Category Archives: Efficiency

December 11, 2009 Posted in Business and the Environment, Compliance, Economic Development, Efficiency, New Zealand 22 Comments

Lobby Groups, Vested Interests and Short Sightedness

By Ben Kepes

(Warning – off topic, but still important) Despite statements to the opposite, New Zealand is a country that gains significant wealth from agriculture and horticulture. That we do so, such a long distance from our main markets, is in part testament to the fact that we’re blessed with significant rain

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November 23, 2009 Posted in Business and the Environment, Economic Development, Efficiency, New Zealand 1 Comment

Commoditization… and the Tragedy of the Commons….

By Ben Kepes

My good friend Ruth has started blogging and, in what can only be likened to a “butterfly from the chrysalis” moment, we get to see the thoughts her previous employment have rendered her unlikely to utter. Her latest post looks broadly at the Emissions Trading Scheme and questions the strategy

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July 7, 2009 Posted in Efficiency, New Zealand, Society 10 Comments

Our Health System Sucks. Seriously!

By Ben Kepes

Warning – this will sound like an off-topic rant. It is, but it’s a cathartic one. My mother had a fall last year during which she fractured her pelvis. This, and a historical neck-of-femur fracture sustained in a fall 15 years ago have led her surgeon to determine that a

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June 15, 2009 Posted in Economic Development, Efficiency, Governance, IT, My businesses, New Zealand, Society, Strategy 2 Comments

Government 2.0 – A Way to Go

By Ben Kepes

Jim posted the incredible story of the New Zealand Immigration Service (NZIS) proposing a $117 million upgrade of IT infrastructure, a sum that equates, from Jim’s reckoning, to $234k per NZIS process worker. It’s a sorry tale and one that, as Jim points out, smacks of desperation, silo building and

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February 12, 2009 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, New business, New Zealand, SaaS 4 Comments

Another Local Payroll Entrant

By Ben Kepes

Awhile ago I wrote about iPayroll, a local SaaS payroll provider. New to the scene comes Flexitime, another payroll option. Whereas iPayroll is an official IRD intermediary, meaning that they can act as a company’s proxy when dealing with the IRD, Flexitime is a standalone service which means companies will

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January 21, 2009 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, New business, New Zealand, SaaS 3 Comments

Diligent – The End Is Nigh

By Ben Kepes

Diligent Board Member Services (lots more info here) yesterday announced that they’d been successful in raising another round of funding. Diligent is positive saying that; [Diligent] that its ability to raise capital under such severe market conditions underlines the quality and potential of its Boardbooks product. This investment will strengthen

January 14, 2009 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, SocialMedia 3 Comments

A Press Release Isn’t a Blog Comment

By Ben Kepes

I always welcome comments on my posts from vendors – after all they’re the ones with the in-depth domain knowledge about areas I’m writing about. I can even live with a bit of a commercial bent to the comments – after all there is a reason the vendors spend their

December 18, 2008 Posted in Efficiency, Governance, New Zealand, Society Leave a comment

Running a School – Who Does It Best…

By Ben Kepes

I’ve got two school-age sons and I’ve spent a fair amount of time observing the way New Zealand schools are run. By way of background, the Labour government of 1984 put in place the “Tomorrow’s Schools” ethos. Part of this new way of thinking was a move to Boards of

December 16, 2008 Posted in Business, Business and the Environment, Economic Development, Efficiency, Manufacturing, My businesses, Society 2 Comments

What Part of Rampant Consumerism do People Not Get?

By Ben Kepes

Doing the rounds at the moment is a UK Sunday Star Times story about an undercover operation at an Amazon warehouse. Basically the reporter discovered terrible working conditions, very high demands on staff and not allowance for sick days off. The thing that caused the shock for people (we all

December 11, 2008 Posted in Business, Efficiency, IT, SaaS, Strategy Leave a comment

Sold – To the Company With the Biggest Chequebook

By Ben Kepes

I posted about a month ago about the suitors for accounting software company MYOB. I’ve just been told that MYOB has accepted an offer from Manhattan pending shareholder approval. Details below. As I said to another accounting software industry player, I guess the saying “a bird in the hand is

The Author

Ben Kepes is a technology evangelist, an investor, a commentator and a business adviser. Ben covers the convergence of technology, mobile, ubiquity and agility, all enabled by the Cloud. His areas of interest extend to enterprise software, software integration, financial/accounting software, platforms and infrastructure as well as articulating technology simply for everyday users.

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