Napier company DataNow eyes New Zealand expansion

DataNow staff members Ben Deller (left) Martin Bischofer, Erik van den Hout, Daygen Byford and Rebecca Withnall. Photo / Warren Buckland

Just two months after claiming its first regional business award, a Napier data company is eyeing-up a $500,000 expansion plan that will expand its operations nationwide.

DataNow managing director Erik van den Hout said the company intended to start raising capital and create 10 new jobs at its facility in Ahuriri.

"We've moved into new premises at the Tech Hub in Ahuriri and we believe we have the right premises to grow. We have four full-time staff at the moment so over the next three years we are looking to more than double that.

"Our service that we provide to customers already goes nationwide so we are hoping to keep Hawke's Bay as our headquarters but there maybe a need to have some staff located more regionally, say in Auckland.

"We are also looking to attract talent to Hawke's Bay. We have some key talent we want to attract in the engineering space."

Established in 2009, the company provides software cloud-based service on similar lines to Xero. It also provided a hardware component that allows factories to monitor output and efficiency performance.

"It looks to measure the process and makes the performances process it highly visible and understandable for everyone in the business. It's more than assigning it a number, it's making it visual and beautiful and easy for everyone to understand where they are to help create the momentum for an improvement programme."

At present the company had 22 clients across New Zealand and a plan for accelerated growth intended to increase that "ten-fold", over three years.

Mr van den Hout said the company aimed to start capital raising this month with the aim of raising $500,000 by April.

"It's quite an exciting milestone. The 22 sites are all big industrial sites, these are some quite complex sites, so our hands are really quite full."

While 85 per cent productivity was considered world-class, it was common to see customers initially running at below 50 per cent when they first hook-up to the company's service.

However, that initial move from 50 to 70 per cent could be achieved quite quickly.

"We certainly think its a product and service that can be taken internationally so we would really love to dominate the New Zealand market. We believe the problem we are trying to solve will really benefit New Zealand. Productivity in New Zealand has not been the best.

We believe the idea we are tapping into is a massive lever to increase productivity within businesses without increasing capital spend."

The company was also working to develop relationships with the Government to use its platform in any potential programmes aimed at increasing the nation's productivity.

"There is a move to raise productivity in the manufacturing sector, and the whole economy for that matter."

DataNow was named the region's small business of the year at November's Pan Pac Hawke's Bay Business Awards after entering the awards for the first time the year before.

Hawke's Bay Chamber of Commerce chief executive Wayne Walford said DataNow was another example of what the future of business would look like.

"In my experience of Business Awards I have seen many, especially small businesses, with a desire to grow and be awesome, enter the business awards to benchmark their progress. The successful ones enter more than once and, after the judging process, take the judges' comments and apply their recommendations to the business.

Erik and the DataNow team entered the first time to gauge their position in the market and following the recommendations of the judges developed to win their category. With a positive attitude to growth and using the expertise of others DataNow could well be a supreme winner in the future.

"The evolution of the world of business will see more and more new innovative companies being born. Being open to external advice can make a huge difference to their sustainability. All small businesses could use the HB Business Awards entry form as a guide/template for development."