Stefan Olsen

I was asked the other day if I work with people outside Hawke's Bay and the answer is yes I do and yes I can. With technology as it is today, it doesn't matter where you're located within New Zealand. If you think we can add some value to your business then we can definitely help wherever you are.

I just thought I'd tell you about how I was made to feel like a 12-year-old school boy the other day. So I challenge you to ask yourself this question: are you putting barriers in your customers way that they either don't want to come and do business in your industry or don't want to do business with you?

What's your competitive advantage? Why would people want to do business with you? This vlog is a continuation of the series I'm doing around strategic and business planning, and today I've got a really simple question for you to think about, although the answer may be a lot more complex!

Imagine if one of the kids said I've kicked my ball up on the roof. You go and get a ladder, put it up against the wall, make sure it's on a nice flat level piece of ground, and the rungs are all good. Then you climb to the top and get yourself up on the roof. But unfortunately you find your ladder is up against the wrong building!

When I chat to people about their strategic planning or their business planning, an answer I quite often get is, "I know I need to do something, but I just don't quite know what to do". So that's why, over the next couple of months, I'm going to do a series of vlogs talking about both strategic planning, that really big picture side of things, right down to business planning, along with implementation plans and how to make things happen.

Well, kia ora folks, thanks very much for taking the time to come and check out today's vlog. You know, people often tell me they'd love to have the time to step back and set some plans for their business. But one of the challenges is they don't actually know what to do or how to go about it.

For most of us in December we were thinking about the run up to Christmas: bbqs, beaches, wearing jandals, all that great summer stuff. But you may have missed there was also some new government legislation released 1 December 2020 – the Privacy Act 2020.

Well kia ora folks and welcome to my first Vlog for 2021. I've got some great stuff to share with you this year, well I think it's pretty cool anyway! But I thought for this first Vlog I'd take us back to 2020 with a public service announcement and a gentle reminder around COVID-19.

The Ford Motor Company in the 1990s was a leader in innovation with their roll-out of the Ford Explorer in the SUV market. This equated to an additional $30 billion of profit over that time.

In a recent article in Board Agenda, which is a UK governance publication, there was an interview with John Allen, the Chair of Tesco (see link at below), about the value of non-executive directors and independent advice.