It’s been quite an exciting year for The Engine. As the year comes to a close we wanted to share the success and celebration of a good year. 

Activate Tamaki Makaurau

The $60m business support package announced by the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Small Business in October 2021 and was made available to Auckland Business Owners on the 1st of December 2021. Over the course of 2022 our Business Advisors were able to help many business owners with their strategic plans, cashflow forecasting, health and safety and much more. Our wider Provider community helped to delivered websites, lead pages, videos and other collateral. The combined effort has meant that many business owners now have processes, procedures and marketing material in place to grow their businesses.

Check out our youtube playlist “Meet our clients” to see some of what our Provider community helped deliver.

Our Team

In March we welcomed Stacey Hornell as Business and Administration Support and she has been invaluable with helping to build our social media presence. An absolute super star addition to the team.  

In July Peter Cooke joined as a Business Advisor to The Engine as a Customer Experience Specialist. With a career that has spanned many industries and countries over the past 35 years Peter has a wealth of knowledge to offer business Owners. His experience gained across the banking, utility, telecommunications and insurance sectors has seen Peter develop extensive senior management and leadership skills. More recently he has specialised in customer experience leadership having been Head of CX at both Lotto NZ and EnviroNZ.

In August, Christine Rankin came onboard as a Leading Business Advisor specialising in Leadership. Christine has lead small teams to running organisations with 100s of staff. Now armed with a lifetime of experience in business, she knows leadership starts at the top.

The Engine Business Forum – Workplace Wellness

Having businesses return to these types of events was encouraging and what a turn out it was!  Over 100 businesses started their morning at 7:30am with a light breakfast & networking and finished at 2pm with a great deal of insights, connections and from what we heard satisfied bellies from breakfast, morning tea and lunch. A big thank you to everyone who came and made this event possible. We look forward to hosting more in 2023.

Our Provider Community

We welcomed the below Providers into our community this year. A big thank you to all their support and commitment to this community.

If you are going to take a serious run at building or growing a business you need to be connected to your team, your customers, your community and yourself. Take advantage to have a chat with one of The Engine’s Business Advisors who have walked in your shoes, been hands-on and built the kind of company you want to build or grow many times.

Some of what we do to help our clients grow is: 

– Introduce awareness to wellness into organisations, strengthening culture, retention and attracting talent. There is no doubt right it’s a challenging market and companies who are currently working with us are retaining their talent and attracting new talent.

– Enable work/life balance for company owners and their team. Yes it’s possible to step away from your business with comfort and have time for you and your family.

– Coach businesses on understanding the numbers and the importance of cash flow in order to make informed decisions in the business. 

– Assist businesses with restructures for growth. 

– Facilitate disputes and potential dispute agreements with clients for leases, employment issues, transaction issues, franchise and more. 

– Mitigate potential risk through proper governance.

– Coach to avoid disputes through building better business practices & disciplines.

– Assist businesses out of the risk areas with financiers.

– Build the value proposition for businesses to increase the value for exit.

Everybody wants growth, the real question is where to begin. Get the conversation started by booking a complimentary chat with any of our Business Advisors so you can get your direction set. Now is the time to be planning for your first quarter for 2023 and setting the goals and tone for the year. 

Catherine Cooke | Founder and Leading Business Advisor

Book a free 30min planning session with any of our experienced Business Advisors. 

One Day Sale – Business North Harbour
The biggest one yet!

Date: Saturday the 3rd of December
Time: 9am – 4pm
Location: Albany Junior High School, 19 Appleby Road, Albany, Auckland

The Business North Harbour ONE DAY SALE, Auckland’s Biggest shopping bonanza is back bigger and better than ever. 
Celebrating its 10th year ONE DAY SALE, is a perfect opportunity to grab some great deals.

Wine Time will be participating with some super special deals. If you haven’t sorted your Christmas gifts already, Wine Time’s personalised wine and bubbles are the perfect gift to add value to your clients and keep your brand on their minds over the break.

Save the date and we can’t wait to see you there.

 New Zealand, we’re bringing you the best of Zoho.

Zoholics, an annual user conference for Zoho CRM customers and potentials, is 28th of November in Auckland, 9am to 5pm.

As an authorised Zoho Partner Mello would love for you to join us. Zoholics brings our customers and partners together with the best minds at Zoho for a day of learning and networking. 

This is an excellent opportunity, not only to get your questions answered, but to exchange ideas and experiences with business leaders just like yourself.

Share your experiences with Zoho employees, product experts, and fellow Zoho users. Meet over 400+ people expected to attend Zoholics in Sydney—networking is highly encouraged!

Learn how to get the most out of your investment in Zoho

Use the promo code: THEENGINE for a 50% discount on the ticket

 Provider News and Updates

Incentivising staff with shares

Despite some economic headwinds, New Zealand is still experiencing a tight labour market.  

Many employees are now in a position where they can “shop around” as there are more opportunities available to them.  As well as these options, post Covid employees are looking for more than just a pay cheque.  Employees now want long-term opportunities in which they can grow with a business and reap the rewards of the company’s success.  As a result, an increasing number of employers are looking at different options for staff holding shares as a retention tool.  This article looks at the different options available and highlights that careful legal and tax advice needs to be sought. 

The main reasons for staff holding shares from an employer’s perspective is to hopefully make them less likely to leave the business and contribute more when their efforts are linked to the company’s profits. 

The main benefits are: 

– Assist retention
– Encourage and increase productivity with existing employees
– Offer flexible remuneration
– Attract new employees
– An exit strategy for the owners

Of course, with staff holding shares there is a lot to think about.  If staff hold shares then normally those staff will have voting rights and will be able to see a lot more financial information about the business. 

Employee Share Schemes

An employee share scheme is an arrangement where employees are given the opportunity to acquire shares in the company.  The shares are issued by the company (as opposed to transferred by the existing shareholders) either up front to the employee or the issue of the shares can be linked to certain events or performance (known as options).   

Resources supplied by Provider to The Engine Martelli McKegg.