KEY POINTS:
As you may already know, 2008 is the Year of the Rat. Yes, you could be forgiven for thinking that was 2007, particularly with all those finance companies falling over but, according to the Chinese, it's not just a rodent, but a brown rodent, and a female brown rodent to boot, that will oversee your fortune this year (ask someone who is Chinese to explain).
So far, it hasn't exactly been an auspicious beginning for the business sector, with the United States sub-prime fallout finally starting to hit our economy. Yes, things could be worse - and some fear they soon will be. On the other hand, it's an election year, which for some businesspeople means there could be light at the end of the tunnel.
Karyn Scherer asked some of those who featured in The Business last year to offer their predictions for 2008 and, bless them, they agreed.
THE QUESTIONS:
1) What will be the defining business issue of 2008?
2) What's the number one thing you want the Government to do this year?
3) If the Business Fairy could grant you one wish in 2008, what would it be?
4) Climate change - over or underhyped?
5) What will be this year's big technological advance?
6) Who will be this year's hottest business bloke/babe?
7) Who or what would you most like to see banished from the country this year?
***
Tony Alexander
CHIEF ECONOMIST, BNZ
1) Revenue growth appearing acceptable to most businesses but profitability falling because of rising costs amid poor resource availability.
2) Cut tax rates. The Working for Families package has cut the incentive to work and tax cuts are needed to restore incentive and improve our attractiveness in a global labour market.
3) A 10 per cent company tax rate.
4) Underhyped. How one's business deals with global warming will influence one's reputation with customers.
5) Maybe decent broadband speeds for New Zealand users.
6) Michael Cullen. He's sure to be able to explain the poor returns on KiwiSaver as good for the 300,000 people who have put their money in.
7) Pitbull terriers.
***
Tony Gibbs
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, GUINNESS PEAT GROUP
1) The US stockmarket.
2) Given the immense amount of opposition to it, the Government should have a careful relook at the Electoral Finance Act.
3) Less volatility in the markets.
4) Completely overhyped.
5) I don't really know. I got a few electronic toys for my 60th birthday recently and I still don't know how to use them.
6) Hopefully some young person, with a smart entrepreneurial idea - and not necessarily IT-related.
7) Pitbull terriers.
***
Tony Hembrow
MANAGING DIRECTOR, RAYGLASS BOATS
1) For us, the European market is where our focus is this year.
2) Reduce taxes.
3) A lower New Zealand dollar. I think everyone in the export business would say that.
4) For the boat business, global warming is a great thing, particularly if you are based in New Zealand. If this summer is any indication, long may it continue.
5) In our industry, everyone is looking to improvements in fuel economy.
6) You've got to keep looking at Graeme Hart, don't you? He doesn't seem to have put a foot wrong.
7) It's hard to single out a particular politician but I do think we need a change of government. A fresh start and some new ideas would be good.
***
Theresa Gattung
FORMER CEO, TELECOM NEW ZEALAND
1) The election.
2) Just stop. There's been so much intervention and new regulation in almost every sector - just stop and give industries and companies the chance to adjust.
3) Gold at US$1000 an ounce.
4) Just right.
5) Men doing half the housework.
6) Craig Norgate and [PGG Wrightson CEO] Tim Miles in 2009. I don't know about 2008.
7) No more column inches about the Rugby World Cup.
***
Mark Thomas
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, RIGHT HEMISPHERE
1) For New Zealand: universal, low-cost, high-bandwidth, always-on internet access for all. For the whole globe: energy.
2) Ensure the above happens.
3) Ensure the above happens.
4) Underhyped. We need more solutions and discussions.
5) For New Zealand: 3D as a standard medium for general communications. For the whole globe: solar energy solutions.
6) No idea.
7) NZ insecurity about our national identity. The flag needs to be changed asap. Who can tell the difference between ours and the Australian flag at a glance? We are a great and unique country making our own history.
***
Mark Weldon
CEO, NEW ZEALAND EXCHANGE
1) Climate change and the risks and opportunities for business around that, plus NZ's overall level of competitiveness as a nation.
2) Recognising there are meaningful opportunities with climate change and that we need to take a fresh and bold approach to tax. Plus, the Government has to make the playing field at least even for NZ corporates, such as Fletcher Building now being subject to the OIA because its share register is over 50 per cent offshore.
3) Three wishes: our tax code makes us the most competitive country in the world; our tech sector is suddenly at scale, and listed; and the SOE debate gets real, not dogmatic, and we realise that the SOE sector is a drag on the economy and can be restructured, exactly as Fonterra is proposing, to free up the better of those businesses to grow internationally.
4) Neither. It is what it is. We need to decide if we, as a country, will create a really positive outcome from this, or just lead in symbolism.
