable 3D model of our streets and their surrounding environments.
Using a high-density LiDAR (Light Detection & Ranging) scanner and six high- resolution 360-degree cameras mounted to a four wheel drive utility vehicle, StreetCam3D captures over 1.3 million points of location data every second, driving at normal road speeds.
StreetCam3D is scheduled to undertake a national capture programme of unprecedented size and scale to create a truly unique national dataset – the first ever high definition 3D spatial representation of the entire New Zealand streetscape.
Terralink Managing Director Mike Donald explains, "The data captured can be used across a wide range of organisations to enable smarter decision-making and undertake a huge number of tasks far more efficiently and more cost effectively than before."
Some of the areas which can benefit from StreetCam3D data include the environmental, roading, and emergency sectors, as well as utilities and telecommunications, surveying and engineering, civil defence and national security organisations.
StreetCam3D data will reduce the need for expensive, time consuming and sometimes dangerous fieldwork on the 128,000 kilometers of New Zealand roads.
It will also enhance the quality and accuracy of road and building information available to emergency response agencies.
StreetCam3D will unlock huge productivity benefits by boosting the number of businesses that can access and benefit from accurate spatial data.
www.terralink.co.nz/geospatial-solutions/streetcam3d
Dominion Post Story: 4/9/12
YouTube Clip
............................................................................
SRINGLOAD - Netnutters
Finalists - Creative Gold in association with The Wellington Company
Springload is one of the largest privately owned full-service web agencies in Wellington, if not in New Zealand. They provide web and mobile solutions and all manner of smart digital tools for their clients.
GM Alan Doak (pictured far right with Bron Thomson (director), Carl Steward (director) explains: "We love to design and build beautiful, fast, people-friendly websites. We want our users to feel good about their browsing experience. Our philosophy is always 'what is good for the user is good for business'. We start with understanding what makes a business tick and then tailoring our response to the available budget, but also to what makes digital sense.
"We’ve been working in the web space for over 10 years. In that time we’ve moved into larger offices (twice), won a whole heap of awards, continually grown our team (now 25 people), and all got older and wiser in the process.
"What's the best thing about Springload? It's the people. Our staff. Our clients. We’ve got an office filled with great people who are not only ridiculously talented, but also great fun to work with!
"Springload is proudly Wellington based. We don’t have offices in Auckland, or Sydney, or Los Angeles.
They are now working with some of the biggest brands in New Zealand, but particularly in Wellington - Kiwibank, New Zealand Red Cross, NZ International Arts Festival and Wellington International Airport. They are proud and long-term sponsors of Webstock and The NZ Arts International Festival.
All proving that good fun and hard work can go together to build a great business. Want proof check out their "Love the Web" video
www.springload.co.nz
......................................................................
SPOTLIGHT REPORTING - Ace Reporters
Finalists - Emerging Gold in association with Yellow
Spotlight Reporting is a business intelligence and reporting software business based in Wellington, with offices in Sydney and Melbourne and plans for London and San Francisco expansions in 2014.
Spotlight Reporting has created 5 cloud applications since 2010: Reporting, Forecasting, Dashboard, Multi and Workpapers.
These applications allow users to easily create powerful financial and non-financial Board-level reports, dashboards, cashflow forecasts, and consolidated analysis and benchmarking for multi-entity organisations such as franchises and not-for-profits. The Spotlight Reporting family of applications are in use by businesses in 10 countries, with most market share in New Zealand, Australia, the UK, and the US.
Spotlight applications are used by business owners, CFO's and are very popular with accounting and advisory practices, who create reports and dashboards for clients. Spotlight is in use by 2 of the ‘Big 4’ global accounting firms and many Xero Platinum and Gold Partners.
In July 2012, Spotlight had one application (Workpapers) acquired by Xero.
CEO Richard Francis says "Our software is recognised as innovative in the cloud data and reporting space. As important extensions to core accounting engines such as Xero, Spotlight products offer the power of analysis from multiple data sources, and a visual-rich experience that brings this analysis alive.
They allow businesses and their advisors to evaluate performance and opportunity more clearly. So our tools are popular with advisors, as well as high-growth organisations where improved performance is key."
More than 50% of Spotlight subscription revenue now comes from overseas markets. In 2013/14 they expect to more than double export earnings - notably from Australia and the UK. Spotlight Reporting was used to create over 10,000 reports, dashboards and forecasts for businesses around the world during the last year.
www.spotlightreporting.com
Vimeo Clip
................................................................
SMALLFISH - Making Waves
Finalists - Supporting Gold in association with Beca
Smallfish enables New Zealand-based small businesses and charities to create and manage their own affordable e-commerce stores.
“Our focus has always been on making it all as easy as possible”, says CEO and co-founder Shane Bartle, “many of our customers acknowledge that if it wasn’t for finding Smallfish they wouldn’t have an ecommerce presence, or in many cases, would not have a business at all.”
Previously, small businesses have had to invest a substantial amount in website design, and then reinvest as technology and their buyers’ expectations change. With Smallfish, there is no set up fee and retailers with minimal technical expertise can design, build and manage the store themselves.
Bartle also points to the provision of a shared marketplace, now containing more than 40,000 products, where potential buyers can search across all of the Smallfish stores. This results in free marketing for the business owners and an increasingly strong support network.
“We want to provide retailers with a strong sense of their own place on the internet, as well as a strong sense of community”, says Bartle.
The company also offers significant discounts to registered charities and is currently used by WWF New Zealand and SPCA Auckland.
Smallfish shops sold more than 83,000 products through their online stores in 2012, almost double the amount sold in 2011, with almost 10% of the total online income coming from customers residing outside of New Zealand.
Smallfish is currently only available to businesses in New Zealand, but will be launching worldwide in 2013.
www.smallfish.co.nz
...................................................................
RYDGES WELLINGTON - Hostmasters
Finalists - Vibrant Gold in association with Wellington Airport
Rydges Wellington is the capital’s newest and largest hotel, centrally located downtown with a spectacular harbour and city outlook. Facilities include a 17M lap pool, spa pool, sauna and exercise room. Portlander Bar & Grill is “Wellington’s hippest steakhouse restaurant”.
