Mood of the Boardroom: Staying agile amid global uncertainty

Jolie Hodson. Photo / Supplied

Spark CEO Jolie Hodson fears global economic uncertainly could act as a brake on business investment and consumer spending. "That said, we've invested heavily in our infrastructure, as we always have done."

Hodson says after taking the company on international roadshows: "Investors are generally interested in the sector and what we are doing compared with what's happening off-shore. We're in a strong position both in terms of how we are investing and how we are finding new sources of revenue.

"Some of the markets they see have negative yields already or negative interest rates. New Zealand is not there yet, although we have a low 1 per cent OCR. They see there's some positivity here. Like everywhere there are concerns about what will happen with international trade and the US-China."

She says there will be an impact if that relationship were to further erode. The technology global supply chain is threatened, as many things are made in China.

"This isn't only for us in New Zealand, but globally. In fact we've seen some of the bans in the US being pushed out to a later date because of the realisation that it does actually hit the technology supply chain."

Closer to home, Spark is 15 months into a major transformation to becoming an Agile workplace.

Hodson says there were three drivers for the move: "Improved customer experience; speeding up our time to market and changing employee engagement and contribution."

Agile working flattens traditional management hierarchies. Hodson says this means decision-making power is greater in Spark's squads and tribes — the names used for more fluid groups of workers combining on projects. She says Agile means there is clear linkage, so that people can see directly how their work shows up for customers.

"For us it's about continuing to shift our way of working to high performance. We achieved most of what we wanted to in the first 12 months, now it is about lifting the bar again."

Hodson says another aspect of Agile is that it arms employees with the skills they need for the future. Squads are set up to be cross-functional, which means people quickly learn new ideas. This makes them more employable.

"A key challenge is labour shortages of specialist skills in data, cybersecurity ... and attracting this talent to New Zealand," she adds.

The move has attracted interest from other companies in New Zealand and overseas. Hodson says overseas telcos, FMCGs (fast moving consumer goods companies), large supermarket chains, Australian retailers and European companies have beaten a path to Spark's door in order to learn how this works.

Spark plans to have a 5G mobile network in place for the 2021 America's Cup but the project has been complicated by the GCSB vetoing the company's use of Huawei network equipment.

Hodson says the network will still go ahead and selecting another partner will not slow Spark down.

She says; "We're in our RFP [request for proposals] process right now. We're likely to have more than one vendor in our network. That's what we've seen internationally. Most organisations have done this".

A full 5G network needs new spectrum, which is another potential barrier, with the spectrum auction scheduled for the end of 2020.

However, Hodson says, Spark aims to have early access to spectrum on a short-term rental basis to cover the America's Cup.