Business of the Year Case Studies

 
Case Study: Tuatara Brewery Ltd
Winner of the 2011 Electra Business of the Year Award

This is a case study of Tuatara Brewery Ltd, a micro brewery and winner of the 2011 Electra Business of the Year Award. Tuatara is, in some ways, a similar type of business to last year's winner (Aura Software Security Ltd). It is relatively new, it is in rapid growth mode, competes successfully against much larger competitors, and operates in an evolving and increasingly sophisticated sector where consistency and quality are paramount. And similar to Aura, Tuatara has not been afraid to measure their product and financial performance against other businesses. 

Click here to read more...

........................................................................................................................................................................................

Rare Insight Into IT Security Firm

A New Zealand specialist IT security firm is sharing its winning ways through a case study that has just been published on the Internet.

Aura Software Security Ltd won the 2010 Electra Kapiti Horowhenua Business of the Year accolade and as a result has allowed its approach and responses to growth to be revealed in a professionally compiled case study to assist other businesses.

Aura provides specialist IT security services to New Zealand and overseas businesses. Its mission is “protecting our customers from the bad-guys”. To do this they created end-to-end IT security consulting services based on "penetration testing" where they (safely) attack a customer's websites and IT systems and give the customer feedback

It employs 16 staff.   Its head office is in Otaki on the Kapiti Coast, with offices in Wellington and a sales & business development manager in Auckland servicing customers in Christchurch, Sydney and London.

Click here to read more...

........................................................................................................................................................................................

Case Study:  Aura Software Security Ltd
Winner of the 2010 Electra Business of the Year Award

Synopsis
 
This is a case study of Aura Software Security Ltd, a security software development company and winner of the 2010 Electra Business of the Year Award. Aura is a different type of business from last year's winner (Turks Poultry Farm Ltd). It is relatively new, it is small, niche focused and operates in the IT sector where rapid technological change is the norm. Its product and competition are global, its aspirations are “galactic”.
 
Winning the Award was based on the same business principles that won the Award for Turks ( Both case studies offer valuable learnings for business regardless of the sectors they operate in.

Introduction
 
In 2010 Aura Software Security Ltd was judged Winner of the Electra Business of the Year Award. This case study1is about what they did that culminated in winning the Award. Its success is based on visionary leadership, a positive can do attitude, commitment to being as good as possible, sound business practices, being prepared to take calculated risks, learning from their mistakes and employing high quality people.
 
Although it may have helped them prepare for the Awards, Aura did not win it because of their category wins (in 2010 they won the Hi Growth, Customer Services and New Thinking awards and were finalists in two other categories). They won because they scored consistently high across all categories. However, as with previous Award winners and consistent with their philosophy of continuous improvement, Aura know there are areas they need to do more work on, particularly as the business grows and they take on more staff.

Click here to read more...

........................................................................................................................................................................................

Case Study: Turk's Poultry Farm Ltd
Winner of the 2009 Electra Business of the Year Award

Synopsis

This is a case study of Turk's Poultry Farm Ltd, winner of the 2009 Electra Business of the Year Award.  It offers many learnings for every business regardless of the sector they operate in.

Turk's entered the Awards with the deliberate intention of winning.  Their previous effort in 2006 taught them a lot about their businesses strengths and weaknesses and where they stood against the best in Kapiti - Horowhenua.  They realised they had some way to go to match the standards of the overall winners but the lessons they learnt from entering the Award and the feedback that followed it were successfully applied to their business and were one of the main reasons why they entered in 2009.

Winning the Business of the Year Award was the result of sound business standards applied to many aspects of their operations – governance, employment and training through to research and development, customer service and strategies for the future.

Their challenge was similar to those facing many businesses today: transferring management from one generation to another; managing contentious environmental issues; getting buy in to changes from management, staff and customers and creating a sustainable and financially viable business.

Their strategy was based on a “total performance package”.  Over time they realised that a single strategy seldom produced the desired result.  They found it took a number of integrated strategies to achieve sustained results and to set the business on a long term growth path.

Click here to read more...