From rural views to global horizons

Category winners and Supreme winners for West.

West Auckland’s award winning businesses ranged from boutique small business and brewery, Black Sands Brewing Company, through to successful franchise outlet, McDonald’s West Auckland, and private operators such as, Motion Design, Josef Rakich Fitness, and Thomas Civil & Environmental Consultants. Newcomer, Mitre 10 Mega Westgate, won Excellence in Customer Service Delivery.

As much as 30 per cent of West Auckland's economy is made up of internationally competitive and platform technology sectors, which provide the technology to support industry operations. Construction and engineering contribute eight per cent of GDP and 10.3 per cent of employment, both higher than the Auckland average.

"We've got two sides of the business - one is a software team with people who are predominantly software engineers. The other is the mechanical team who are mechanical engineers. But, we also have a few people who are mechatronics engineers who do both of it!," explains Jalapa Amin, project delivery manager of Motion Design.

With beautiful rural views from offices based in Waimauku, this pioneering robotics and industrial automation software business has clients in Wales, UK, USA, Ghana, Malaysia, Australia and Indonesia. Motion Design won Excellence in Innovation and Excellence in International Trade.

West businesses say they are confident in the future economic outlook with manufacturing remaining an important sector in terms of GDP and employment and new commercial and housing developments also bringing future growth to the region. Other leading employment sectors in the West include healthcare and social assistance and wholesale trade.

Auckland Tourism, Events and Economic Development (ATEED) - part of the Regional Business Partner (RBP) programme which is designed to help New Zealand businesses grow and innovate - referred 497 businesses in the West to people and opportunities.

ATEED has assisted Supreme Business Excellence award winner, Thomas Civil and Environmental Consultants, and Motion Design.

Josef Rakich Fitness, winners of Best Emerging Business have leveraged scalable technology across emerging social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest to gain an international customer base in the highly competitive health and fitness sector.

At the top end of the North Western motorway, retail development has created a completely new landscape including recently opened Mitre 10 Mega Westgate, winner of Excellence in Customer Service Delivery.

"It was a 36-month project to get the store going from woe to go," says store owner Dave Hargreaves. "We're the fastest growing store in the Mitre 10 group nationally and we've been well supported by West Auckland. "We listen to our customers. We have a program where our cashiers are encouraged to talk to our customer. It's called 'My Ten Cents Worth.' Also, the customers can go online and give us feedback. We have over 100 customers each week talking to us about the service they have received."

ATEED works closely with Henderson - Massey, Whau and Waitakere Ranges local boards to stimulate economic growth in
the West.

The latest Auckland Council Business survey released in June this year shows that 76 per cent of businesses in the West had innovated in the past year and introduced new or improved goods and services to market, with 40 per cent undertaking research and development.

EXCELLENCE IN INNOVATION sponsored by Tasti
Motion Design

EXCELLENCE IN CUSTOMER SERVICE DELIVERY sponsored by Carlton Party Hire
Mitre 10 Mega Westgate

EXCELLENCE IN MARKETING sponsored by Unitec Institute of Technology
Black Sands Brewing Company

EMPLOYER OF THE YEAR sponsored by Rosebank Business Association and West Auckland Business Club
McDonald's West Auckland

BEST EMERGING BUSINESS sponsored by Air New Zealand
Josef Rakich Fitness

EXCELLENCE IN STRATEGY AND PLANNING sponsored by UHY Haines Norton and Corban Revell
Thomas Civil and Environmental Consultants

EXCELLENCE IN INTERNATIONAL TRADE sponsored by Babich Wines
Motion Design

SUPREME BUSINESS EXCELLENCE sponsored by Westpac
Thomas Civil and Environmental Consultants