Strategic priorities
Customer service
What does customer service mean for Standards New Zealand?
- customers’ needs at the centre of our decision making
- delivering value to Aotearoa New Zealand, and
- providing a high-quality customer service and experience.
What are our key activities to achieve this?
- Make Standard New Zealand’s products and services more attractive by identifying ways to speed up the standards development process, without compromising quality, and to improve self-help functionality of our e-commerce business for our customers on our website and web-shop.
- Achieve greater diversification of products and services to meet market needs more effectively, for example more non-traditional products such as codes of practice, publicly available specifications, technical specifications, guidelines, webinars, explanatory videos, etc.
- Gain a deeper understanding of our customers, enabling us to design systems and processes that make
co-designing, accessing and using our services and products easier. This will allow our customers to receive the right information at the right time, in the right way, meeting their diverse needs. - Use plain language that customers can easily understand, so they can more confidently use standards.
- Maintain our existing, and build new, strategic partnerships with Government regulators and other organisations.
- Reduce cost barriers to market access by increasing sponsorship arrangements.
What does success look like?
Our services and products meet our customers’ needs
This means:
- having services and products that meet market needs including the delivery of standards products in a timely fashion which are relevant, affordable, and accessible, for example via a fully digitised catalogue and expanded subscription services
- ensuring that our role as the national standards body is well recognised and products and services are seen as trusted, credible, accurate and authoritative
- A diversified customer base, targeting new sectors and organisations effectively supporting their needs
- supporting businesses to access markets and establish new trade opportunities by enabling more international standards to be adopted.
What benefits/outcomes will we achieve?
- Our products and services offer greater value to what matters the most to New Zealand, for example, prosperous economy, industry performance, effective regulatory systems, and consumer protection.
- Standards are easily understood by more customers and can be more readily used to support business innovation.
- Greater active international participation places Standards New Zealand in a strong position of influence in the global standards community that supports New Zealand economic interests, by helping increase Trans-Tasman and global market access for New Zealand industries’ products and services.
Business sustainability
What does sustainability mean?
Business sustainability for Standards New Zealand means we:
- are commercially viable
- fulfil our statutory obligations
- employ and retain a highly capable and professional workforce by being an attractive place to work, providing a safe, flexible and inclusive work environment
- operate a lean, flexible and efficient business operation – resourcing to demand.
What are our key activities to achieve this?
1. Our operating model
- Explore then implement different ways for Standards New Zealand to deliver its business activities, to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of existing resources as well as its business systems and processes. For example, leveraging wider MBIE functional capabilities could help grow Standards New Zealand’s capacity to engage with its customers and manage backend systems capitalising of economies of scale. For example operating a mixed model of in-house and outsourced resources and technical expertise to support a more flexible resourcing to demand business model.
- Explore options, then take steps, to reduce vulnerabilities associated with an over-reliance of specialist knowledge and expertise held in one place, including with vendors.
2. Our services and products
- Continue to implement necessary pricing adjustments to our products and services to recover our business costs.
- Build brand and value recognition and raise awareness and understanding with industry of our products and services, and the value they can add, positioning Standards New Zealand as go-to organisation for standards.
3. Our partnerships
- Strengthen our iwi/Crown partnership capabilities, relationships and activities.
- Establish stronger domestic and international networks and partnerships. For example, strengthen Standards New Zealand’s international participation and influence in standards systems, with particular focus on advancing Aotearoa New Zealand’s and Pacific region interests, and grow Standards New Zealand’s strategic and operational partnerships to more effectively align its activities to government priorities.
- Strengthen and maintain Standards New Zealand’s relationship with Standards Australia so that both organisations benefit equitably and contribute fairly to the development and implementation of, and access to, standards. New Zealand to deliver an increased, proportionate and appropriate contribution to the development of joint standards.
- Identify current commercial arrangements that are detrimental to the business and resolve these. For example, areas where Standards New Zealand has an over-reliance on a single supplier or critical institutional knowledge resides with only one individual or external vendor.
4. Our people
- Provide greater recognition and acknowledgement of committee members, their work and contribution to New Zealand.
- Actively recruit, retain and plan succession for committee members, with a focus on growing diversity within committees.
- Take an active relationship management approach to committee members.
- Attract the right talent. Train and upskill with a particular focus on sharing knowledge and expertise across our people to increase their utility and grow our collaborative and people centric leadership capability.
- Focus on health, well-being and safety by creating a safe, inclusive environment.
- Grow our Māori cultural and linguistic knowledge and capability through professional development and working together with Māori organisations.
What does success look like?
1. We are financially sustainable and operate an efficient business model
This means having sufficient revenue/funding to fulfil our statutory functions and legislative purpose as the national standards body as defined by the Standards Accreditation Act 2015. Sufficient funding means:
- meeting our ongoing and escalating business costs for example, information technology, wages, digital publication, e-commerce
- making reasonable and expected business investment to meet market needs for example, technology infrastructure, e-commerce services
- meeting our international participation obligations, and
- pro-actively adopting international standards in the best interests of Aotearoa New Zealand’s economy and social well-being.
2. We have a wide range of strong partnerships
This means:
- having a wider range and increased number of partnerships to mitigate the risk of over-reliance on a small number of partnering agencies
- actively fulfilling our Treaty of Waitangi partnership obligations to achieve the economic, employment and wellbeing aspirations of Māori.
