When Bradley, Carl and I founded TradeGecko in 2012 we had a vision to enable entrepreneurs to build the business of their dreams. We have built a profitable business serving thousands of omnichannel commerce customers in over 100 countries processing over 5 billion USD in GMV. In 2020, our customers around the globe have seen their businesses transform as the world moves online. Today I am excited to announce the next stage of our journey. TradeGecko is joining Intuit, a trusted partner to over 7 million small businesses around the globe. From our very first conversations with Intuit’s leadership it was clear that we not only had highly complementary values and culture, but that we shared a common purpose: To help entrepreneurs and small businesses succeed. We couldn’t pass up the opportunity to accelerate our long-term mission of building the commerce platform to power millions of SMBs globally. Integrating TradeGecko’s robust inventory and order management system with QuickBooks’ suite of financial, payment, reporting and accounting tools will help product sellers run and grow their business, all in one powerful platform. Bradley and I are excited about the future - all of this has been made possible with the support of our amazing customers and our incredible team of Geckos. Partnering with Quickbooks is going to be an amazing opportunity to build the platform to power millions of SMBs. Cameron Priest, co-founder and CEO
We do a lot of work in Silicon Valley,” Company-X co-founder and director David Hallett said. “What’s the difference between New Zealand and Silicon Valley? It’s just the scale. You add extra zeros to numbers.”
One client asked Company-X to build a system that enabled billion-dollar decisions.
“One of our Silicon Valley clients initiated a process where they evaluated all of the teams that do work within that organisation,” said Company-X co-founder and director Jeremy Hughes.
“We had a couple of teams in there, and our team came out on top. We were kind of blown away that we were in that position, but we have got a lot of skill available and a pretty fantastic attitude.
"This particular client has a metric around the best developers across their whole organisation and our guys have been up on that leader board a number of times."
Hallett said New Zealand consistently punched above its weight in software development capability.
This capability was recognised by a Silicon Valley-based consultant in the USA who joined a Company-X team for nearly two years.
“She said she didn’t want to leave our team,” Hallett said. “She wanted to stick around because we were the highest performing team she had ever encountered globally, and that’s from us here in New Zealand working remotely.”
“When she left,” Hughes added, “she said that our team was the most capable team she had ever worked with. So I really enjoy that quote. Rather than us claiming, someone else is telling us.”
Such feedback is the result of Company-X culture and team capability.
“Our client’s regularly praise us for the professionalism of our team, in terms of the interaction of our teams across all responsibilities and skills, in terms of the way we do the work, but quantitatively they are also praising us on the quality of the work,” Hallett said.
“It’s great to hear our work being acknowledged as really good quality. The user experience is fantastic, the level of maintenance required is very low because it’s generating such high quality. It’s around methodologies as well, the way in which you do the work. We’re being praised for the Agile way we engage, they really love the communication and camaraderie and the professionalism that comes with those kinds of engagements.
“It’s about both being professional and delivering a really good service and they praise us on those two aspects. It's neat. You feel like we do what we say we’re doing.”
https://companyx.com/
New Zealand businesses are not letting a global pandemic get in the way of opportunity.
Wellington-based Antipodes Nature launched in the United States and Canada this month, despite ongoing concerns about Covid-19.
In June, peanut butter company Fix & Fogg opened its first shop outside of New Zealand in Texas, United States.
According to New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE), New Zealand exporters sold $10.5 billion of goods and services to the North America last year.
Antipodes founder Elizabeth Barbalich was in New York negotiating distribution for her skincare product range when the US began to lock down due to the spread of Covid-19 in February.
While the global situation was uncertain, Barbalich decided to forge ahead with the US and Canadian launch.
The US market had previous untapped potential for Antipodes, despite the uncertain economic environment, she said.
During the lockdown, Antipodes’ 50 staff continued to work to prepare for the launch.
Packaging had to be changed to meet US regulations, she said.
Making the decision to push forward during the Covid-19 crisis was not straightforward. Stores that would otherwise stock Antipodes products and uncertain supply lines were closed.
“It has been kind of exciting for us. I mean, we have been through the 2008 global financial crisis. We have seen the market go from hero to zero in a day. We have also seen the China market have massive swings. So, for us, this crisis is another market swing.”
The company was working with a distributor in the US that had close ties to Amazon and was set up to ship directly to customers as well as get products on the shelves in stores, Barbalich said.
Antipodes’ annual revenue target for this year was $100 million, with 85 per cent of sales coming from the company’s international markets, she said.