Rydges Wellington has only been operating since March 2011, and has already made a name for itself. In 2012 Rydges was awarded Excellence in Customer Service, Best Accommodation Hotel, and the Overall Supreme Award by the Hospitality Association of New Zealand.
The hotel prides itself as being a ‘one stop shop’ catering for long stay guests in apartment style accommodation, VIP’s, sports teams, weddings, corporate accommodation, leisure guests, families, inbound tour groups, and overseas delegations.
The hotel strategically targets each different market to ensure that the hotel is not perceived as a corporate hotel only.
Rydges Wellington is also community minded: giving 230 Primary Schools complimentary vouchers to use for fundraisers or gift. They sponsor World of Wearable Art and NZ Opera and have formed local partnerships with Dyrberg/Kern, Corporate Cabs, Trelise Cooper, Cityfitness, Kirkcaldie & Stains, and East Day Spa as well as events like the NZ Art Show, and had the St Kilda Saints book the hotel out completely over Anzac weekend this year.
GM Simon White says: "Being part of the Australian brand Rydges Hotels & Resorts, we are able to target the overseas market to drive tourism into the region via a database of 450,000 Priority Guest Rewards members".
In the year ending March 2013 their gross operating improved by over 3% on 2012 (which included the Rugby World Cup). Their figures are up in many areas including: occupancy – up 0.7% and Food and Beverage revenue up 25%.
www.rydges.co.nz/Wellington
Dominion Post Story 27/9/12
Youtube: St Kilda Saint take over Rydges Wellington
............................................................................
OUTWARD BOUND - No Limits
Finalists - Team Gold in association with Southern Cross Health Society
Established in 1962 Outward Bound New Zealand was set up for the purpose of helping New Zealanders discover what their true potential may be outdoors.
Their Mission is to is to inspire personal and social development through value based experiential learning in an outdoor environment.
Their courses cover the youth, adult, professional and social/disability sectors. In the past 12 months close to 2,000 New Zealanders have undertaken an Outward Bound course with over 52,000 having been on a course since they were established.
Their total full time staff is 64, 11 are based in the Wellington office with the remainder, 53 based at Anakiwa in the Marlborough Sounds.
The challenge facing the organization is to ensure that there is a seamless operation flowing down from the Board, the Wellington office and the team at Anakiwa.
Outward Bound has implemented a comprehensive programme of staff training, course reviews, safety audits and constant team communication - both formal and informal to ensure the best experience for both staff and customers.
CEO Trevor Taylor: "At Outward Bound we seek to foster an open communication, team based no-blame culture, always reaching for greatness in everything we do. We have a saying – it’s not about us, it’s about our customers and ensuring they have an exceptional experience and become Net Promoters of Outward Bound.
"It’s also about guardianship of the Outward Bound Brand. We have to ensure that when we pass the baton on that Outward Bound NZ is in even better shape than it was we joined it so that another 50,000 New Zealanders can experience OB."
www.outwardbound.co.nz
YouTube Clip
Dominion Post Story 12/2/12
...........................................................................
NZ OPERA's HOHEPA - Local Hero
Finalists Creative Gold in association with The Wellington Company
Opera is the pinnacle of all the performing arts. No other art form is as complete as opera: the combination of live orchestra, beautiful (unamplified) singing, acting, storytelling, amazing sets with special effects, lighting and costumes, cannot be found in any other art form.
New Zealand Opera under General Director Aidan Lang presents opera to the highest possible standard, combining the incredible talents of New Zealanders here and abroad with international experience.
In 2012, New Zealand Opera produced the opera H�hepa, set in the 1840s, about chief H�hepa Te Umuroa from the time he settled in what is now the Hutt Valley, his friendship with an English Quaker, his treatment by the British and subsequent incarceration in Tasmania.
This opera and HÅ�hepa’s story are inextricably tied to the Wellington Region.
The opera was written by Wellington composer Jenny McLeod (pictured above left) as a ‘sacred trust’ to the descendants, hapu and iwi of HÅ�hepa Te Umuroa – it took her 12 years.
Jenny worked with many other Wellingtonians – including Sara Brodie (pictured above right) as director; Tony de Goldi as production designer and the Vector Wellington Orchestra.
The work was premièred at the New Zealand International Arts Festival, for many reasons. It was a first for the national opera company to produce a New Zealand work, it was Jenny McLeod’s first opera, and it is a Wellington story. Just shy of 4,000 people from all over New Zealand saw HÅ�hepa at the Festival, including 450 of HÅ�hepa’s iwi who spontaneously responded to the opera with their own haka.
http://nzopera.com/
YouTube Clip
...........................................................
NORTHSOUTH GIS NZ - The Map Chaps
Finalists - Global Gold in association with ANZ
NorthSouth GIS (NSG) is a leading Geographic Information Systems (GIS) solution consultancy based in New Zealand. The NSG Group of sister companies includes NorthSouth GIS LLC in the United States and an affiliated company NorthSouth GIS (India) based in Hyderabad, India.
These companies are each known for their innovative enterprise GIS solutions based on technology from Esri, the worldwide leader in GIS technology.
NSG is a global gold tier Esri partner, a status reserved for the top 5% of partners worldwide, and NSG is the only gold tier partner in the Asia-Pacific region.
NSG has over 25 years experience of working with geospatial technology and over 10 years’ experience hosting GIS applications for customers in New Zealand.
Their core markets are Ports, Airports, Utilities, Local government, Environmental and resource management agencies.
Current international clients include Port of Los Angeles, Port of Stockton, and Port of Oakland and in New Zealand key clients include the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery (CERA)
Over the last two years, the NZ hosted environment has moved to a cloud infrastructure and has matured into a globally unique cloud platform: geoCirrus.
geoCirrus NZ has grown and is making a profit in it’s own right but more importantly is also driving significant on-premise implementation and consultancy work for the company.
Led by CE David and Beryl Pimblott, this team of 28 are providing their high tech services globally – and all driven from their premises in Whitby, Porirua.
www.northsouthgis.co.nz
..............................................................................
