Meeting will seek to map out trade future

By Yoke Har Lee

The information technology revolution has radically broken down traditional business models and societies.

Shifting power centres, the impact of the global village not only on companies but on societies, changes taking place in the markets - these and more form the discussions for a two-day Apec Business Symposium organised by the New Zealand Trade Development Board, from June 25-26 at the Aotea Centre, Auckland.

Presented as an opportunity for Asia Pacific's business community to network, Trade NZ has managed to attract over 300 business people from around the world. So far, participants representing 18 Apec member countries have registered for the event.

Fran Wilde, chief executive of Trade NZ told the Business Herald that the symposium will provide business people the time to get a broad picture of major trends shaping the world.

"A lot of businesses don't get time off to do these things. They are often in the trenches, working on their businesses. We thought we will bring about a blue skies glimpse with the symposium - what the business environment would be like in the future."

Paul Voigt, manager of Trade NZ's Millennium Projects, said: "We are looking essentially at the key success factors in the new millennium, therefore we need an understanding of technology and its implications on business.

"We are also looking at the marketplace, from the macro competition issues down to the micro level of what market segmentation is all about; and the importance of money to make business grow - this covers investment flows and investment sectors."

Two main speakers are master trend observers - John Naisbitt, author of best seller Megatrends, and Rosabeth Moss Kanter, who has written extensively on how companies have been changed by globalisation.

Rosabeth Moss Kanter will touch on Growth Strategies into the New Millennium in the opening keynote address while Mr Naisbitt will give the closing speech on Saturday with the topic Creating Prosperity For Our Region. Some of the observations made by Rosabeth Moss Kanter in her work deal with the shift in power from the producers to the consumers, which in turn dictates changes to companies offering goods and services.

One strong theme which runs through her work is the fact that top-down management is outmoded. Further, managers no longer dictate; they play the role of transmitting values and priorities to the ordinary worker who is empowered to do his job. Smaller, more flexible, divisions will give companies the ability to adapt to changes in the marketplace.

For Mr Naisbitt, whose book on future trends created a whole culture of trend-spotting in America, his latest project is a book done in collaboration with his daughter Nana Naisbitt called High Tech, High Touch. The book explores the phenomenon that has developed as a result of technology's development not matching that of society's response to those changes.

A wide range of speakers have been roped in, including local ones such as former politician Sir Roger Douglas; Paul Bloomfield, editor of Apparel Magazine; Rosemary Sharpin, co-founder of biotech company Immuno-Chemical Products; and New Zealand's top Apec official Maarten Wevers.

Ms Wilde said the symposium should provide participants with the opportunity to not only listen, but to have a dialogue on the issues raised and walk away "feeling reinvigorated" by new ideas.