Waikato Times

It wouldn't be a bad job. Surrounded by makeup and perfume all day but one of New Zealand's biggest retailers can't seem to get anyone to do it.

As the unemployment rate reaches a 10-year high, with the number of unemployed people now standing at 168,000, Farmers is struggling to fill 30 jobs manning its beauty and fragrance counters.

The human resources department has been reduced to running recruitment evenings in Hamilton and Auckland to inform candidates about a career in the beauty industry and to identify the qualities that make sales professionals.

"We're interested in hearing from new beauty graduates, seasoned industry professionals and sales professionals looking for a change in industry," says Sheila Naidoo, head of HR for Farmers. According to recent statistics from the Department of Labour, there should be an overload of retail workers in the job market, said Ms Naidoo.

"Even if they don't have beauty industry experience, if they have a passion for beauty products and a desire to work with prestigious brands, we can train them," she said.

Lorraine Reay, Clinique counter manager at Farmers, Hamilton city store, prides herself on being able to connect with people.

"Being a counter manager is a bit like being a successful real estate agent. You have to think of yourself as being self-employed, even though you work for Farmers."

Ms Naidoo said Farmers was looking for staff like Ms Reay who had come to Farmers with previous experience in hospitality.

Ms Naidoo said Farmers was willing to look beyond an applicant's immediate work experience to fill the positions.

She said while beauty may be considered more of a female industry several men were doing well at Farmers.

David Marris, fragrance sales professional, celebrated his sixth anniversary at Farmers Hamilton store this month.

Asked what type of person is suited to a career in fragrance or cosmetics, Mr Marris said: "A focus on customer service is essential . . . and of course a love for the product certainly helps."

Ms Naidoo said the recruitment drive would start at the new Farmers store opening at The Base, in Te Rapa, Hamilton on May 4.

--------------------

CAPTION:
Vacancies galore: Lorraine Feay, of Clinique, and David Marris, of Fragrance in a Farmers store where their products are sold. However, Farmers is struggling to get good employees for its beauty departments.
Picture: KATRINA BIELESKI

Waikato supermarket owners are "blown away" by figures showing a 42.5 per cent rise in food prices since 2000.

The news has prompted Labour consumer spokeswoman Carol Beaumont to call for the Government to encourage more competition in the supermarket sector.

New Zealand grocery prices have risen 42.5 per cent between 2000 and 2009, followed by Australia which pays 41.3 per cent more, Britain's prices rose 32.9 per cent and America's were up 28.4 per cent, according to a study out yesterday.

Pak `n Save Mill St owner Glenn Miller said he was trying to obtain a grocery bill from nine years ago as he and his staff doubted the cost of many grocery items had risen to that extent.

He said a can of spaghetti cost 90c in 2000 and now customers would pay $1.09 for the same can. "At Pak n Save the margin we enjoy is lower than many other countries in the world and we think we are still very competitive given manufacturing cost and we try and keep our overheads down," said Mr Miller, who believes Pak `n Save is extremely competitive.

Vege King owner Swaran Singh said prices at his Fairfield fruit and vegetable shop would have risen by up to 10 per cent at the most. In some cases prices had not changed. He said the price tag on asparagus had stayed at $3.99 since 2000.

Progressive Enterprises, which owns Countdown, Woolworths and Foodtown, blamed international events such as drought as the main drivers of food inflation. Progressive spokesman Bill Moore said the group was consistently striving to offer the best prices and its profitability had remained at between 3 and 4 per cent since Australian-owned Woolworths Limited purchased Progressive four years ago. The group said there was plenty of competition between supermarkets, delis, butchers, green grocers and bakeries.

But Ms Beaumont has questioned why New Zealand is not following the example of Australia's Competition Minister, Craig Emerson, whose government was taking "hard measures" and lowering the barriers to other retailers competing with Coles and Woolworths on that side of the Tasman.

She was critical of Consumer Affairs Minister Heather Roy's suggestion that New Zealanders "shop around" to combat some of the fastest-rising food prices in the developed world, saying it had attracted widespread criticism. It was "poor advice" to families struggling with soaring food bills, Ms Beaumont said.

Public comments on news websites and on talkback radio produced a stream of consumers critical of grocery pricing, with many calling for overseas chains such as Aldi and Costco to compete against New Zealand's Foodstuffs (which owns Pak `n Save and New World) and Progressive Enterprises.

