Pandemic pivots: resilience in the face of adversity

Tim McCready looks at some of the innovation emerging from New Zealand businesses in the face of adversity. Let us know what has been missed – from New Zealand and around the world.

Restrictions imposed by the Covid-19 lockdown have caused some businesses to consider closing up shop for good. While some have taken this route, others have used the restrictions forced upon them to pivot into areas they hadn’t before – either because they had never needed to, or they had never considered it.

One of the best examples of this is Nanogirl Labs, run by one of New Zealand’s best-known science communicators, Dr Michelle Dickinson. It was quickly apparent to Nanogirl Labs that its ‘old’ business – live stage shows and performances at schools around New Zealand – was not viable in the near future.

“I looked at our staff, I looked at my husband and business co-founder and we knew there was a big decision to be made: accept defeat and wind the business up – or fight for something we believed in,” said Dickinson.

Within three days her team developed an online learning platform for those same kids they would normally reach through their shows who now needed to stay home. Each weekday, a ‘science adventure’ is delivered to teach STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) to New Zealand’s next generation using common household items. On top of that, Nanogirl Labs maintained its ‘buy one give one’ model – meaning those that wouldn’t have been able to afford to take part, can.

Good George – a favourite craft beer of New Zealanders – moved early to produce 1000 litres of hand sanitiser from a distillery it had been using to make spirits. Co-founder Brian Watson says it had the idea after having trouble sourcing the liquid gold for its own staff and had the idea of making its own: “We had our whiskey and gin programme going for a while and we thought the world needs hand sanitiser more than it needs gin and whiskey right at the moment,” he said.

Similarly, dairy giant Fonterra made 250,000 litres of ethanol available to companies making hand sanitiser and has also increased the production of ethanol at one of its plants. Chief executive Miles Hurrell said in a webinar this week that this came at “a significant cost to our business, but we knew it was the right thing to do.”

This pivot came at a significant cost to our business, but we knew it was the right thing to do.

Chief executive of timesheet company TimeHub, Steve Nathan, says he was inspired by British technology company Dyson – which repurposed some of its production from vacuum cleaners to ventilators. It made him think “how can we, not pivot, but rather repurpose what we have for our new normal?”

His team created MyVisitorLog, an online service that allows customers to use their own device to record when they visit a business. This will be a long-term requirement for contact tracing purposes – particularly for restaurants, cafes and bars – and this tech will allow it to happen contactlessly.

Responsive retailing

Supermarkets are among only a handful of retail outlets allowed to open during the current alert level four restrictions (and in the upcoming level three restrictions). As such, they have inspired innovation since the lockdown – not only from the major players, but also more widely.

Foodstuffs have been trialling a virtual check-in for customers, where shoppers SMS the supermarket to be put into a queue, and are sent a text message when it is their turn to shop. This has made social distancing easier – customers can queue in their car – but has also meant that shoppers like me, who live close to one of the supermarkets participating in the trial, can queue virtually from home (and then get to the supermarket at pace to meet the 10-minute allowance!).

Clickandcollect, set up by George Czabania automatically collates click-and-collect slots for all supermarkets across New Zealand, allowing customers to more easily hunt out available times (which have been incredibly scarce during lockdown).

Another website, How Long is the Line, built by developer Gareth Hayes, crowdsources queue times at supermarkets, helping customers avoid an unnecessary two-hour wait in their attempt to locate flour (often unsuccessfully). Customers feed data into the site to approximate the number of people waiting in the queue – the more people that update the site, the more accurate it is.

Countdown opened New Zealand’s first dedicated online store in Auckland to respond to the massive 300 per cent surge in online shopping demand. The 8800 square metre store is located in Penrose, and is operating 24-7 to fulfil more than 7500 orders per week.

Meals on wheels

New Zealand’s largest online restaurant table booking website, Restaurant Hub, has launched a new service to enable customers to order click-and-collect meals from restaurants. The service has had a huge amount of interest, with 140 restaurants and cafes opting in over the first weekend.

