BUSINESS IN FIJI: TWO COMPELLING JOINT VENTURES

WITH FIJI’S ECONOMY GROWING STRONGLY AND A WEALTH OF INCENTIVES AND ASSISTANCE ON OFFER, 2023 IS THE PERFECT TIME FOR KIWI BUSINESSES TO BUILD BOTH VALUE AND CAPABILITY THERE THROUGH ROCK-SOLID PARTNERSHIPS.

n 2023, Fiji is rolling out the welcome mat to business ventures with serious growth ambitions.

The country, renowned for its friendly welcoming smiles, is totally focused on promoting its latest business incentives and investment opportunities for New Zealand businesses.

Numerous incentives are offered for a wide range of sectors – including pharmaceutical production, fish processing, building and construction, cosmetics, textiles, clothing, footwear, tourism accommodation, agriculture, business process outsourcing, as well as high-end furniture and value-added raw materials.

There are considerable tax benefits and customs concessions available to qualifying companies, as well as a number of assistance services for investors, such as investment matching, investment project management, trade development and policy recommendation.

For BPO companies especially, Fiji’s BPO sector offers a number of incentives and advantages, and the sector is expected to grow to an estimated 25,000 outsourced employees by 2025.

“Fiji offers a young, tech-savvy working population that’s experienced in working in the outsourcing sector,” says Investment

Fiji CEO Kamal Chetty. “Ninety-nine percent of those employees are fluent in English, and 90 percent are under 35 years old and work in a culture of serving quality customer service.”

IKiwi businesses looking to partner with Fiji-based service providers will take advantage of super-fast fibre connectivity, modern buildings and outsourcing-ready offices, excellent transportation services as well as employment taxation schemes that allow for generous tax deductions.

Tourism is also under the spotlight, with a number of incentives and opportunities on offer.

The government’s plan is to expand the visitor economy to FJ$3.37 billion and attract one million international visitors by 2024.

Across contact centre, business process and knowledge outsourcing, Fiji stands out as a shining example of collaboration, support and service.

PRESENCE AND CAPABILITY

For Chandan Ohri, founder and CEO of New Zealand-based consulting and services company Duco Consultancy, there were three main reasons for choosing Fiji as its delivery centre for both Australia and New Zealand.

“This was the alignment to Fiji’s education system, the high standard of communication skills on offer with English the country’s first language, and the easy alignment of time zones between the three countries.”

Chandan says they received “tremendous support” from Investment Fiji, covering research and set-up, benefits, concessions and liaising with government agencies.

“The benefits of the partnership included the ability to move profits back to our holding company; partnering with universities that means we can target talent early; and the strong salaries, with Fiji’s low cost of living, gives us a cost advantage whereby we can provide value-formoney near-shore resources.”

Chandan says 2023 is about strengthening the presence of Duo Consultancy across the three countries (Fiji, New Zealand and Australia) and building capability. His advice for Kiwi firms is to work closely with Investment Fiji as a single window partner. “Visit Fiji and present your business case to key agencies, so they fully understand your business. Investment Fiji is the key enabler for this process.

“Then organise your banking support and work closely with a chartered accountant to make the process for compliance registrations easy.”

GOING ‘LOCO’ IN FIJI

Renewable energy and agriculture have been additional priority industries for Fiji for some time, and many exciting projects between Canterburybased Mackwell Locomotive and local Fiji agricultural industries are emerging. Facilitated by EU funding programme Get.invest, Mackwell Locomotive projects can deliver significant financial and climate impact benefits in industrial power generation, agricultural traction and rail locomotion.

Currently in Fiji, costly Co2-emitting diesel trucks and locomotives transport crops from the field to the mill. Mackwell’s ground-breaking Zeroloco™ fleet can help enable a highly efficient rail transport system utilising zero-carbon, locally sourced, low-cost biomass fuels, including crop residues and agricultural waste products.

