A new crop of outstanding winners has been announced in the New Zealand International Business Awards, with data warehouse automation software provider WhereScape winning the coveted Judge’s Supreme Award.
Nine companies scooped up accolades in this year’s awards, which celebrate the success of New Zealand businesses on the world stage.
Run by New Zealand Trade and Enterprise with strategic partner ANZ, this year marks the 50th anniversary of the prestigious awards.
The judges were impressed by WhereScape’s ability to turn big data into big business. The company, which also won the Best Medium Business award, develops the software for organisations to manage and analyse their crown jewels – big sets of data.
Based in Auckland and Portland, Oregon, WhereScape has customers in 26 countries and recently expanded into Asia where it has attracted some high profile brands including Chanel. The United States is the company’s largest and fastest growing market, where its clients include GE, Nike, and the Dallas Cowboys.
WhereScape is no stranger to the New Zealand International Business Awards, having been named a finalist in the 2015 awards.
The awards Supreme Judge, David Downs, says WhereScape has made outstanding progress in the past year.
“Their clever transition from a product company to a global sales organisation has allowed them to exploit the global opportunity for data analytics, right at the time when expertise in big data is most sought after,” says Downs.
Other recipients of awards this year include Haka Tours and Timely, who shared the award for Best Emerging Business and Gallagher, named Best Large Business.
Straker Translations, New Zealand Mint and Gallagher respectively took home awards for Excellence in Innovation, Excellence in Marketing and Excellence in Design, while Ngāi Tahu Tourism won the He kai kei aku ringa for Māori Excellence in Export award, and Xero the Excellence in Leadership award.
NZTE Chief Executive Peter Chrisp says this year’s winners are using their Kiwi ingenuity and tenacity to build global businesses from New Zealand, demonstrating their resilience and innovation.
“We’re seeing an exciting shift in the mind set of digital businesses, as they go-global from day one. These companies have started out with an ambition to build a global business from New Zealand, rather than building in New Zealand first then evolving,” says Chrisp.
“It can be a winning strategy, as these companies chase rapid customer growth in niche high value markets.
“The supreme winner WhereScape exemplifies all of the attributes it takes for a Kiwi business to succeed internationally, and is agile and quick to evolve and meet its customers’ needs in the global data automation software market,” Chrisp says.
For more information about the winners and the awards visit www.nziba.co.nz
