Business Mentoring in New Zealand

1. BUSINESS MENTORING IN
NEW ZEALAND
ALVIN SHARMA S97001213
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2. AGENDA
 What is a mentor?
 Business Mentoring
 Business Mentoring – NZ
 Advantages of Business Mentoring
 Setbacks – Business Mentoring
 Pacific Islands Business Mentoring
 Success Stories
 Business Mentoring – Other Countries
 Conclusion
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3. What is Mentor?
 A mentor is someone with more entrepreneurial
business experience than you who serves as a trusted
confidante over an extended period of time, usually
free of charge.
 He/ She is selected by the protégé and is older than
him/her.
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4. MENTORING VS COACHING
MENTOR COACH
SELECTION Protégé picks mentor Coach selects team member
BEHAVIOUR Biased in your favour Impartial, focused on
improvement in behaviour
FOCUS Individual Performance
ROLE Facilitator with no Specific agenda
agenda
RELATIONSHIP Self Selecting Comes with the job
SOURCE OF Perceived value Position
INFLUENCE
PERSONAL RETURNS Affirmation/ learning Teamwork/ performance
ARENA Life Task related
SUMMARY Has a deep personal Develops specific skills for
interest–who cares about the task, challenges and
you and your long-term performance expectations at
development work
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5. Business Mentoring
 Most business owners have someone they talk to on a
regular basis to help them make decisions, such as:
 Friends and relatives you meet socially,
 Other business owners in a similar industry,
 Business associations and membership
organizations,
 Industry associations and specialist groups,
 High-profile entrepreneurs,
 Coaches, mentors, professional advisers, accountants,
 Professional directors.
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6. Business Mentoring - NZ
 Business Mentoring in New Zealand is provided
through Business Mentoring New Zealand – a not for
profit organization funded by the NZ Government.
 Has a current pool of over 1,600 volunteer mentors
nationwide
 BMNZ mentors are proven successful business
people – all their mentors are vetted and reference
checked before being accepted into the mentoring
service.
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7. Business Mentoring - NZ
 BMNZ volunteer mentors come from a diverse
range of cultures and fields including:
 sales and marketing
 general management
 finance and accounting
 administration
 manufacturing, production and distribution
 human resources
 legal
 international trade and export
 information technology, and
 not-for-profit experience.
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8. 11/25/2011
SOURCE: BUSINESS MENTORS NZ ANNUAL REPORT 2010 8

9. Business Mentoring - NZ
 BMNZ mentors are passionate committed individuals
who understand New Zealand business and want to
see their communities prosper and grow.
 Their mentors know first-hand what it feels like to
struggle, take risks and survive.
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10. Business Mentoring - NZ
 Understand the most important aspect of gaining
knowledge and experience is having the opportunity to
share it with others to help their learning experience.
 BMNZ takes care of the privacy issue as follows in the
contract:
“The privacy and confidentiality of our clients and their
businesses is paramount. Before a mentor can be assigned a
client, they must agree to the terms and conditions
of operation within our comprehensive Mentor
Commitment Contract”.
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11. Business Mentoring - NZ
Applying for the process is as follows:
 Complete the on line application form
 The application will be directed to the nearest agent (usually the
Chamber of Commerce)
 The co-ordinator will match the applicant with a mentor who is well
suited to its specific business circumstances and requirements
 The coordinator will then advise the applicant of the mentor matched
to its circumstances along with a time for them to meet
 The term of the applicant’s relationship with a mentor is 12 months.
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12. Business Mentoring - NZ
Client Eligibility
Business Mentors provides mentoring to businesses that
are part of the following sectors of the economy:
 Tourism
 Eco Tourism
 Agriculture
 Exports
 Import Substitution
 Horticulture
 Marine Industries
 Service Industries
 Manufacturing
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13. Business Mentoring - NZ
The criteria for businesses to participate are:
 The business has a minimum of 12 months trading
history,
 The applicant is the business owner
 The Business owner commits to a minimum 12 months
participation
 The business owner commits to respond to satisfaction
and outcome surveys
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14. 11/25/2011
SOURCE: BUSINESS MENTORS NZ ANNUAL REPORT 2010 14