NEW ZEALAND ART SHOW - Accessible Art
Finalists - Vibrant Gold in association with Wellington Airport
It has been instrumental in launching some part time artists into full time careers, some winning highly recognised art awards and many going on to participate at an international level. The show has become a very desirable port for nearly 4,000 New Zealand artists to date.
The event is always well attended by art lovers from all over New Zealand and also attracts visitors from overseas. Every year the opening gala sells out entertaining 1,200 guests. The show attracts some 10,000 visitors over 3 days.
Under founder and CE Carla Russell's leadership, New Zealand Art Show has grown in size, reputation and quality to become one of New Zealand’s leading arts and cultural events.
Since 2004 over 12,000 pieces and $7 million of artwork has been sold. The majority of this is returned to artists, helping to support and maintain a thriving arts community in Wellington and across New Zealand.
The NZAS charges a low commission rate to the artists at 20% - compared to 30% - 60% charged by dealer galleries. This is a huge draw card: not only to new and emerging artists but to those with established careers. They can price their work affordably and in turn, attract the public. In 2011 and 2012, over $1,000,000 of artwork sold over a three day period - a phenomenal result.
The NZAA Trust also provides year round advice to thousands of artists and provides major awards and scholarships; including a $30,000 artist-in-residence grant, a $5,000 signature piece art award, facilitating a wine label design award and emerging artist awards to students from all art tertiary institutions.
The NZAAT and The New Zealand Art Show proudly call Wellington home. Don't miss it - July 26-28.
http://artshow.co.nz/
....................................................................
MANA RECOVERY - Recovering Lives and Our Planet
Finalists - Team Gold in association with Southern Cross Health Society
Mana Recovery started life 16 years ago providing vocational rehabilitation after the long-stay psychiatric wards closed at Porirua Hospital, north of Wellington. They are a leader in social enterprise that puts community and environment first.
It is a growing, largely self-sustaining recycling enterprise providing both jobs and training. Last year it had a turnover of $1.8 million and made a surplus which has allowed them to start a building fund to build a new training unit, and this year it is looking at $2.1 million in revenue.
They have 3 sites: Oranga Training Unit, Vailima Training Unit and Trash Palace.
They employ 50% of their staff from their vocational rehabilitation and training programme. All Mana Recovery employees earn at least minimum wage or above.
Their tireless Chief Executive Elizabeth Meaclem explains: "There was great difficulty for our trainees to move into paid employment, so we developed a range of small business initiatives in partnerships with the Porirua City Council and local businesses, focused around sustainability."
“Through these initiatives, Mana Recovery assists our trainees to develop socially, gain employment skills and work ethics, building confidence and the opportunity to rehabilitate back into the community.”
"The pride and confidence that our staff and their whanau demonstrate through employment is amazing and breath-taking to see. We provide a supportive workplace where people come first."
Today Mana Recovery has extended the concept of community care far beyond the original activity programme. Up to 100 people per day participate in a variety of training programmes and Mana Recovery now employs more than 25 people with mental health needs in full or part time positions within the organisation.
www.manarecovery.org.nz
.......................................
LEARNINGSOURCE - The Trainers' Programmers
Finalists - Emerging Gold in association with Yellow
LearningSource has developed a cloud-based management system for businesses who deliver training and events. It provides streamlined event scheduling, online registrations, receipting, runs marketing activities, and manages client records and relationships (CRM). The service can be rapidly deployed and seamlessly integrated within a client's website.
The success of the LearningSource service can be attributed to its ability to pull together what are normally disparate systems (event management, CRM, website CMS, billing/payments) into one integrated solution.
For example, the University of Auckland uses LearningSource to run their entire Executive Development programme. It has replaced multiple systems, allowed them to significantly reduce administration and costs, and has streamlined their client’s website purchasing experience (www.exec.auckland.ac.nz).
LearningSource is now used by other high profile New Zealand and Australian clients including Xero, Thomson Reuters, AMP, PWC, Wellington High, Auckland Council, Pearson, Opus, Manukau Institute of Technology, and Victorian University.
CEO John Mitchell leads a team of 9. “LearningSource has dramatically grown in the last 3 years to become a market leading product. We have signed large high profile clients, established a successful partner model, doubled our revenue each year for the past three years.
The exciting thing is that we have only really just started. We have a world class product and global market ready and waiting”.
www.learningsource.co.nz/training-organisation
.....................................................................
LEARNING MEDIA – Smart Books
Finalists - Creative Gold in association with The Wellington Company
Learning Media is an award-winning provider of multimedia and multicultural learning services. They create innovativecommunication environments, knowledge networks, and digital education solutions to empower communities and accelerate literacies.
They have been an integral part of New Zealand’s education system for over 100 years, developing many of the core resources used in schools, including our much loved School Journals.
Led by CE David Glover Learning Media works with a wide network of over 1,000 writers, educators, content experts, developers, and illustrators to supplement its skilled in-house staff. They have a well-earned reputation for finding and fostering vibrant new talent.
It is also the world's largest publisher of te reo M�ori and Pasifika education resources.
In 2012 they won three out of six awards at the CLNZ Educational Publishing Awards: Best Primary Publishing, Best Te Reo M�ori and Best Digital Media Solution as well as some international awards. The company also increased revenues by 17% and international revenue grew 200%.
www.learningmedia.co.nz
.....................................................
JAMES COOK HOTEL GRAND CHANCELLOR - Green Rooms
Finalists - Green Gold in association with Greater Wellington Regional Council
The James Cook Hotel Grand Chancellor was Wellington's original high end hotel, built in the 70s, it is still one of the best places to stay in our city.
The hotel features 268 accommodation rooms, two restaurants and bars, Bodyhaven Spa Style Boutique and a complimentary in-house gymnasium. And they are also embracing a very green approach to hospitality.
Led by an ever vigilant Green Team, their green practices include minimizing waste production and reusing materials wherever possible, the hotel composts all organic kitchen waste, and recycles all glass, plastic, cardboard and paper.