Barbalich expected the North American market to grow to 10 per cent of the company’s annual turnover.
Antipodes is now sold in New Zealand, Australia, in China through websites like Alibaba, Japan, the United Kingdom, France and in Sephora across the rest of Europe.
Global expansion has not been all smooth sailing, says Barbalich.
It took Antipodes Nature three attempts to find the right distributor in Australia, she said.
“If we get a partner that has the same thinking, that’s 50 per cent of the problems solved. Otherwise, we have this push-pull situation where we are trying to push a distributor, and they are not moving at the same pace as us and it just makes it a lot harder.”
Leigh Paulden, managing director at business advisory firm Scalable Sustainable Business Growth, said the US and Canada were still attractive markets for Kiwi businesses, even in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic.
North America offered a huge pool of potential customers, he said.
The US population was 331 million and the population of Canada 37 million.
But on the flipside, the sheer volume of product required to meet demand dwarfed anything New Zealand companies could imagine, he said.
Paulden encouraged his clients to limit what they offered when they launched.
“Your volumes are so big compared to New Zealand’s market, which is tiny in comparison. So you have to really narrow down what you enter the market with,” he said.
None of his clients had entered North America with their entire product range, and some focused on one state.
One client recently launched just in California, he said.
While they could technically try and launch in all 50 states, the company would struggle to manufacture enough product to keep up with demand, he said.
Covid-19 had not changed the need to consider who a business’s ideal customer was and how it would distribute their product around the country, he said.
By Debrin Foxcroft, Business Reporter, Stuff
Flintfox International, a disruptive innovator, global leader and Gold Microsoft ISV, are honoured to receive the 2020 MSUS Partner Award for Retail.
Flintfox are also proud to have achieved the prestigious 2020/2021 Inner Circle status. This is based on sales achievements that rank Flintfox in the top echelon of the Microsoft Business Applications global network of partners. Inner Circle members have performed to a high standard of excellence by delivering valuable solutions that help organisations achieve increased success. For the 4th time, Flintfox has been selected out of hundreds of partners for this elite membership.
2020/2021 Inner Circle members are invited to the Inner Circle Summit, taking place August 26, 2020, where they will have a unique opportunity to share strategies, and network with Microsoft senior leaders and fellow partners.
Flintfox, with their best of breed solutions for managing supply chain revenue, together with Microsoft, enable companies to achieve more in the US and beyond. With Dynamics 365 Finance and Supply Chain Management and Flintfox’s pricing and rebate management solution, there has never been such a complete and powerful tool available for Supply Chain companies. Flintfox are proud to have had their achievements in the field of retail recognised by Microsoft.
The Microsoft US (MSUS) Award program was developed to recognise outstanding achievement by their US partners. Flintfox was up against a very competitive nomination pool and rose to the top amongst hundreds of other partners and ISV’s.
Many clients have trusted Flintfox to implement Dynamics 365 along with Flintfox TRM. Flintfox uses a raft of Microsoft technologies to deliver their best of breed Revenue Management solution (TRM and RMx) that are renowned in today's market, including; Azure SQL Database, Power BI, Dynamics 365 F&SC, Azure DevOps (Source Control, Work Item Tracking, Scrum Boards, CI/CD), Azure AD Azure VMs, Azure App Service ASP.NET Core and Azure Machine Learning Lifecycle Services.
“Pricing is complex these days and managing pricing and incentives accurately for supply chain companies can be the difference between profit and loss. With Microsoft’s commitment to ERP innovation, breadth of functionality, and ease of use along with Flintfox’s competitive advantage in complex pricing and rebate management we are not just competing, we are winning. We are proud that our outstanding achievements globally have been recognised by Microsoft, this provides amazing testament to our company as we continue to grow in scale and influence. Looking forward to achieving even more wins with Flintfox and Microsoft - we make an incredible team.” says Flintfox CEO and Chairman, Mike Ridgway.
Flintfox has over 15 years of leading collaborations with Microsoft as an ISV, resulting in dozens of happy Dynamics AX and Dynamics 365 ERP clients getting the solutions they need to succeed and grow. As well as bringing extended functionality to D365, Flintfox has recently developed the RMx hyper-speed pricing engine in the Azure cloud, that works with any ERP, to complement the Trade Revenue Management (TRM) Suite for Dynamics. RMx delivers 5,000 complex prices calculated per second in Azure. There is currently no other solution like it in the world.