3. We have the right people with the right skills available at the right time
This means:
- ensuring that committee participation is seen as an attractive and valuable role, resulting in high retention and easier resourcing of committees
- achieving a high degree of diversity and inclusion of committee membership, resulting in innovative and representative standards
- building and maintaining strong relationships with committee members to support business efficiency,
for example, helping speed up the standard development process - developing the skills and expertise to help ensure our products and services meet the needs for Māori,
for example by representation on committees with relevant customs and protocols adhered to - ensuring that we have a motivated, productive and skilled workforce that feels their work and voice matters
establishing high trust, a healthy team culture and strong work ethic - ensuring that the team continues to evolve and is resourced to demand to deliver high-quality standards that meet government priorities, private sector needs and New Zealand’s international obligations.
What benefits/outcomes will we achieve?
- Standards New Zealand is able to leverage specialist knowledge and expertise quickly and easily to deliver business efficiencies and effectiveness.
- Standards support Māori economic, employment, education, housing, health and well-being aspirations, where appropriate or relevant.
Climate change
What does a priority focus on climate change mean for Standards New Zealand?
- Standards New Zealand will have a stronger focus on climate change initiatives across a wider range of sectors.
- Globally climate change is a priority for national standards bodies. They have an important role to play in supporting governments and industry deliver on their climate change goals. Standards are one lever or tool able to be used to inform and prescribe new regulatory requirements and acknowledged industry best practice.
- Standards New Zealand recognises this and sees that we have a part to play in supporting, both domestically and internationally, Government’s and industry’s climate change initiatives. For example, helping define carbon emissions reduction requirements in the building and construction sector, or defining industry practice on renewable energies such as electric vehicle or hydrogen technologies.
What are our key activities to achieve this?
- Develop standards products and services that help deliver on Government priorities, for example, renewable energies, carbon emissions, waste minimisation, infrastructure resilience and energy efficiency.
- Promote and market standards products and services which support climate change action.
- Share specialist knowledge and expertise on climate change standards initiatives.
What does success look like?
- Increased use of our existing products and services relating to climate change regulation and industry practice and performance requirements.
- Increased demand for new products and services relating to climate change regulation and best practice.
- Demand for our products and services from a wider range of organisations, both public and private sector, relating to climate change initiatives.
- Increased participation and influence on climate change issues on international standards development committees.
What benefits/outcomes will we achieve?
- Contribute to climate change goals, for example, Net Zero by 2050, National Adaptation Plan.
- Provide certainty to industry through New Zealand standards on the performance and implementation requirements needed to meet climate change objectives.
- Help other government agencies to deliver on their own climate change priorities’ objectives and work programmes.
Digital economy
What does a priority focus on digital economy mean for Standards New Zealand?
- A digital economy is one that is changing from traditional brick-and-mortar economic activities (production, distribution, trade) to internet, e-commerce, data management and blockchain technologies amongst other things.
- For Standards New Zealand this means a deliberate focus on supporting this economic transformation, through our products and services on areas such as: cybersecurity, privacy, identity authenticity, e-commerce, digital trade and artificial intelligence. This also includes supporting the Government’s strategy for a digital public service, Strategy for a Digital Public Service - New Zealand Digital government and industry’s Digital Technologies Industry Transformation Plan (ITP) Digital Technologies - Ministry of Business, Innovation & Employment (mbie.govt.nz)
Strategy for a Digital Public Service - New Zealand Digital government(external link)
Digital Technologies - Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment(external link) - It also means Standards New Zealand must further modernise our business in a digital way, for example digitalising our standards catalogue and continuing to enhance our web-shop features and customers offers.
What are our key activities to achieve this?
- Through standards, support New Zealand Government and industry digital services and ambitions, for example, data interoperability, cybersecurity, digital trade, AI application, information security etc.
- Digitalise Standards New Zealand’s catalogue to improve accessibility and functionality for customers.
- Continue to develop and evolve Standards New Zealand’s web-shop and website to meet ever-changing market needs, for example, customised collections, feeds to international standards, digitalised catalogue, multiple digital formats, increased subscription services etc.
- Make better use of Standards New Zealand’s data and information holdings to generate more targeted business insights and operational intelligence.
- Identify and gather additional information (for example, customer service performance data) needed to improve Standards New Zealand’s service delivery.
What does success look like?
- Increased products and services focused on digital technology and services (for example, web browser and app accessible formats) to meet customer expectations and industry needs.
- As the digital economy continues to be regulated, Standards New Zealand leverages this opportunity by partnering more with Government regulators to develop required standards and performance requirements.
- Standards New Zealand is able to keep pace with digital economy changes, achieving agility and speed to market and recognised as a preferred provider of standards in this area.
What benefits and outcomes will we achieve?
- Standards are current, reflecting the latest digital economy developments and customer needs, aligning to the government’s and MBIE’s goals, for example, data interoperability across Government, high-wage low-emissions economy, support Māori and Pacifica aspirations, unleash business potential.
- Support industry to remain competitive and prosperous through digital means.
- Standards New Zealand’s online experience is intuitive, fast and accessible for all existing and prospective standards users.
- Market needs are met, including speed of developing and implementing standards.
- Data insights and operational intelligence inform business decisions including optimisation of customer experience.