Hamish Wilson, of Consumer New Zealand, said there had been some attempts by other companies, such as The Warehouse, to break into the supermarket sector "but it's pretty difficult". The controversy arose in the wake of the Australian study which says the price of food in New Zealand has risen faster than in any other OECD country other than Korea.

- With NZPA

While one company prospers from tenders, another has to sell buses, business editor Chris Gardner writes.
--------------------
Hamilton-based Go Bus will double its North Island depots in January when it puts 130 new buses into operation.

Managing director Calum Haslop, who joined Go Bus three months ago, told a business audience at PricewaterhouseCoopers' Clever Companies function in Hamilton this week that the secret to winning a sizeable Education Ministry contract was nearly five years of planning to match the ministry's tendering cycle, which comes in rounds of six to 12 years. The contract, being formalised this month, means the operator, formed from several small family-run businesses about four years ago, will double its depots from 12 to 24, with significant expansion in charter, school and urban operations in Hawke's Bay.

Construction is under way on 130 new buses, which will increase the fleet by between 30 and 40 per cent in January. The number of drivers will increase from about 200 to 300.

"There's a lot of work to do, but we are quite confident in our ability to deliver this," Mr Haslop said.

Go Bus, and Ritchies Transport Holdings in Christchurch, are two of the clear winners in the tendering process. Go Bus drivers are on the road for 60,000 man hours a year. They drive 10 million kilometres a year and burn 2.5 million litres of diesel. Mr Haslop said the company handled 3000 customer complaints a year, mostly related to buses not running on time.

Nationwide, more than 100 operators have lost their contracts for 2400 school bus routes servicing 65,000 pupils, which is reducing the number of operators from 205 to 92.

Waipawa Buses, which has operated in Central Hawke's Bay since 1970, is among the biggest losers, with all but four of its 70 routes going to Go Bus. It will sell 120 buses and lay off 100 staff.

Neil Dobson, who runs Dobson Motors in Te Kuiti, said his bus company was losing eight school routes but retained five. "I have already told eight of my 22 drivers that I will not be able to keep them on. While they don't like it, they understand it is not my doing," Mr Dobson said.

The company was told by the ministry that to have a chance of renewing its contract it would have to upgrade its fleet, so it ordered two new buses. The first, which cost $245,000, arrived two weeks ago.

"It is going to be hard to absorb the cost when we have effectively lost more than half of our business," Mr Dobson said.

"One guy, Clarrie Hanson, who does the Otewa School bus run, has been with us for 28 years. He was part of the community, he knew the kids, their parents and the community. It is the personal touch they are going to lose with these big companies."

Mr Dobson said his company gave donations to school galas and prize-givings every year, because it was rooted in the company, but couldn't imagine Go Bus doing the same.

Dobson Motors had not heard why it missed out from the ministry. "We were in the top two per cent back in April. We have done everything the ministry asked, and we still missed out."

Allan Turley, who runs Turley Motors in Te Aroha, said his business would lose two out of seven routes and two drivers. One would retire at the end of the school year, and the other had found work with a Morrinsville bus company. Karyn Coxhead, who operated Bus With Us, in Thames, with her husband Chris, said the business would not be affected by Go Bus's expansion.

Mr Haslop said during his presentation: "We knew this (process) was going to happen and we have been planning for that for four or five years." His favourite saying, quoted by Harrison Ford in the latest Indiana Jones movie earlier this year, was "you don't take a knife to a gunfight". "We don't do that," he said.

"We have taken a systematic approach. We don't pick our growth targets by throwing a dart at them." Another secret, Mr Haslop said, was hiring "high octane" staff with "fire in the belly".

He could have been talking about himself, captivating the audience with joke after joke at the presentation, explaining that he had left his pin-striped suit at home because the last time he had worn it was at a funeral. "I'm hoping for a better outcome tonight," he joked.

"There's a lot of irony in having a bus operator talk at a seminar on clever companies. I am not sure that people relate to bus companies as being clever, and I am not sure that we would see ourselves as being clever. The main driver is on the need to lift the game in passenger transport. "Passengers are needing more in quality and service and the Ministry of Education has demanded a higher quality of vehicle."

Mr Haslop said Go Bus would not have been able to attract equity partners, as it did last year, had it not had a guaranteed cash flow from contracts or a strong, clear, definitive business plan.

"We do put a lot of stock in the detail of our planning. Without that plan there would not be Go Bus."