Source: www.flintfox.com
Forget In-N-Out Burger – US burger chain Five Guys is finally coming to New Zealand.
The franchise, renowned for its made-to-order burgers with 15 toppings and American-style milkshakes, is expected to open next year.
Seagrass Boutique Hospitality, the group behind restaurants The Meat & Wine Co, Ribs & Burgers, Italian Street Kitchen, and Hunter & Barrel, confirmed the chain would be coming New Zealand and Australia.
Five Guys has more than 1500 outlets worldwide and counts the UK and Hong Kong as its major successes outside the US.
Initial sites are now being scouted in Sydney, but it is not yet known where Five Guys plans to open stores in New Zealand.
Melbourne and Brisbane will also be one of the first cities to open across Australia.
Five Guys was founded in 1986 in Arlington County, Virginia, by Janie and Jerry Murrell and their sons Jim, Matt, Chad and Ben.
Source: NZ Herald Business
NASDAQ: LAUR) announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Strategic Education, Inc. (NASDAQ: STRA) for the sale of its Australian and New Zealand operations – Torrens University Australia and Think Education in Australia and Media Design School in New Zealand. The three operations have approximately 19,000 students enrolled in technical, undergraduate and postgraduate programs in a variety of academic disciplines, including Business, Education, Hospitality, Design and Creative Technology, and Health. Torrens University was founded by Laureate in 2014 and was the first new university to open in Australia in 20 years. Think Education joined Laureate in 2013, seven years after it was established. Media Design School, founded in New Zealand 22 years ago, became part of the Laureate network in 2011. Strategic Education, Inc. is an established operator of campus-based and online higher education institutions in the United States, including Capella and Strayer Universities. The purchase price is US$642.7 million and is subject to certain closing adjustments based on the aggregate working capital and indebtedness and on forecasted performance. Torrens University, Think Education and Media Design School will remain part of the Laureate International Universities network until the closing of the transaction, which is expected to occur by the first quarter of 2021. It is subject to customary closing conditions, including approval by relevant Australian and New Zealand authorities and a mutual right of termination based on the occurrence of a material adverse change in certain forecasted performance. Commenting on the transaction, President and Chief Executive Officer of Laureate, Eilif Serck-Hanssen said, “This transaction is an outgrowth of the process Laureate initiated earlier this year to explore strategic alternatives for each of its business units. We’re incredibly proud of what our Australian and New Zealand teams have achieved – from establishing Australia’s first new university in two decades, to consistently delivering quality student learning experiences with high employability outcomes. We have built a highly efficient student centric culture focused on strong ties to employers and community partners – and we have been rewarded with robust growth and student loyalty. Under the stewardship of Strategic Education, Inc., I’m confident that our institutions will continue to be supported in delivering on their mission of providing highly innovative programs with high student satisfaction and strong outcomes.”
Karl McDonnell, Chief Executive Officer of Strategic Education, Inc., said: “We’re excited to be expanding our business into the Australian and New Zealand markets. We have been impressed by the growth and impact the three Laureate institutions have made and look forward to welcoming Torrens University, Think Education and Media Design School into our network.”
Performance Insights, the largest Pipedrive CRM reseller globally and a leading sales software and consultancy firm to the Financial Services sector, today joins the FileInvite partner network in North America.
The partnership adds FileInvite’s cloud-based secure personal data sharing product to Performance Insights’ portfolio of CRM, client portals and marketing automation solutions for customers in banking, insurance, wealth management and credit. Secure personal data sharing through FileInvite means banks and credit providers can more efficiently complete their due diligence on consumer applications, improving both the customer experience and compliance.
Interest in secure document transfer has surged as a result of the CARES Act and during COVID-19 as consumers turn to online transactions rather than visiting bank or mortgage brokers in person. FileInvite makes it easier for bank employees to receive and safely store customers’ financial documents without meeting in person.
Performance insights, which counts Wells Fargo and Bank of America as clients, offers File Invite an extensive network of consultants and decades of industry expertise which will allow new customers to onboard faster.
The new partnership with FileInvite significantly improves document collection, a critical part of the loan and mortgage origination process that, historically, has been inefficient, time consuming and resulted in a poor user experience. FileInvite offers a very efficient process to collaborate with clients, collect important financial documents and deliver a wonderful user experience - especially important when everyone is working from home. We are very excited to introduce our clients and the financial services market in North American to FileInvite.
