Kaitaia is the home page

By PETER GRIFFIN

From his base in Kaitaia, Maori businessman Peter Kitchen is advertising his tourism operations to the world - using the internet.

The website Tall Tale has become an electronic noticeboard for tourists who want to check out Northland.

"A lot of our bookings are online now," says Kitchen, whose cluster of companies includes a backpackers' lodge, a tour company, an arts and crafts business and a tourism training academy.

Kitchen's enterprise is a small one that is increasingly using computers and the internet in everyday business to good effect.

Tai Tokerau Tourism, of which Kitchen is a director, is linking Northland businesses in a co-ordinated marketing effort through email and the internet.

"We were getting old computers from people who didn't want them, making sure they could handle the internet and email, and giving them to our members," says Kitchen, who also sits on the Government's Small Business Advisory Group.

"We cover from Auckland to the top. Members don't have the time to make meetings."

Members of Tai Tokerau Tourism pay $100 a year, which gives them a hosted webpage which they can customise with their own advertising.

"It's the easiest and cheapest method of getting our marketing going," says Kitchen of the companies linked to Tai Tokerau.

The next step for Tai Tokerau is to link to other regional tourism organisations and bolster online marketing efforts.

The Small Business Advisory Group classes small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) as "businesses with fewer than 20 employees".

It's a staggering fact that nearly 97 per cent of New Zealand businesses employ 19 or fewer full-time employees. The number of SMEs is also on the rise - up five per cent last year. Collectively, SMEs accounted for 42 per cent of full-time employees and 38 per cent of the economy's output.

While the proportion of SMEs in New Zealand is similar to other OECD countries, they account for a higher proportion of employment in New Zealand than elsewhere.

New Zealand businesses are able to access some of the most progressive technologies in the world and there is good scope to put that technology to work saving money and generating business.

It's something the Government is certainly encouraging. Its vision for SMEs is that they are "prepared to learn from others and invest in innovative activities, for example in-house and external research and development, training and marketing related to new products and new technologies."

Alison Quesnel, another Small Business Advisory Group member, has become well aware of the role technology can play in business.

As country manager for health products firm Blackmores, Quesnel has seen how technology can be a powerful marketing tool.

The Blackmores website has become a key interface with customers and has a dedicated team devoted to updating it. Through the website you can consult a naturopath with queries.

Email newsletters inform customers of the latest deals.

"We tell them about any products that are appropriate to the season - at the moment we're talking to them about hay fever and things like that," Quesnel says.

Blackmores' Australian operation is looking at equipping its roaming sales force with devices for taking orders and sending them back to base while on the move.

The planning and distribution for Blackmores is handled by pharmaceuticals company HMG and Quesnel says the company is looking at rolling out a similar IT system for its local field force.

Her experience with the advisory group showed her that many small businesses were overlooking the benefits IT could bring to two key areas - management and marketing.

"A lot of them don't understand how useful it could be in helping them to operate their companies," she says.

"It's basic things like [accounting software] MYOB. A big issue for small business is that they don't handle the accounting side of their business very well."

Often it comes down to time - or the lack of it - for overworked small business owners.

"They're often so bogged down in the day-to-day details of their business they haven't the time," Quesnel says.

For Kitchen, relatively cheap and unsophisticated technology is changing the way he and other tourism businesses in the Far North are operating. But it's not serving to overhaul the culture of those businesses.

"Did you know Maori were the first with internet?" asks Kitchen.

"My uncle said, 'Peter, go down and get some fish in the net."'

Tall Tale

Special Report: Turbocharging Your Business

(to be continued throughout this week)