They proudly maintain a minimal level of carbon emissions and maximise efficiency wherever possible.
There is energy efficient lighting throughout the building and they conserve water too.
All their cleaning products are green and designed to minimise water and energy use. All effluents are to the requirements of Government legislation and they give preference to products and services of local origin.
Their employees are trained and resourced to meet their sustainability objectives. The team also works with others in the tourism industry to achieve wider environmental awareness and stronger sustainability in the sector.
And it's working....
In 2012, they decreased food waste by 30% and composted 120,400 litres of food waste decreasing their landfill waste by 12%. They recycled 25% more cardboard and used 2,080 litres of organic waste as chicken feed.
They have swapped over 700 50kw bulbs with new 15kw eco bulbs, saved about 36,000 sheets of paper and saved up to 46,500 litres of water with their ‘Go Green’ initiative for guests who stay more than one night.
www.grandchancellorhotels.com/nz/jamescookwellington
Youtube Video
..............................................
iSENTIA - Media Watch
Finalists - Supporting Gold in association with Beca
Operating 24/7, iSentia is the leading provider of media intelligence services in New Zealand, using the most advanced technology and the most talented people in the industry.
iSentia are unique in that they provide a fully integrated media intelligence solution - from distribution of targeted media releases, to monitoring, filtering, transcribing and analyzing of media coverage to providing full insight consulting on the themes and underlying issues.
Led in New Zealand by GM David Schnellenberg - iSentia monitors all media channels - press, radio, TV, internet and social media in order to give their clients valuable insights to drive smarter business decisions.
Each month they monitor hundreds of publications, radio and television programmes as well as millions of online conversations.
Assisted with a new range of innovative media products including BuzzNumbers a social media listening platform, Mediaportal - for clients to monitor and analyse their media content and Newsboost to extend the client news reach.
iSentia’s roots in New Zealand began over 30 years ago, and through a combination of organic growth and acquisition iSentia continues to grow. In the last five years iSentia has grown from operating in New Zealand and Australia only, to having 21 offices in 15 countries across the Asia Pacific region.
The Wellington team of almost 200 staff, provides services for clients in New Zealand and Australia.
www.isentia.com/en-nz
You Tube iSentia Story
..................................................................
Inspired Jewellery - A Bit Precious
Finalists - Global Gold in association with ANZ
In 1981 Ian Douglas set up a bespoke jewellery shop in Kelburn creating custom made pieces for a market hungry for original design and quality craftsmanship.
The Village Goldsmith thrived and eventually outgrew the small shop, moving into central Wellington in 1997. As a result of designing, building and retailing their beautiful work, they also developed a full understanding of the market and its direction.
Out of frustration with the ‘sameness of design’ and price focused objective, that was increasingly prevalent in their industry, Ian and Christine Douglas (pictured above centre and right), in partnership with industry award winner Chris Benham (pictured above left), formed The Inspired Group. The Group is comprised of three main brands, The Village Goldsmith, their international arm - The Inspired Collection, and Wilshi - The Proposal Ring.
Their long term goal is to develop a Wellington based design hub that continues to leverage their expertise in design and sell that IP internationally. They are working with major companies in China, North America, India, UK and NZ. Typically they work on a royalty or design fee model but are capable of completing small specialist manufacturing runs. They exhibit annually at the world’s biggest jewellery trade fair in Hong Kong and their export trade is growing around the world.
A new Inspired office has been established and more designers will be hired this year to cater for the new international contacts being won. They aim to be NZ’s “Weta Workshop of Jewellery Design”.
www.theinspiredcollection.com
Dominion Post Story 12/10/12
...............................................................
ikeGPS - Measuring Up
Finalists - Cyber Gold in association with PwC
ikeGPS is a location-based measuring solution that uniquely combines laser, camera and compass technologies together with modeling and asset management software in a single mobile device.
CEO Glenn Milnes (pictured) and the ikeGPS team have developed this hand held product to digitally collect data in industry standard formats with the click of a button.
ikeGPS software allows our customers to easily locate, measure and model remote assets, distances, heights, and the dimensions of all kinds of difficult things while standing in a safe and discreet remote location.
For the US utilities market, ikeGPS addresses a $16Billion (USD) problem. Electric utilities must measure the location, height and position of attachments on utility poles (there are 160 million of them) to assure network integrity to protect the power supply - these pole audits currently cost $100 per pole!
ikeSolutions Poles and ikeSolutions PLS were launched mid-2012 and have already been sold to more than 25 utilities.
The US intelligence and defense market represents a $1.4Billion (USD) annual spend on geographic information system (GIS) tools and technology. ikeGPS has unique capability with applications for critical infrastructure management, emergency response and reconnaissance.
In 2012, ikeGPS developed software and hardware through a contracted partnership with In-Q-Tel, www.iqt.org, the strategic technology development arm for US intelligence community - the first Australasian business to do so.
More than doubling productivity, ikeGPS solutions improve data collection and asset management so much so that customers have recovered the cost within days of deploying ikeGPS.
www.ikegps.com
YouTube Clip be.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Dt2cwq3k4lc
Dominion Post Story 9/11/12
..................................................................................
GREENBUTTON CLOUD FABRIC - Cloud Power
Finalists - Discovering Gold in association with Gibson Sheat Lawyer
GreenButton grew out of the Lord of the Rings. Yes when LoR needed heaps more grunt, real quick to process the movie (a single frame was taking 600 hours - jeez!) they set up a massive data processing facility in 10 days to do the job.
After the movies were completed, rather than leave this facility to gather dust, Scott Houston set up GreenButton so that all business could have access to this massive capacity.
GreenButton Cloud Fabric is their retail product for businesses and Cloud Service Providers. It places the power of their multi-award winning platform in business’s hands to host and deliver cloud services.
This lets their clients manage workloads for multiple clouds; synchronize, secure and manage data in the cloud; meter and charge users on job-based consumption and manage department/project/user spending thresholds to control and apportion spend. GreenButton CloudSync provides a seamless way to synchronize data with the cloud. And their Commercial Engine and Cloud Resource Controller are designed to minimize cloud costs.