“We're excited to partner with a well established and trusted name like Performance Insights to bring secure data sharing to more companies across North America. New regulations and the pandemic are forcing change upon the collection of personal information, and FileInvite is positioned to solve this for consumers and their financial providers,.
https://www.fileinvite.com/
Pacific Edge Limited (NZX: PEB), has been notified by Novitas1 that the LCD: Biomarkers for Oncology (L35396) provides coverage for Cxbladder, CPT codes 0012M (Cxbladder Detect) and 0013M (Cxbladder Monitor), for tests performed on or after July 1, 2020 that are medically necessary.
This includes reimbursement for all Cxbladder tests performed for patients covered by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) across the USA, at the already determined national CMS price for Cxbladder of US$760 per test. The CMS provides healthcare coverage for all US citizens over 65 years, as well as assistance for healthcare coverage to people with low incomes. CMS tests currently make up approximately 40% of Pacific Edge’s current Commercial Tests in the USA. Pacific Edge will also be seeking to negotiate reimbursement for the Cxbladder tests that have previously been completed and invoiced for CMS patients.
CEO of Pacific Edge, David Darling, said: “This is a transformational milestone for Pacific Edge and the result of a number of years of hard work and effort from our teams in New Zealand and the USA. This long awaited outcome results from the generation of substantial clinical evidence, publication of numerous clinical papers demonstrating the compelling clinical utility and outperformance of Cxbladder, and growing commercial use of our tests by urologists in the USA and other markets.
“Coverage under the LCD for our two Cxbladder tests with CPT codes2 will unlock access to the CMS revenue which currently represents approximately 40% of Pacific Edge’s commercial sales in the US. The coverage decision is also expected to positively impact on demand and positive reimbursement decisions from other healthcare organisations and payers as well. It signals a new phase in Pacific Edge’s commercial journey and we will be pushing hard on the back of this announcement to gain adoption of Cxbladder by other large scale healthcare organisations.”
The LCD coverage notification comes hot on the heels of the signing of a commercial agreement with Kaiser Permanente, one of the largest non-profit healthcare providers in the USA, which was announced by Pacific Edge on 17 June 2020. Kaiser Permanente is one of the largest non-profit healthcare providers in the US, with over 12 million members and annual operating revenue of $84.5b3. It operates 39 hospitals, 714 medical offices and employs approximately 23,000 physicians.
Cxbladder is already in commercial use by the majority of the public healthcare providers in New Zealand and many have adopted it into their guidelines for both the evaluation of haematuria and in the monitoring for recurrence of urothelial cancer.
Chair of Pacific Edge, Chris Gallaher, said: “The LCD coverage signals a major step change for our company with the successful completion of the major reimbursement milestones in the USA. For a company from New Zealand, this is a huge achievement and one of which we are very proud. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank our team who have worked tirelessly to make this happen and shareholders for their patience and support as we have worked to commercialise our Cxbladder technology.”
1. NOVITAS is the CMS’s Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) for Pacific Edge’s USA commercial reimbursement for CMS patients. MACs regionally manage policy and payment related to reimbursement and act as the fiscal intermediary for Medicare. MACs manage provider claims for payment and establish regional policy guidelines, called Local Coverage Determinations (LCDs).
2. Administrative MAAA CPT Codes are issued by the American Medical Association (AMA) Current Procedural Terminology (CPT®) Editorial Panel and are a key component of the reimbursement process in the USA.
3. Kaiser Permanente Fast Facts https://about.kaiserpermanente.org/who-we-are/fast-facts
Source: https://www.pacificedgedx.com/
One of New Zealand's leading medicinal cannabis companies has announced a second distribution agreement to the United States.
NUBU Pharmaceuticals now has two deals with the first being with MGC Pharmaceuticals Ltd, a European cannabis-based biopharma company supplying GMP Phyto-cannabinoid derived medicines to patients globally.
The second deal is with the US-based, global medicinal cannabis manufacturer and distributor Plants Not Pills (PNP), NUBU announced today.
The global medicinal cannabis market is estimated to be worth over one hundred billion by 2026.
NUBU's CEO Mark Dye, a former television and Newstalk ZB presenter, said the distribution agreements with MGC & PNP were an exciting development in the growth phase of the business.
"NUBU is now one of the largest New Zealand based medicinal cannabis companies (in terms of patient numbers), and continuing to build a robust network of key partners, like MGC, will not only see revenue increase, but also help satisfy existing and future demand."
