Poor software wearing businesses down
Small and medium businesses, considered by many to be the 'engine room' of the New Zealand economy, are being hindered by inadequate management software, according to Greentree CEO Peter Dickinson.
The company is currently accepting votes for its Game On competition, which received dozens of entries from New Zealand businesses keen to win the prize of $250,000 in management software and services.
Entrants to the competition were required to describe their business pain points: the day-to-day problems the business puts up with and the bright ideas that are not seeing the light of day.
"We received entries from all around New Zealand," says Dickinson, "from companies ranging from $1 million to over $100 million.
"It's obvious from the entries that many well-established companies are not reaching their potential, and this will naturally affect the New Zealand economy.
"We know there are many super businesses out there that could perform so much better if they had the right management software.
Dickinson says the challenge of management system inadequacy is not unique to New Zealand. A paper entitled Building Sustainable High Growth Start-up Companies: Management Systems as an Accelerator, published in the University of California's California Management Review in 2010, highlighted the same problem in the United States.
The paper's authors say many companies, founded with enthusiasm and hope for high growth, fail to meet their founders' and investors' expectations because of the failure to switch to a more structured management approach and adopt management systems and processes in a timely way.
Dickinson encourages kiwis to view the finalists in the Game On competition and cast their vote for the most deserving business. The final decision will be split between this voting and the ruling of a panel of judges.
"A Greentree implementation partner, as well as our cloud partner, CodeBlue, will be with the winner all the way," Dickinson says, "ensuring seamless implementation and staff training.
"This prize will transform the winning company, just as Greentree has helped many other medium-sized organisations in New Zealand and around the world.
Greentree is a New Zealand software developer whose business software is used by medium-sized organisations internationally. Users include Griffiths Equipment, Paramount Services and Ryman Healthcare in New Zealand, Southern Cross Healthcare and Incat in Australia, and the Publishers Association and UK Highways in the United Kingdom.