Mr Haslop would not be drawn on the split between ministry and regional council contracts across the North Island, nor would he say how many services Go Bus would operate from January. He said the company had won the contracts because it was competitive and capable.

But Garry Hetherington, regional transport organiser for the National Distribution Union, said the company was paying drivers between the $12 an hour minimum wage and $13.51, and the union was about to start negotiations seeking more than $17. "We are talking about drivers who have been with the company a long time and who are expert drivers," Mr Hetherington said. "You are not going to keep them if you are paying them a minimum wage."

Mr Hetherington, who represents about 70 per cent of about 200 Go Bus drivers, said the coverage clause in the collective agreement would need to be updated to include depots outside of Hamilton.

"What it means for our drivers is more opportunity," he said.
--------------------
CAPTION: GOING PLACES: Go Bus drivers are on the road for 60,000 man hours a year. They drive 10 million kilometres a year.
Picture: Iain McGregor

A Hamilton firm is so impressed by the spirit of Ohura school children determined to keep their town alive it has sent them some Christmas cheer.

In a letter to Ohura Valley Primary School principal Kathryn Munro, Forlong's director Helen Forlong said the company's $1000 donation was sparked by a Waikato Times article on the school last month.

The article said the students were determined to keep their town alive despite the closure of Ohura's biggest employer, the prison.

Mrs Munro said the company's generosity showed the spirit of Christmas was very much alive.

"The money will indeed be used to purchase something that will benefit all the pupils at the school," she said.

David Teece discovered his penchant for economics in the 1960s at Canterbury University. Since then he has gone on to become a world leader in the field. Colleen Simpson reports.
--------------------
DAVID TEECE cuts an impressive and well-groomed figure, creating a hush in a roomful of aviation and tourism bigwigs in San Francisco as they still their cutlery to catch his every word of wisdom.  Professor Teece's time is precious.

He gives the impression of being used to working a finely tuned schedule in which every minute counts.  After a hasty but substantial presentation on the virtues of New Zealand's investment climate he offers some time to answer questions. But he is clearly anxious to make a quick exit to get to his next appointment.

That date happened to be in court, where Professor Teece took the stand in a landmark antitrust court battle between software giant Oracle and the United States Government.  Such is Professor Teece's reputation that he appeared as Oracle's final witness in the trial last month, during which the government tried to stop Oracle's US$7.7 billion bid for PeopleSoft.

Now recognised as a world-leading economist, Professor Teece has gone far from his Blenheim roots.  His family moved to Nelson when he was 12 and he went to Waimea College where he was a couple of years behind Business Roundtable executive director Roger Kerr.  His elder brother Murray says the young David never did homework, but could often be found "picking up spuds in the paddock" to earn money to get him to university.

After a stint as head boy in 1966, he went on to discover his penchant for economics as an undergraduate at Canterbury University.  "I'd always be decent at science and maths, but never the best," he says. "Economics was a social science. I really got into it."  Murray Teece says his brother always showed signs of being an entrepreneur and bought his first section when he was 20.  "David never sells anything," he says. "I've asked him why he doesn't sell that stupid section at Pakawau and he said one day he might put a bach on it. The first car he bought was at 20 years when he went to California and he's had that car (a Buick convertible) restored twice."

Those school and university days were obviously special times for Professor Teece, who remains a contributor to both institutions.  Now 55, his list of qualifications reads like a thesis and he has gone on to carve out an enviable career and publish numerous books and articles while earning a slew of accolades along the way.  He has honorary doctorates from universities in Finland, Denmark and Russia, in addition to the PhD in economics from the University of Pennsylvania and a couple of other masters' degrees.  He has also been named by global professional services firm Accenture as being one of the world's top 50 living business intellectuals.  But Professor Teece takes most pride in the honorary doctorates. "That was very satisfying."

However, he is modest about his natural predisposition for all things economic, crediting a clear, analytical mind and a keen ear -- despite having some difficulty remembering how many degrees he has.  "It's not so much (the) formal training," he said. "Quite frankly, at the top of the list I would put good old-fashioned Kiwi values like hard work and also being a good listener.  "In addition to that -- and not all, arguably most (economists), don't have this -- is the ability to take economic concepts and apply them to policy and business decisions."