With customers like Pixar, SAP, NASA, and US Department of Energy, GreenButton has gained excellent traction offshore.
www.greenbutton.com Dominion Post Story 30/10/12
..................................................................................
FOODSTUFFS WELLINGTON – Food Processors
Finalists - ACC workplace Safety Award
Foodstuffs Wellington grew from a co-operative of local grocers that began in 1922. Similar cooperatives also formed in Auckland and the South Island, and became known collectively as Foodstuffs in 1935.
Proudly 100% Kiwi owned and operated, it has grown from humble beginnings to become New Zealand's biggest grocery distributor, and one of the country's largest organisations.
The Wellington stores include 46 New World and 14 PAK'nSAVEs, 94 Four Square, two Shoprite and three Write Price stores, as well as 18 Liquorland stores employing a total of1300 folk.
Foodstuffs Wellington has a Health and Safety programme based on the company intranet, including procedures, forms and reference material. Health and safety notice boards are also used to communicate to staff.
Each site has a site specific hazard register and hazard control plans. Forms for reporting hazards, incidents or near misses are available online and on the H&S notice boards.
Incidents, near misses and new hazards are investigated by trained staff and logged to keep this register totally up to date.
All staff complete a comprehensive induction, covering health and safety processes including hazard management, incident reporting, emergency procedures, and employer/employee responsibilities.
Foodstuff have set up a range of safety programmes including: SafeSpine, Toolbox Safety Alerts, Be Safe Awards, Mates Look After Mates, and various wellness initiatives.
The accumulative effect of these is very positive one. Weekly ACC Compensation is down almost 90% and Total Claims cost down 84%.
.................................................................................
FINNZ – A well oiled team
Finalists - Team Gold in association with Southern Cross Health Society
FINNZ has been providing IT services to Government Agencies in New Zealand, Australia and the Middle East for ten years. They give “operational effect to policy, legislative or business change”, particularly in the fisheries, environmental and education sectors. FINNZ creates business processes, builds then runs the systems to help organisations implement change.
FINNZ prides itself on its strong team culture and the ability of its people to work well together. According to GM Mark Jones the FINNZ culture has been built with careful planning and structure on three key principles. The first is hiring good people through a recruitment process tailored to ensuring candidates will fit in; the second is being flexible to enable team members to balance their work and family life; and the third is ensuring that everybody has input to the company planning and their own objective setting.
Mark says that having a small team requires everyone to work closely together on projects and rely on each other, sometimes under a lot of deadline pressure. And as the team grows, this cohesive team approach will continue to be fostered and developed.
‘‘We’re always looking to improve and how we treat our people is something we work hard at.’’ Mark says the payoff for the organisation in having a harmonious, integrated team is easy to see each time FINNZ deals with clients. “Our culture underpins every aspect of our business. It is not only an internal reflection of who we and how we work together, but also how we work with our customers”.
www.finnz.com
.........................................................
ENVIROCOMP - Nappy Go Lucky
Finalists - Green Gold in association with
Greater Wellington Regional Council
Karen & Karl Upston had owned a business selling both disposable and cloth nappies and regularly had the cloth vs disposable argument/debate raised with them. Many trials have been conducted and the conclusion is that neither is any better or worse for the environment.
Nonetheless Karen was driven to trial composting disposable nappies on a commercial scale using the HotRot in-vessel composting system.
In 2009 Karen set up Envirocomp in Christchurch - the world's first commercial composter of whole nappies, sanitary and incontinence products - diverting them from landfill using new technology designed in New Zealand.
She created the business bringing together Kiwi technology with HotRot, a global manufacturer Kimberly-Clark and local councils first in Canterbury and now in Wellington.
The purpose-built Blenheim St operation will be able to handle 15,000 disposable nappies daily, breaking them down to a safe, odourless compost.
Specially designed ‘drop-off’ bins have been placed around the Wellington region where families have secure access to deliver their pre-paid bags of nappies or sanitary hygiene waste.
Since it opened mid 2012 more than 300 customers have subscribed to the new Envirocomp service in Upper Hutt and by mid-2013 it is expected to match the Canterbury customer base of more than 700 households and 500 commercial customers.
The Upper Hutt plant is able to compost around 1000 tonnes per annum or around 14% of the Wellington region’s sanitary hygiene waste stream with the capacity to quadruple in size.
http://www.envirocomp.co.nz/Wellington.html
Upper Hutt Leader Story 31/10/212
View Karen's Youtube Video
....................................................................
FITZBECK - Beautiful Bookmakers
Finalists - Creative Gold in association with The Wellington Company
FitzBeck Creative is an award-winning, Wellington-based publishing and design firm, established in 1995 creating all manner of media from publications and websites to DVDs.
They work with many government agencies and are a preferred supplier to the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Health.
FitzBeck’s directors Mike Fitzsimons and Nigel Beckford (pictured) have successfully combined their passion for writing with a thriving career in communications and design.
Their writing on education, career and health issues has earned a Gold Quill award for excellence in business communication from the International Association of Business Communicators based in San Francisco.
In both 2011 and 2012, FitzBeck received a BEST award from the Designers Institute of NZ and rave reviews for its publishing and art direction on their best-selling, illustrated books, The Wellington Book and The NZ Book.
The Wellington Book, a gloriously illustrated celebration of one of the world’s coolest capital celebrates all things Wellingtonian from the bucket fountain to tooting in the Mt Vic. tunnel to the hardy dog walkers of Lyall Bay.
Each picture was painstakingly built up in layers over many months. The result is a visual feast that’s colourful, quirky, funky and mildy educational. Now into its third print run, it earned a BEST award for art direction from the NZ Designers Institute in 2011.
Hot on the heels of The Wellington Book’s success, FitzBeck took on an even more ambitious publishing project – The New Zealand Book.
In the last year, Fitzbeck has sold nearly 10,000 books nationwide (2,000 being a best seller in NZ), promoting Wellington to the rest of New Zealand and New Zealand to the world.
http://fitzbeck.co.nz/
Dominion Post Story 18/06/2011
...........................................................
