New Zealand Entrepreneur of the Year 2011

                                                       
Bill Buckley - Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2011 Photo: from Buckley Systems website http://www.buckleysystems.com/
On September 14th I posted on Entrepreneurship and referred to the Ernst & Young resource entitled Nature or nurture.   Included in that publication was a photo list of 'some of the world's leading entrepreneurs'.
It would be good to see Bill represented on the EY website or in one of their publications in the future.

Mr Buckley will represent New Zealand in the next stage of the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year competition at Monte Carlo in France in 2012. More information about the New Zealand category winners can be found on the EY New Zealand site at: http://www.ey.com/NZ/en/About-us/Entrepreneur-Of-The-Year.

You can also tap into interviews with entrepreneurs at:
http://www.ey.com/GL/en/About-us/Entrepreneur-Of-The-Year/Entrepreneurs-on---Leadership and this includes Diane Foreman CEO of NZ based Emerald Group.

His company Buckley Systems Ltd situated in Auckland, New Zealand, manufactures precision electromagnets and almost all their production is exported - mostly to the US, UK and Japan. Congratulations!

Don't forget to use the label list for other posts on entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship or use the Search facility - top left sidebar.

Entrepreneurship is alive and well

This year Ernst & Young have published a report on entrepreneurship under the title Nature or nurture?  Decoding the DNA of the entrepreneur.   The key findings of the report are:

1. Entrepreneurial leaders are made, not born (nurture not nature)
2. Entrepreneurship is rarely a one-off decision
3. Funding, people and know-how are the biggest barriers to entrepreneurial success.
4. Entrepreneurs share core or common traits.
5. Traditional companies can learn from entrepreneurial leaders.

The full report is available electronically  through the ELIS catalogue at:
http://ets.kohalibrary.com/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumber=1097
The writers of the report have described the DNA of the entrepreneurial leaders in the following diagram:

Diagram entitled The DNA of the entrepreneur model from Ernst & Young 2011 report p.15.

Like many of you I am interested in reading about companies who have begun exporting or who plan to export  in the near future.   I never fail to be impressed by the variety of products and approaches exhibited by New Zealand companies.

So I decided to explore in a non-scientific way how three NZ companies stacked up against the core traits in this model (the keywords in the brown circle on the outside of the model).   My sample of three was limited to articles recently clipped from the DominionPost newspaper describing three NZ companies. They were:

• Zeezee.com - merino clothing for children
• Radiola Aerospace - testing and calibrating navigation and landing instruments for aircraft
• Planet Green - possum skin golf gloves (possums are a furry pest)

The three companies showed the following core entrepreneurial traits: Resilience,Teamwork, Passion, Quality, Customer focus, Flexibility, Vision and Innovation.    The only two missing were Leadership and Integrity.   In a more scientific survey in which management and staff were interviewed and websites combed, these two traits may also have showed up.   In the sample articles the focus was more on the companies rather than on individual leaders.
The EY report concludes on p.24:
     Over the past decade, entrepreneurial leaders have played an increasingly important role in the global  economy.   Their ability to see opportunities in an uncertain environment, take calculated risks and be tenacious in turning ideas into successful ventures are crucial components of both job creation and the global economic recovery.
If our local companies and their leaders continue to match this DNA, we will certainly begin to make headway in our export-lead recovery.
  
  

Global Entrepreneurship Week November 15-21

GEW is the world's largest celebration on entrepreneurship and innovation with 88 countries participating.  Have a look at www.unleashingideas.org to see what's going on.  Palmerston North has a full programme organised by Vision Manawatu which you can see at their website www.visionmanawatu.org.nz and it's really great to see that.  I have to say I was surprised to see that e-day seemed to pass unnoticed in this city - of course that is another story although it does have a connection with export products!

Global Entrepreneurship Week 2009

Global Entrepreneurship Week 16-22 November 2009


This website http://www.unleashingideas.org/?_c=1  has a global round-up on events. Here is the New Zealand listing of all the events taking place around the country: http://www.unleashingideas.org/newzealand?_c=1   There has also been publicity of the GEW in the newspapers - today's Dominion Post featured David ten Have and his company Ponoko.com.   David is a former Palmerston North resident and student at St Peter's College.

 Have a look at all the events that are planned in the UK during the week – all 2936 of them!http://www.gew.org.uk/  and here is an American site with a focussed section on the week including a podcast from Hilary Clinton on the Week:
http://www.entrepreneurship.org/FeaturedEvent/GlobalEntrepreneurshipWeek.html

Entrepreneurship hmmm...

Photo by Sushrutha Metikurke from http://sushrutha.blogspot.com and used with permission. Wind turbines at Te Apiti Wind Farm near Woodville 12 September 2009

Plenty of entrepreneurship involved in setting up these wind farms northeast of Palmerston North I would think. But what does entrepreneurship really mean?
There is a report by Jenny Keown in the Dominion Post today page C1, in which Sam Morgan (ex TradeMe) is interviewed. He says that he does not like the term entrepreneur, particularly when it is applied to him.

For exporters entrepreneurship is a key factor - what does it mean in international trade?

Sam Morgan is quoted as saying "For me, an entrepreneur is a business person who is yet to be successful. We are still struggling for a common defintion of what an entrepreneur is." When really pushed he said:

"Someone who builds a meaningful business to make a tonne of money is an entrepreneur"

What does the export/import industry think? Post your comment below.

"New things often come from a downturn" - Dale Herigstad

This quote comes from the website of XMediaLab www.xmedialab.com From May22-24th there was a 'Lab' in Auckland entitled 'Commercialising Ideas'. Dale Herigstad was one of a number of international mentors at the Lab. A couple of other notable quotes:

• Survival is the new growth - Tim Chang
• Trust is the social media currency - Patrick McFie

XMediaLab is about helping digital media companies improve their creative ideas and therefore increasing the likelihood of receiving funding, and getting to market successfully. In other words commercialising ideas.

The Lab in Auckland was supported by New Zealand Trade & Enterprise as part of its work to help grow New Zealand industry and build its international competitiveness.

There are other labs to come this year - the Sydney Lab this month will focus on games. Check out the website for more information.