15. Advantages of Business Mentoring
 Peace of mind,
 Increased confidence,
 A fresh prospective,
 Inspiration/ sounding board to bounce ideas off
for growing your business,
 Assistance to implement improvements,
 An empathetic person to listen to the challenges
and difficulties you face,
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16. Advantages of Business Mentoring
 Set new goals and achieve better results.
 Successful mentoring depends on the commitment
you make to the mentoring relationship!
 Independent, impartial advice.
 IT IS FREE!
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17. Setbacks – Business Mentoring
 Depending on the Business Mentor which you are
associated with, there is a possibility that your ideas may be
overshadowed by that of the mentor in guise of experience.
 The vision and soul of the company when it is up and
running may not be yours.
 Running a corporate office is different than that of running
your own office. Some decisions in running your own
business is purely strategic rather than financial.
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18. Pacific Islands Business Mentoring
 Initiated by Pacific Islands Private Sector Organization
(PIPSO)
 Expected to increase business efficiency and
capability, and to contribute to growth in the
economies of the countries participating in the
programme.
 The New Zealand Aid Programme agreed to fund the
PBMP such that it could be established in 11 countries
over a three year period, which started in 2010.
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19. Pacific Islands Business Mentoring
 The full rollout programme is:
 A team of 5 business mentors from NZ will visit each
country for a 1 week period twice each year, during
which time each mentor will assist four businesses.
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20. Pacific Islands Business Mentoring
Objectives
 To strengthen business management and empower
Pacific Businesses to participate competitively in both
the local and international economies.
 To identify and train local mentors to be effective and
to ensure sustainability and ownership of the
programme.
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21. Pacific Islands Business Mentoring
KPI’s
 Increase staff numbers
 Increase turnover of each business
 Increase export sales for those businesses who are
exporters
 Increase the use of business plans, marketing plans
and financial information
 Achieve high levels of client company satisfaction
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22. Success Stories
Cafe/Restaurant – Tonga
 A cafe/restaurant business situated in Tonga, which
caters for tourism, applied for a mentor to assist in the
development of a good financial system and to assist in
improving the marketing of their business,
 During the mentors first visit it became clear that the
cafe was running at a loss and there was no ready
explanation as to why this was happening.
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23. Success Stories
 The owners and the mentor then decided on an action plan
involving stopping theft, revising the menu pricing, and
looking for extra patronage,
 Now, three months later, the owners are reporting an
increase in revenue, profits and customer numbers. The
owners said “The most useful part of the mentoring
experience was to be able to talk to someone about our
business, who actually understands and is able to offer real
advice. We were very, very impressed with the knowledge
of our mentor and very, very grateful we had a chance to
meet with him”
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24. Success Stories
Aluminum window and door manufacturing
business – Samoa
 They were looking for ways to improve their financial
management, business planning and human resource
management,
 They had been in business for about five years and
employed four staff and had a healthy annual turnover
of about $1million. However, profitability had been
poor for several years.
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25. Success Stories
 The mentor visited the business and discovered that the
financial quoting model they were using was based on a
model used in a franchise system overseas.
 The mentor discovered that the system, when used for
producing quotes, was not including the cost of the glass
required for the windows as for some reason this cost had
been zero rated.
 A test quoting exercise was undertaken which revealed that
quotes for jobs which included glass, were indicating a
total job cost of between 20% - 30% under the actual cost
of the materials used.
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26. Success Stories
 The impact of this was that the business had lost about
$300K over the last 4 years, and once the problem was
corrected the business profitability was restored,
 The mentor also helped in finding new business
opportunities for the company in excess of $1 million
against international competition, with the company
owner saying:
“My mentor improved my knowledge of running and
sustaining my business. He advised on negotiating and
tendering for new business and my company was
awarded the contract – thanks to my mentor”
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27. Business Mentoring – Other Countries
 Scotland
 Luxemburg
 Canada
 Australia
 USA
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28. Conclusion
 Business Mentoring in NZ differs from similar
processes in other countries.
 It is an initiative by the NZ Government and is a role-
model of how such a process assists in setting up and
growing a small to medium level businesses.
 The advice comes from reputable people who have
‘been there – done that’ and are highly experienced.
 There are immense benefits to a new business owner
from the NZ Business Mentoring process.
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29. Conclusion
 It is free!
 The business owner needs to ensure that he/she remains in
charge during the mentoring process. That is, it is his/ her
business and the soul of the business must remain with
him/ her.
 The Pacific Island Countries have a lot to gain from this
process which has a huge potential to increase their
economic growth and create more jobs.
 Compared to NZ, the economies of the Pacific Island
Countries, even Fiji & PNG are under-developed.
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30. Conclusion
 Businesses in Fiji/ Government of Fiji could formally
request BMNZ to assist us in setting up small to
medium businesses here.
 This will complement and take the load off Business
Incubation Fiji – the Government Body which is
currently carrying out the same process on a smaller
scale.
 BIF assists sugar cane farmers, in particular, to
diversify planting of cash crops, which generates
income for them, once every 3 months.
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31. REFERENCES
www.businessmentors.org.nz
www.nzte.govt.nz
www.actioncoachbusinesscoaching.co.nz
www.plato.org.nz
www.businessmentorspacific.org.nz
www.samoachamber.ws
www.pacifictradeinvest.com
www.ncsmed.org.fj
2010 Business Mentors New Zealand Annual
Report
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32. QUESTIONS
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