CEO’s pick NZ’s icons of change

Today’s most admired New Zealand companies are the ones embracing change and delivering for all stakeholders.

Sometimes profound change has so many facets, so many moving parts, it can be hard to grasp. When we asked New Zealand business leaders to nominate the companies they see as leaders in business transformation, what emerged was quite a short list.

Air New Zealand, which was name-checked on multiple fronts during our focus group research, leads the pack, followed by banks, most prominently Kiwibank, but also ASB and ANZ. Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, Spark and Radio New Zealand (RNZ) also rated mention.

New Zealand’s national carrier helps explain why there is such a buzz about business transformation right now. The company’s myriad innovations demonstrate both extreme customer focus and a commitment to innovate new digital channels.

The result is one of the most profitable and admired airlines in the world.

Air New Zealand has had an “extraordinary run of doing things really well”, making the company worthy of close examination, one chief executive said.

Banking has been at the cutting edge of change since the arrival of ATMs and Eftpos. That early experience has primed the industry for online disruption.

But it was not the Australianowned incumbents that drew the most praise in our research.

Instead it was Kiwibank, a government-owned bank and, as it has turned out, a significant market disruptor as much through its marketing as its digital delivery.

“Kiwibank have both captured the digital space very well and still retained a very NZ flavour,” one executive said.