UberEats’ refusal to reduce its commission charge of 30 to 35 per cent on purchases from restaurants has caused public outrage. Responding to this, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern encouraged New Zealanders “who may be looking forward next week to accessing take away food… to look at your favourite local eatery – and I do encourage you to support local businesses – and just look at whether or not they offer delivery directly themselves.”

In response to this, Flamingo has hired riders for its e-scooters and rival scooter company Beam is offering e-scooters for free to restaurants and cafes to use for deliveries. Australian-owned Menulog has halved its food commision rate to 7 per cent, while Zomato is offering two-months of commission-free deliveries. Carshare company Cityhop has introduced a business service for restaurants who need a vehicle for a few hours each night.

Tim McLeod says the desire to help his favourite cafes and restaurants caused him to “pivot away from my day job” as a digital tech consultant and create Eat Local NZ as an UberEats alternative. He says the platform will charge restaurants just five per cent commission and will pay drivers more than UberEats.

Another example saw Snap Rentals pivot in response to its car rental business coming to a complete standstill. It launched an app that pairs its rental cars with its staff to perform personal grocery shopping services for customers. Chief executive Jamie Bennett says the delivery service has been so popular that he has had to take on new staff. He expects the service to continue even after restrictions ease up – in parallel with its car rental business.

The era of the webinar

A plethora of webinars have been set up to help Kiwi businesses use the time they may not be able to work for their businesses, to instead work on their businesses. The Icehouse, NZTech and many others have created great resources. I have curated a list of upcoming webinars (using the help of crowdsourcing) .

My favourite has been a series being run by the Trans-Tasman Business Circle, who have attracted fantastic speakers to discuss ‘resilient leadership in challenging times’ – ranging from ANZ’s Antonia Watson to the Reserve Bank’s Adrian Orr and Auckland Mayor Phil Goff.

In a similar vein, Manaaki has tapped into a network of successful NZ business experts – both local and offshore – and paired them up with New Zealand businesses needing help and advice. All for free.

Manaaki released a video love letter to small businesses featuring prominent Kiwis including Jacinda Ardern, Minister for Small Business Stuart Nash, Stan Walker, Joseph Parker, UFC World Champion Israel Adesanya, and New Zealanders of the Year Jennifer Ward-Lealand CNZM and Dr Lance O’Sullivan – all showing support for the platform and small business owner:

“We will not stand by and watch it happen. We are Manaaki – your support network of business experts. Give us your questions and frustrations, opportunities, fears. Share your burden, and together we will find solutions.”

Media matters

New Zealand has been blessed with top quality science communicators. Another prominent face over the past month – Dr Siouxsie Wiles – has teamed up with illustrator Toby Morris and The Spinoff to produce excellent illustrations and gifs to communicate complex science behind Covid-19. The quirky graphics have quickly become viral (the good kind), and have been spread by Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, international media, and controversially adapted (without attribution) by other governments.

We’ve got to think

While not strictly business-related, this deserves an honourable mention simply because of its mental health benefit.

I live close to Auckland’s best (personal opinion) and largest park: Cornwall Park. While the park is usually open to traffic and acts as a reluctant thoroughfare between two busy suburbs, for the duration of the lockdown the gates have been locked and the gates throughout the park left open to minimise the need to touch anything.

A genius move. This has created a huge open space with roads, footpaths, and the many fields available for pedestrians, runners and cyclists to spread out and ‘social distance’ themselves – a much-needed reprieve for those of us subjected to hours of indoor Zoom conference calls.

A team of five million New Zealanders have ‘united against Covid-19’ and made it through level four with amazing levels of compliance. As we prepare to transition to level three, it is my belief that many of our businesses will come through stronger than ever – because they used the time provided by the lockdown to work on their businesses.

In almost any New Zealand business presentation, there are two phrases that are commonly used:

The Māori proverb: “He aha te mea nui o te ao (What is the most important thing in the world?). He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata (It is people, it is people, it is people).”

And that which was made famous by the father of nuclear physics Ernest Rutherford: “We haven’t the money, so we’ve got to think.”

Covid-19 is testing all businesses, but over the course of New Zealand’s lockdown, these two quotes have really shone through.

If you’ve seen other business pivots – in New Zealand or in other countries – please share. We’d love to hear about them.