A pilot project is being considered, and the ROI and payback benefits are impressive. Compared to an equivalent diesel locomotive, the Zeroloco™ can reduce fuel costs by 85 percent, reduce CO2 emissions by 96 percent, and overall costs by 35 percent. In Fiji the margins are expected to be even greater thanks to local differences in the cost of diesel and wages.

Mackwell Locomotive’s business development manager William Bowden explains that biomass is the most cost-effective way to capture and store the sun’s energy in a zero-carbon, transportable and ondemand form.

“With our advanced-steam technology, biomass can displace diesel from a range of applications, including rail transport, farm traction and off-grid generation.”

Fiji’s sugar industry produces a biomass waste product called bagasse. William says they have calculated that just three percent of the bagasse produced by the industry can power the country’s entire sugarcane transport network.

William is grateful to the work the Fiji Trade Commission did to introduce Mackwell Locomotive to Get.invest, the programme that delivers renewable energy projects in developing nations.

“We were accepted as clients for their free-of-charge Finance Catalyst services. They have a proactive, trustworthy and driven expert team who help us with advisory services, financial modelling and climate funding applications,” says William.

“Accessing such a network of skilled individuals would usually be out of reach for a small company, so we are very grateful to have their support in delivering our Pacific projects.”

TALK TO THE RIGHT PEOPLE

For partnerships to work successfully in Fiji, it’s important to have people close to the ground, says William Bowden. He recommends speaking to as many well-informed people as you can and building a strong network.

“If people see that your proposal can positively impact the Pacific, they will help you.

“We highly recommend Camila Eiras from the Fiji Trade Commission in Auckland. Her business development, marketing and networking skillset is amazing and she can navigate all Fiji-specific questions with ease.”

BY EDITOR

GLENN BAKER

ANDY DHARMANI (LEFT) AND

DAVID THOMPSON.

There are clients across the US, including the 400-hotel Highgate chain, and David’s “hero client”, the 450-room five-star Turtle Bay Resort, which the chatbot helps to convert around $200,000 per month in revenue.

Bookmebob is essentially a conversion tool that captures sales when potential customers either directly or indirectly come from discount sites to their clients’ web pages, explains David. It means clients not having to cover commissions on the various discount sites.

“Bookmebob drives direct bookings, improves the customer experience and collects priceless data for the hotels. It delivers extremely valuable customer insights that you wouldn’t have received in pre-chatbot times.

“Another benefit of our technology is that it is transferable from industry to industry and suitable for all hotels, from five-star to three-star.”

Client on-boarding speed has accelerated in the past three years too he says – going from laboriously filling in Excel spreadsheets to up and running in just three to four hours.

CHANGING MINDSETS

While the pandemic threatened to bring the hospitality industry to its knees, David sees the irony in it also creating a receptive environment for hoteliers to embrace technology like Bookmebob. “There’s a very different mindset out there now,” he says.

On the subject of mindsets, David has some good advice for other tech start-ups too. You may have a great product and know it’s a no-brainer, but if the client or market is not convinced, never give up.

“Nine times out of ten it’s timing. The client may not be in a position to accept or understand your product right then,” he says.

“The sad thing for me is that I’ve had my greatest sales successes overseas, not in New Zealand. Yet I know all the industry players and hotels in this country. But thankfully that’s changing. Realise that, unfortunately, sometimes you’ve first got to head overseas to be successful.”

There’s advice on raising capital too. “Hold out on your morals for the right investor. You may have to turn down several investors before you find the right one.”

NO LOOKING BACK

With an ROI of up to $1000 for every $1 invested, depending on the hotel, plus increased bookings and the additional data captured by the chatbot, David and Andy’s technology is understandably taking off. David says the time savings mean human resources can be rediverted to other duties. Phone calls are reduced by 20 to 30 percent, and from six to ten percent of all bookings now come direct via the chatbot – attracting no commission.

Looking ahead, David’s keen for Bookmebob to become the fastest unicorn in New Zealand. He believes he has the business foundations and blueprint to do it, including the backing of a cornerstone investor from South Australia – Capitality Pty Ltd, owned and operated by David and Lucille Uhrig.