EDUCA - Retooling Pre-Schooling
Finalists - Emerging Gold in association with Yellow
Nathan Li felt removed from his daughter Nancy's progress at pre-school, so he created this amazing online portfolio for his daughter's stories, photos and videos - so that he could keep right up to date with her development.
He consulted with pre school teachers and other parents to establish the beautifully designed and easy to use programme.
Teachers can get their work done in half the time. Parents give feedback as soon as their child's stories, photos and videos are available, no more chasing for the profile books.
With Educa, parents are more engaged and connected with their children's learning. More family involvement leads to more feedback, which leads to better quality education.
Educa is proving to be a cost-effective solution for ECE Centres as it significantly reduces color-printing costs and saves on time for the teachers, who can do a better job communicating to parents in a fraction of the time. Calculations show that it can save ECE centres up to $2,312 a year on books, binders, printing and other materials.
Educa connects early childhood centres and parents via a 100% cloud-based portfolio system. It provides a secure online diary of a child’s growth and development at the centre.
Currently, Educa delivers to hundreds ECE Centres across New Zealand and Australia, but are aiming to reach one thousand by 2016.
In the two years that Educa has been operating, the company has experienced rapid growth and has surpassed 10,000 diverse users, both in New Zealand and globally.
http://www.educa.co.nz/
Dominion Post Story 16/1/12
...........................................................
CLEMENGER BBDO - Crackin' Ads
Finalists Creative Gold
in association with The Wellington Company
Clemenger BBDO began life as Colenso, the iconic creative hot-shop started in Wellington in 1969 that went on to create many of New Zealand's most loved ads.
Today helmed by Philip Andrew (pictured), Clemenger BBDO continues to build on that legacy and is Wellington's largest full service communications agency providing advertising, digital, design and direct marketing solutions to both local, national and international clients.
The Agency's work is well known throughout New Zealand households in particular their work for the New Zealand Road Safety campaign has set the benchmark for Road Safety work across the world.
The Agency's recent ' Ghost Chips ' TV spot being the most talked about campaign in New Zealand in 2012.
Businesses, who trust Clemenger with their Brands include Mitsubishi, Dulux, The New Zealand Transport Agency, Education New Zealand, FlyBuys, Positively Wellington Tourism, Radio New Zealand, Goodyear Dunlop and New Zealand Post.
They were also the Agency the New Zealand Treasury chose to work with for the complex and sensitive Partial Privatisation campaign.
Clemenger BBDO has a staff of over 65 talented and passionate Wellingtonians who along with the company, regularly give their time and energy to support the city.
Most recently their Wellington in a Pint campaign sought to promote Wellington as the Craft Beer Capital of New Zealand by inviting local home brewers to brew a beer that tastes like Wellington.
Amongst the winners were ' Celia Wade Brown Ale ' and ' Bye Bye Blanket Man. '
Clemenger BBDO. Wellingtons Advertising Agency.
www.clemengerbbdo.co.nz/
Dominion Post Story 23/11/2012
.............................................................
CATALYST IT - Open Sourcerers
Finalists Cyber Gold in association with PwC
Catalyst IT has been a pioneer in (and fierce advocate for) open source content management since the firm was founded in 1997.
Open source software allows users to modify it to suit their businesses and services and to distribute it to others. By contrast proprietary software is restrictive on who can use and requires users to purchase licences.
When Catalyst started out the market was challenging, according to founder Mike O'Connor (pictured left with co founder Jason Ryan): "There were some great technologies around but a hell of a lot of suspicion. When open source was very new, people saw it as being insecure and unsupported . . . It took many years before we started to see a shift."
Catalyst, headquartered in Wellington, has 180 staff across New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom all producing software made with open source code that can handle sensitive information and large volumes of users.
Catalyst makes and runs the website that holds New Zealand's electoral roll, library information, online learning and several other government sites. It was behind the original Stuff.co.nz news website and recently launched a redeveloped site for Hong Kong's daily English language newspaper South China Morning Post.
The Hong Kong newspaper, which has 1.3 million page views and about 500,000 people visiting the website each week, approached Catalyst originally as one of four companies it had selected worldwide to invite to tender.
Two years ago the company started Catalyst Open Source Academy, training up about 25 students between the ages of 14 and 18 each January at its Willis St offices.
http://catalyst.net.nz
Dominion Post Story 8/10/12
..................................................................
CARNIVAL LABS - Happy Apps
Finalists - Cyber Gold in association with PwC
Founders Guy Horrocks and Cody Bunea (pictured) met at Canterbury University and started in a garage working on iPhone "Apps" as Polar Bear Farm. In 2007 they became the world's first commercial iPhone application company.
The Canterbury Earthquake shook them out of Christchurch and into Wellington - where they are on fire!
Carnival Labs is made up of a team of developers and designers based in Wellington, with CEO, Guy, based in New York. He has been in the news in recent days in the US marching for immigration reform, which he sees as essential for the global cross-pollination of both business and brains.
Their mobile marketing platform, “Core Push” gives brands visibility, insight and marketing tools for their mobile applications.
Over the last four years they have provided mobile strategy, design and development to over 100 brands including many Fortune 500 companies including DreamWorks, Kraft Foods, HBO and Taco Bell.
Alongside local digital game creator PikPok they built a game based on OREO biscuit's tagline - "twist, lick, dunk", that quickly became and App Store hit.
"We want to build a large scaleable technology company, not an agency," Horrocks said. "A lot of people are talking about mobile as being the hottest new industry. Mobile apps are a lot like Facebook for companies because of their power to build a user base of fans. Companies could reward them for loyalty and interact with them in an engaging way."
www.carnivallabs.com
Dominion Post Story 12/09/12
...............................................................
BP LOGISTICS - Safety Counts
Finalists - ACC Workplace Safety Award
These guys are responsible for getting all the BP fuel to the BP service stations around the country. This small team is based in Wellington and looks after the entire process.