Partnering with MGC, he added, will bring many other additional benefits as well.
"MGC collaborates extensively with the world's best universities and companies to undertake extensive research and development across many healthcare areas, most exciting is their current research in neurological disorders, but they are also researching everything from cancer treatment through to autoimmune diseases. We are delighted to be working with MGC."
The announcement comes after another Kiwi medicinal cannabis company, Rua Bioscience, signed an export partnership with a German distributor, the Herald revealed.
Rua Bioscience, based on the East Coast, secured a deal with Nimbus Health, an independent pharmaceutical wholesaler which specialises in importing and distributing pharmaceutical-grade medicinal cannabis products in Germany.
Founded in 2016 as a subsidiary of Hikurangi Enterprises Ltd, Rua Bioscience was the first company in New Zealand to be granted a licence to cultivate pharmaceutical-grade cannabis and the first to legally import high THC seeds in 2018.
The company export-led growth strategy under the Medicinal Cannabis Scheme became operational in April.
"We are aiming to fulfil the first exports under the partnership in the second half of 2021," Rua Bioscience CEO Rob Mitchell told the Herald.
"While at this time we are not in position to confirm specific quantities or the value of the agreement, it is likely to amount to a few hundred kilograms in the first year of operation to a few thousand kilograms within three years."
New Zealanders, meanwhile, will vote in September on a non-binding referendum over whether the recreational use of cannabis should become legal, based on the proposed Cannabis Legalisation and Control Bill.
By: Sam Hurley New Zealand Herald business journalist
Blenheim-based food producer Annies has fronted a million-dollar turnaround in profits over the past year despite disruption from Covid-19.
Annies, which manufactures fruit bars and other snacks, entered two new export markets during the mandatory lockdown and pivoted its business model to deal with fallout from the pandemic.
Sales across the brand are now higher than they were pre-Covid - and are soaring in the United States, where Covid-19 cases are growing by tens of thousands by the day.
Bonnie Slade, sales manager for Annies, and Māori-owned parent company Kono, said sales in the US had accelerated significantly since it partnered with California-based subscription food box company Imperfect Foods in February.
Covid-19 cases in the US have surpassed 3 million and more than 132,000 deaths have been recorded. In some states, including New Jersey, transmission rates have hit a 10-week high.
Annies sales in the US through its undisclosed national retailer initially spiked in the US at the start of the pandemic and during lockdown before drying up. They have since returned to "near-normal" levels.
"What we've seen worldwide, and it happened in New Zealand as well, with the restrictions of numbers allowed into supermarkets, and some people not wanting to go to supermarkets, we saw a big spike at the start ... but that petered off because were at home [baking]," Slade told the Herald.
"On the flip side to that drop in demand, we saw huge demand from our US customer who is online."
Annies sends product to Imperfect Foods under private label. It puts its own branding on and delivers the product along with other commercially unsellable items in a weekly food box.
Slade said Annies was able to pivot and send more product to Imperfect Foods following demand loss from its retail partner quickly as the business experienced a surge in online orders.
Imperfect's business had increased ten-fold through the pandemic and was already a popular growing business prior to the outbreak, she said.
"They are seeing huge demand - they've got distribution centres all over the US - and many people are unwilling to go out so they are getting them online."
Annies sold more than 8.5 million fruit bars over the past 12 months and sent almost 500,000 new products to Imperfect Foods in the past few months.
The US is Annies' fastest-growing market, it is forecasting more than 420 per cent growth in the current financial year.
Annies was founded 33 years ago and acquired by Kono in 2014. Slade said the company had spent the past 12-18 months to re-strategising the business for growth. As part of this Kono and its brands set out seeking partnerships with other organisations.
The brand has been exporting to the United States since 2015 via an undisclosed retail chain and began sending product to Imperfect Foods during lockdown.
It also launched into China during lockdown and began exporting to the Middle East with a private label customer two weeks before lockdown. At the beginning of lockdown at the end of March, it also launched four new products and updated its packaging.
Other markets it exports to include Singapore, Thailand and Taiwan.
Slade said sales in the US despite the ongoing pandemic had exceeded expectations.
Growth in the market had happened faster than the company had forecast, he said.
"We knew Imperfect was going to be a good customer for us, we were not expecting the growth to be as fast as it has."
Annies is now focused on growing its business in Australia and markets closer to New Zealand.
Source: Aimee Shaw, a business reporter focusing on retail, small business, NZ Herald
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