He’s grateful for the advice and support he’s received along the way. There’s Andy, who has been his “AI brains” and now heads the US Bookmebob office in Nashville, and Sir John Key, whom he met several times while managing New Zealand hotels.

“At the 2019 New Zealand Hotel Association Conference and wearing his ANZ chairman’s hat, Sir John urged the industry to seriously look at embracing new emerging technologies such as AI. I’ve never forgotten that, and it inspired me more,” recalls David.

Hotel magnate Sudesh Jhunjhnuwala, who went from refugee to rich-lister, has been a business moral compass too. “He has also given me some good, honest advice along the way,” says David.

It seems to be the one common thread that humans and chatbots have in common: an inbuilt desire to assist others.

pportunities for exporters to get together have been scarce of late. But 2022 saw the triumphant return of New Zealand’s largest exporter conference, Exportnz’s Go

Global, after a two-year absence.

Exporters from around the country gathered to discuss everything that has changed in the years between events, as well as what parts of the exporting business have largely remained the same. Also on the conference agenda was the difficult task of trying to predict what the future has in store, in an effort to help exporters tackle any issue with poise.

That’s because if the Government’s forecast is to be believed, there are still stormy seas to navigate.

During the event, New Zealand’s chief trade negotiator Vangelis Vitalis gave a no-holdsbarred overview of the global trade environment. In doing so he labelled 2023 “the end of the golden weather” for international trade policy.

His reasons for doing so sound somewhat biblical at first; war, famine and plague.

The war in Ukraine has exacerbated supply chain issues and threatened the world’s grain supply (of which Ukraine is a major supplier) as well as leading a surge in power prices across Europe. These increased energy costs are inevitably hitting the pockets of businesses and consumers.

Not to mention the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, which has turned just about every industry

Oon its head, at least for a while. And at the risk of sounding apocalyptic, I would add climate management to the list.

While lifting many sudden barriers to trade has granted our industry a bit of a reprieve (like reopening borders around the world), it’s clear we’re not out of the woods just yet. That’s because despite switching gears to tackle Covid’s impact in recent years, the international challenges we faced before haven’t gone away, but rather have been compounded.

Sounds like the end of the golden weather indeed, and a truly difficult environment to navigate over the coming years. But it’s not all doom and gloom ahead for the industry. Each of these issues alone have the potential to undermine any global attempts at recovery in a post-covid environment. Together they are formidable, but not insurmountable.

ANALYSING CONFIDENCE

The Export Barometer is an annual joint initiative between DHL and Exportnz aimed at analysing export confidence in New Zealand and identifying export trends.

The survey checked in with

Kiwi exporters to understand their outlook for 2023 and uncover the issues still keeping them up at night.

The latest report shows exporters predict this year will be a strong year for growth, with more than two-thirds of those surveyed (67 percent) saying they expect international orders to increase in 2023. To ensure this happens, it’s critical New Zealand does what it can to get its own house in order, and irons out the issues we have some control over. Things like pulling the levers at our disposal to bring inflation under control, making sure our end of the supply chain runs smoothly, and that exporters are able to recruit and train the staff they need.

Exportnz will continue to use the insights gained from both the survey and Go Global event to advocate on behalf of businesses within the sector.

Go Global left attendees with a clearer picture of what’s on the horizon as well as many inspirational stories from fellow exporters, such as Ethique, Metalbird, Valocity, Seequent and others. These are Kiwi businesses that have managed to make their mark throughout a challenging time – be it through building sustainable brands, disrupting the digital space, or meaningful investment through partnering globally.

So, despite the risks and challenges to our industry, both anticipated and unknown, I still believe there is plenty for exporters to be optimistic about as we tackle the big issues in 2023.

JOSH TAN oversees policy and advocacy for Exportnz. He was previously senior policy and international relations advisor for the Wellington Chamber of Commerce and Business Central, as well as executive secretary for the New Zealand Taiwan Business Council.