And Professor Teece has not only been thinking, he has been doing.  He is a low-profile but majority stakeholder in sportswear label Canterbury International and jointly founded I-Cap -- New Zealand's biggest private equity firm with $400 million under management and offices in Auckland, London, San Francisco and Bahrain -- with Tony Hannon and Nick Lodge in 2000.

Professor Teece's name may not be familiar to most Kiwi households, but he is undoubtedly one of New Zealand's most successful -- and probably most wealthy -- business sons.  He has lived in the US for more than 30 years, longer than he lived in New Zealand, but keeps a foot firmly in both camps and is still patriotic.  The years living abroad have only made Professor Teece more of a champion for New Zealand.  "I come down there with some frequency driven by two things, family -- my kids and wife are very keen on New Zealand -- and second the number of business associations and contacts I have."

IN ADDITION to his business interests, he supports not-for-profit organisations in New Zealand, the US and Russia, and has chipped in for Nelson's about-to-be-opened transportation museum and the new Fulbright scholarship programme.

He is a business and finance professor at the University of California at Berkeley's Haas School of Business and is an advocate for New Zealand's investment environment. Professor Teece says opportunities in this country are ripe for the picking for foreign investors -- partly because of the lower levels of competition compared with overseas markets.

Professor Teece says Air New Zealand's new Auckland-San Francisco direct service is an important step for New Zealand because it brings the country much closer to the technology hub of Silicon Valley, shaving laborious hours spent travelling through Los Angeles.  "Sydney has been closer to San Francisco than Auckland -- not geographically, but because you have had to go through Los Angeles," he says.

The Business Roundtable's Mr Kerr does not remember Professor Teece from their school days, but the two have since become friends.  "He's really made the grade in the American academic world," Mr Kerr says. "He's regarded as a serious guy and that takes some doing in the academic world, and the American one is the fiercest in the world."

At Professor Teece's wife's 50th birthday party in Nelson several years ago, Mr Kerr said that "in typical David style" the economist chartered a plane to give his American friends a tour over the Southern Alps.  "He's made a lot of money along the way," he says. "It wouldn't be correct to call him a big figure in New Zealand business, but he's got some serious investments."

Warehouse founder Stephen Tindall admires Professor Teece's business acumen as well as his brain power.  "He is an academic and that's his first love," Mr Tindall says. "But he's been able to bridge that gap (with business practice)." Mr Tindall first met Professor Teece at the Knowledge Wave conference in 2000 and the pair agreed to put up $100,000 to establish the Kiwi Expat Association, which helps expats make business contacts abroad.  Since then, the two men have been in regular contact, speaking often on the telephone and conducting "virtual board meetings".

Mr Tindall says Professor Teece remains reasonably low profile even within the higher echelons of the Kiwi business community.  "Unfortunately, New Zealand tends to be a little Kiwi-centric. To be a household name or office name, you normally need to be in the press and living here," he says.

Professor Teece founded expert consultancy group LECG in 1998, but sold it after it joined the New York Stock Exchange nine years later. However, he led a group of investors that bought it back in 2000. It floated on the Nasdaq late last year at US$17 a share. Its shares are now sitting around US$16.66, giving it a market capitalisation of US$363.5 million.

Nikki Jordan's stove, carpet and lino are staying put.

Forlong's Furnishings managing director Ivan Forlong today said he would write off the $2700 hire purchase debt owing on chattels in Mrs Jordan's Raglan home, and that he was sorry.

The previous owner of Mrs Jordan's home had defaulted on hire purchase payments and was bankrupt and therefore unable to settle the debt.

Forlong's had been demanding a $1000 payout for the goods under threat of repossession, but Mr Forlong said his heart told him to write off the debt.

"We should have been claiming from the person who (incurred) the debt, not the next person."

Mr Forlong said he had not known about the problem until he read it in Tuesday's Waikato Times. Mr Forlong said he had not been involved in the day-to-day running of the business for a number of years and did not realise staff had been chasing the new owner in situations such as this. He has changed the policy so Forlong's will only pursue the person who incurred the debt.

"We didn't want to upset people so we cleared the matter up so we could have a pleasant night's sleep. If we've upset anyone, we're sorry."

Mrs Jordan said the decision was a relief.

She was expecting to have to buy a new stove, carpet and lino this month, but instead she was celebrating a victory for "the little people".

"Although legally Forlong's was in the right, sometimes morals override the law."

She said she was considering lobbying MPs to make changes to the Hire Purchase Act so chattels not fully paid for would have to be listed.