From planning what fuel needs to go to which service station, to the fuel being loaded on to the trucks at the many Oil Terminals around the country. And of course ensuring that the Tanker Drivers delivering that fuel have the right training to do their job safely and making sure that the BP trucks they are driving are maintained and safe to be on the road.
Their Global Statement is: No accidents, No harm to people and No damage to the environment.
They use contractors to drive their trucks and service agents to do the maintenance on the trucks & trailers. So it is important to BP Logistics that their contractors are safe and fit in with their Global Statement. Which is why they run an ‘industry leading’ training programme for any contractor working on, or driving any of their BP Logistic assets.
"It makes sense to train everyone who is involved with our product." says Transport Manager Ken Russell.
They conduct a yearly safety audit and a subsequent "industry leading" training programme for every contractor.
BP instigated this raft of training programmes 4 years ago. They include is a 4 day Tanker Driver Induction Course that beds in BP's Golden Rules of Safety. The tanker drivers also get a 3 day Emergency Response training course.
All fuel drivers go on a Professional Driving Course with Master Drive where they go through Stability Control Programme.
And since updating and presenting their training program 4 years without a major incident. Good to hear!
..................................................
BJC Elements - Hot Stuff 
Finalists - Global Gold in association with ANZ
BJC Elements is situated in Naenae and manufactures all types of electric heating elements including many specialised varieties for medical, scientific, domestic and industrial applications. They also make load banks and other resistor type products.
Flying in the face of current trends BJC Elements continue to manufacture quality products in New Zealand that are competitively priced and delivered on time, right first time, to over ten markets around the world, including Thailand, Italy and Mexico.
Founded in 1946 by Bazil James Cocksedge, BJC Elements continues a tradition of outstanding quality and service. It remains to this day a family-owned business that has embraced the new millennium with a commitment to innovation, quality and service.
They employ a team of 52 offering services from design and development through to testing - in it's own laboratory.
CEO Kean O'Neill is very proud of their ISO 9001 2008 and AS/NZS 4801 2001 accreditation.
In 2012 they secured a massive on-going contract to manufacture and supply 18,000 units (per annum) of flourescent lighting to a major Australian customer who will distribute them globally.
BJC has also recently acquired a huge part of a competitor’s business and associated machinery.
The recent purchase of wire-stripping machinery to manufacture their lighting looms has allowed them to set up of a new “Wiring Division”, employ a new team of qualified and experienced personnel to run the division and to train up new staff.
They have also bought a shareholding in another company that is hugely innovative in the field of emergency lighting & related equipment. This new partnership is to be launched in October.
With the investment in new equipment, the new contracts and partnership - BJC Elements are projecting an 80% increase in their work-force by the last quarter of 2013 - bucking the trend indeed.
www.bjcelements.co.nz
....................................................
BIGEARS - Good Listeners
Finalists - Emerging Gold in association with Yellow
BigEars was founded in 2004 by Mark and Julia Forsyth, and has developed into a world leader in customer feedback by creating supertools for listening to customers.
BigEars collects voice feedback and allows businesses to respond to that feedback quickly, helping repair broken customer-relationships, increase customer-loyalty and ultimately retain and grow their customer base.
In 2012 BigEars launched Customer Radio – an easy-to-use, customer-friendly voice feedback product accessible 24/7 from desktop, tablet or smartphone. Customer Radio ca dramatically improve customer experience by using voice feedback intelligently and instantly.
It is the only feedback system of its type in the world - an up-to-the-minute, curated ‘highlights-reel’ of quality, insightful feedback that organisations can act on.
With alert-emails Customer Radio allows businesses to respond quickly to customer complaints, repairing damaged relationships and ultimately turning detractors into promoters. It provides a creative way to get to the whole organisation listening to the voice of the customer – right up to CEO level.
BigEars is all about ‘doing cool sh*t with awesome people’. They want to attract the best clients, the most talented staff, and the most experienced consultants, and they want to exceed expectations on every level, every day.
In 2012 they pitched to two Wellington based companies in particular – Kiwibank and Loyalty NZ – and they are now working successfully with both.
Within the next three years BigEars hopes to be operating in four continents (Europe, America, Australasia and Africa) and to have revenue of over $8 million dollars. They plan to further develop their range of products as they take BigEars to the world.
www.yourbigears.com
Dominion Post Story 20/5/13
........................................................................
BEERVANA - Hopsapolooza
Finalists - Vibrant Gold in association with Wellington Airport
It's official: Wellington is the new Beer Capital of New Zealand - yes Mangatainoka has relinquished the crown. So it is only fitting that Beervana - our annual homage to the hop - should make it's home here.
For 2 days Westpac Stadium comes alive with ale lovers - 8,000 in 2012 - sampling craft beers matched with the quality cuisine. But Beervana is not a drinking festival, it is a tasting and sampling event aimed nobly at "Beer Enlightenment" (hence the name).
In 2012, helmed by new owner David Cryer, Beervana poured 271 beers from over 90 breweries. 18 Breweries from around New Zealand hosted bars at Beervana, giving attendees the chance to talk to the brewer and brewery staff while their pints are poured.
Last year around 30% of Beervana attendees were from outside the Wellington region, the largest percentages coming from Auckland, Australia and Christchurch.
Beervana wants to alter the consumer’s perception of alcohol. Craft Beer provides new styles of beer that are made to enjoy and appreciate, as opposed to a fizzy cold drink that will get you intoxicated.
The event highlights beer and food matching, and, under the auspices of Martin Bosley - their Culinary Director - works with Wellington's top restaurants. Beer education is crucial to Beervana and they offer an extensive seminar program.
In 2012 they added the Black Rock Home Brew Competition and a Home Brewing Masterclass - both went down a treat with the Brewophiles.
Beervana - helping build our craft beer infrastructure and audiences - responsibly.
www.beervana.co.nz
..........................................................................
AURA REDEYE SECURITY - Hackbusters
Finalist - Cyber Gold in association with PwC
With an ever growing threat from hackers prowling the internet our online lives are constantly at risk. Protecting private and business critical data, and no organisation today can operate effectively with its systems offline - Cyber Security is huge for any business.