5) I think it will be in the energy field. NZ has some world-leading skills in renewable energy. One of our big energy companies might take it to the next level and innovate in such a way as to create real overseas growth opportunities for themselves.
6) Mark Franklin (TZ1), Henry van der Heyden (Fonterra) and a dark horse, Mark Donaldson (Phitek) - one of the future leaders in our soon-to-be-at-scale tech sector.
7. Easy. Tall poppy lopping and lack of confidence.
***
Ashley Berrysmith
ERNST & YOUNG ENTREPRENEUR OF THE YEAR 2007
1) Interest rates, the cost of fuel, the general election and the US economy.
2) Cut company and personal taxes, and give rebates on innovation and energy saving.
3) Stabilise petrol prices for two years.
4) Underhyped. It is real and with us now. Why are we not leading the charge?
5) I would love to be driving an electric car charged with renewable energy by the end of the year.
6) John Banks. I think he will make a big comeback and make significant changes (in a co-operative way).
7) Michael Cullen. I think he's dangerous.
***
Steve Crow
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, VIXEN DIRECT
1) A couple of things: the Government and the Government. It needs changing. We need a Government that looks outward to support itself and not to the long-suffering taxpayer.
2) Lose the election. Helen and her cronies have done everything from castrate our military to forge paintings to underfund essential health and education services so the welfare system can support ever more leeches and bureaucrats at the Government's (read: taxpayers') tit.
3) That Helen Clark be turned into a frog and sent to France. Seriously, that the Government rationalise key areas of legislation, from my point of view being censorship, employment and the Resource Management Act.
4) Overhyped. There is a growing body of evidence that much of the change is due to the Earth's natural climate cycles. In saying that, I'm first and foremost an ecologist at heart and therefore a strong advocate of environmental protection. I just don't subscribe to hype that man is the architect of the calamity facing the world.
5) Remote-controlled vibrating condoms. From our perspective, world-class high-speed broadband and the associated ability to truly stream high-definition video.
6) Can't answer the bloke thing; not into them personally. Hottest babe in NZ will be whoever Vixen/Erotica creates and promotes. Worldwide, Tera Patrick has no equal.
7) Helen Clark and all the other nanny state do-gooders so intent on telling us what to do rather than listening to what we want. Plus, pirated intellectual property.
***
Stefan Preston
FORMER CEO, BENDON
1) Environmental sustainability. The rapid acceleration of the large developing economies and their impact on nature has finally tipped the world business community into making dramatic changes about how it manufactures and distributes products and services. The news is not bad either, since we mostly have the technology to employ industrial approaches that are benign or even helpful to the environment, but there has never been the awareness and intent until now.
2) We need dramatic action on lowering the cost of housing in NZ. Housing is expensive because there is a lack of supply - this is driven by a cumbersome and ineffective regulatory system, overly conservative planning and excessive concentration of building materials providers.
3) Lower interest rates.
4) Underhyped. I'm really worried.
5) I hope it involves a commercially viable hydrogen fuel cell, and hydrogen distribution system. That has to be the energy storage and transportation mode of the future.
6) Don't know.
7) Smoking.
***
Rick Ellis
CHIEF EXECUTIVE, TVNZ
1) The impact on business investment of the rising cost of capital (interest rates) and investor confidence in the sharemarket.
2) Tax cuts.
3) To sustain GDP growth above 4 per cent per annum.
4) It's a serious issue which business needs to do more to respond to.
5) Consumer device battery life.
6) Apple CEO Steve Jobs.
7) Gangs.
***
Rod Carr
MANAGING DIRECTOR, JADE SOFTWARE
1) Liquidity, confidence, inflation.
2) Cut taxes on working people and spend less government money paying working people who paid too much tax in the first place, so employers can make middle-income earners better off when they pay them more for their effort.
3) More orders for licences and lower exchange rates, especially against sterling.
4) Overhyped by the world but underhyped in terms of potential adverse impact of responses in foreign markets and by our Government.
5) Pass.
6) Ben Bernanke.
7) Consumer price and wage inflation, and effective marginal tax rates of over 60 per cent on working families.
***
Chris Lee
KAPITI COAST SHAREBROKER AND FINANCIAL ADVISER
1) The sales of completed property developments in Queenstown.
2) Pass the regulation of all financial markets, including the stock exchange, to a properly equipped Securities Commission.
3) For the Government to fund litigation on behalf of all our ripped-off investors in finance companies.
4) You can never overstate the importance of preserving nature, but taxation of pollution is a highly cynical approach.
5) No idea. It would be great if technology could bust apart the illicit drug industry.
6) Securities Commission head Jane Diplock, if she can be allowed to regard the restoration of ripped-off investors as her key objective.
7) Soul-destroying drugs.