Over the past few years there's been a massive growth in New Zealand and world-wide of companies starting online businesses and moving part or all of their existing business and transactions online. At the same time the number of attacks and breaches has vastly increased. With this move has come great risk, it’s no longer a case of “if” you’ll get attacked, but more of a “when”!
Led by Andy Prow, Aura RedEye Security is New Zealand's leading and fastest growing information security consulting company. Their leading edge technology (home-grown here in Wellington) gives them the ability to SCAN, ATTACK and SHIELD websites and networks from the cloud.
SCAN: The “RedEye” scanning component hunts for security flaws around the clock looking for weakness in networks and websites that a hacker could exploit. Aura’s aim is to be able to scan any website or any network, anywhere, anytime.
ATTACK: The “BlackEye” attack component simulates real attacks from detailed website attacks up to massive DDOS attacks. This provides Aura’s clients with a very safe and controlled way on how their systems survive whilst under attack.
SHIELD: The “RedShield” defence component provides extremely rapid web-application and network protection. Utilising their F5 and Arbor Network partner technologies RedShield can be customised and fine-tuned to shield and protect a massively diverse range of vulnerable systems.
As cyber-security is something you don’t want to get wrong, all of Aura’s services are managed by their expert team, who also provide penetration testing, security consulting and secure development training to many of our largest government agencies and hi-tech companies around the world.
It was this array of services that won Aura the 2012 ANZIA (Australia New Zealand Internet Awards) for Security and Privacy.
In 2011 Aura was recognized in the Deloitte Asia Pacific Technology Fast 50 as the 37th fastest growing business in New Zealand and the fastest growing business in Wellington and the Lower North Island, and have been in the Deloitte APAC Tech Fast 500 for the last 3 years.
So it’s reassuring to know that day and night their guys are watching your back, alerting you to problems, and helping you out if you’re in trouble. Keep up the good work fellas!
https://www.auraredeye.com/
.......................................................
ATA RANGI - A story of reinvention
Finalist - Global Gold in association with ANZ
Clive Paton is a true pioneer. By selling off his cowherd in 1980 and (rather bravely) planting vines in a stony paddock on the edge Martinborough, he helped lead to the reinvention of a town AND to New Zealand's global reputation for very fine Pinot Noir. What a guy!
Resisting a steady stream of suitors over the years, the ‘Tight Five’ – three hands-on owners, vineyard manager and winemaker - have expanded facilities and production in a steady and measured way to an annual production of around 17,000 cases. (Pictured from left "The Tight 5" - Alison Paton, Phyll Pattie, Clive Paton, Gerry Rotman & Helen Masters)
The wine's exceptional quality continues to attract outstanding global media attention in a very crowded market, helping to strengthen ‘brand New Zealand’ with world-class export wines.
In 2012, Ata Rangi exported 63% of the record $4.2m turnover to 26 markets.
Clive and co-owner Phyll Pattie carefully select international distributors who will nuture their brand. They regularly host wine trade and media from all corners of the globe, introducing them to the relaxed kiwi lifestyle and the best locally produced wine and food.
As well as being an elder statesman in the wine industry Clive has become something of an environmental warrior, with major tree planting at the Ata Rangi Bush Block and heading an ambitious 40,000 ha restoration project across the Aorangi Ranges and coast south of Martinborough. Ata Rangi also has a strong association with Project Crimson, sponsoring the renewal of rata through the sale of their Crimson Pinot Noir.
It is one of very few wineries to be accredited with the ISO14001 environmental management system, first achieved way back in the mid 90s. Clive says “Conservation is in Ata Rangi’s DNA.”
Ata Rangi is a strongly family-oriented business. Family values and generosity of spirit permeate the culture, with openness, flexible work hours and caring, positive, fun inter-personal relationships. Owners and staff are incredibly dedicated, going the extra mile and working together for whatever hours are needed to ‘get the job done’, especially at vintage time.
To this day, Grandma Paton, the oldest of four generations in Martinborough, is a regular visitor - bearing trays of her legendary home-baking for the team to enjoy over a morning coffee catch-up.
Ata Rangi wines can now be found in many of the most prestigious restaurants, retailers and resorts of the world - from Rockpool and Aria in Sydney, Harrods, Roka and Gordon Ramsey’s in London, Aureole, Per Se, and Sherry-Lehmann in New York to exotic Soneva Fushi in the Maldives.
A little bit of us over there.
www.atarangi.co.nz Wairarapapa Times-Age Story 20/5/2013
..................................
ABLE MASON CONCRETE - Master Blasters
Finalist Global Gold in association with ANZ
These guys do almost everything possible with concrete. Wellington is undergoing a seismic construction boom and this high energy team are doing the biz. In just 2 short years they have established a... ahem... rock-solid reputation. Concrete is their Passion!
The company may be young, but they are ancient masters in the ways of concrete.
Able Mason Concrete was formed by directors Tony Graham and Gary Bouzaid. Tony had 18 years extensive experience in concrete pumping and spraying and Gary 25 years in blocklaying in the construction industry. (Pictured from left Steve Graham, Tony Graham and Gary Bouzaid with their concrete spray pump at the Clyde Quay Wharf.)
They have a fleet of boom and line pumps and they specialise in seismic strengthening. They do commercial and residential work and anything to do with concrete.
Their jobs include restrengthening work, seismic strengthening, house slabs, footings, driveways, retaining walls, shear walls, concrete spraying banks for retaining, long lines, coloured concrete finishes, placing, exposed concrete aggregate finishes, blockfilling, grinding, and .....polished concrete!
The purchase of their new Putzmeister Line Pump and a Sermac Boom Pump has allowed the team to work on projects as diverse as the Asia Precinct at Wellington Zoo, Clyde Quay Wharf Apartments, Karori Tunnel, Countdown Newtown, the Huddart Parker Building upgrade and even the Hobbit movie sets.
These guys feel there are no limits to how big they can grow - Able Mason Concrete are cementing a place in Wellington's construction sector.
www.ablemasonconcrete.co.nz Dominion Post Story 18/3/2013
...........................................................................................................