Resilience in a tough economy

It's been a tough couple of years for businesses, and the numbers indicate that Auckland has been struggling more than anywhere else. We gathered some Uptown business owners for a chat about how they're faring, the decisions they've taken to stay afloat, and where they see glimmers of hope.

It's been a particularly challenging time for anyone whose work centres on the built environment, where it's not only general economic conditions weighing on business activity, but uncertainty about central government policy directions.

"I've been in the industry over 40 years -I set up my first business in 1988, right after the sharemarket crash - and this is the worst I've ever seen it," says Peter Eising, director of architecture firm Pacific Environments. "We'd been doing a lot of work with Kāinga Ora. That just stopped at the same time that Ministry of Education work stopped."

The Urban Advisory is a much younger business, but it has faced many of the same issues.
"I've described it as a great handbrake," says Natalie Allen, who founded the urban design consultancy with Greer O'Donnell nine years ago. "Everything stopped for a significant period of time. And it wasn't just one sector, it was across the board. Councils across the country, iwi, community organisations, the private sector, philanthropic capital, everyone just went, 'we don't know what's happening, so we're going to wait’."

The other guests at a lunch discussion organised by Uptown were Goodness Gracious founder Greg Cornes; Helen Wrightson, who owns The Stream Shop with her husband Daniel; and Joshua Heares, who founded his clothing label Porter James Sports amid the pandemic in 2020 - "so I don't really know what normal is". Josh is the only business not directly exposed to the domestic economy, and the only one growing, but he faces a different kind of uncertainty - the mad and unstable international tariff environment in the time of Trump 2.

We asked them all about how they're shaping up and they found plenty in common.

LEADERSHIP AND DIFFICULT DECISIONS

A year ago, Pacific Environments had a team of 48 architects and designers. Since then, says Peter, its roster has been cut by two-thirds.

Helen says she and Daniel have learned from previous dips when they have forgone their own wages and made the difficult call to let their sole full-time worker go. "It just means that we have to work quicker and harder."

The Urban Advisory is down from 14 to six employees and contractors, and Natalie and Greer gave up their office lease and moved back into a co-working space at Sinclair House. Letting staff go "as compassionately as we can" while still taking care of their own families has been a leadership challenge, says Greer.

TECHNOLOGY RULES

Josh's direct-to-consumer business is built on the Shopify platform, which, he says, has scaled along with him - and can be used to smooth out fluctuations in exchange and tariff rates for overseas customers. But the need to constantly work on solutions means he doesn't have much time left for actually designing clothes. Greg, too, has been using Shopify, on a smaller scale - principally to sell Goodness Gracious's own coffee blend, which was itself a response to cash-pressed customers spending less onsite. He counts a past decision to automate ordering at his cafés as a valuable way to avoid redundancies. "We just had natural attrition." For TUA, an earlier decision to focus on technology as a means to its core business of "precinct delivery" has signalled a way forward, and past the limitations of simply selling billable hours, says Greer: "There are huge data gaps in our industry and in order to get people to think differently about urban development, we need to hold that data."

SILVER LININGS

A squeeze on corporate budgets has not been all bad for The Stream Shop, says Helen. "One of our clients, Fuji, has sales offices all around the country and we help them do a live quarterly update where every- one comes together and they talk to them - and it saves such a massive cost of having to either take the CEO to them or bring everyone up."

Greg has held on to a plan to open another branch of Goodness Gracious - his fourth - in Wynyard Quarter. He believes that the current soft demand for business space "offers an opportunity to guide landlords' thinking. We've managed to work with some very good future-forward landlords that see hospitality as underpinning their commercial spots. And so with that, there's a bit of sway in lease structures."

For Natalie and Greer, moving into a coworking space has opened up an opportunity to talk to peers in different sectors and find common ground. And Peter says the reality of Pacific Environments no longer being able to rely on its established networks for business has promoted new thinking around productivity and innovation.

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE STORY

One thing all our business owners agreed on was the importance of telling a story about their brands - and giving customers a reason to feel they're spending their money in the right place.

For Greg, that has long been at the centre of Goodness Gracious. He's an expert online communicator who talks to his audience not just about what he sells, but who he is and why he does what he does. Josh says opening a bricks-and-mortar store in Uptown has been a chance to deepen a brand experience that extends to his global market.

"We actually took the opportunity to do a brand refresh and to tell our story," says Greer. "Putting the people of The Urban Advisory back into the story, instead of it just being about a business front that writes lots of reports, does lots of workshops, presentations and stuff, it's actually about being a local business and how it was developed and the work we've done."

For Helen, as the streaming space fills up with broadcast veterans like her and Daniel, one key to projecting a brand has been being unabashedly good at what they do.’

"We've hung our hat on that. It's just like, whatever we do, we have to be excellent. And I think that is kind of the opportunity: to be excellent and also not be afraid to tell people that you are excellent."

WHERE TO FROM HERE?
Josh's business is the youngest of the group and still growing - he sees the opening of another flagship store in Melbourne next year as his next level up - but the others all feel that the difficulties of the past two years have made them be more focused and resourceful. When the recovery comes, they'll be stronger for it. But, yes, they would definitely like the recovery to come.

All agreed that being candid and sharing insights across business sectors was a valuable exercise. Being part of a supportive business association like Uptown helps to build their networks and provides peer support.


NATALIE ALLEN & GREER O'DONNELL 
Owners/Founders
The Urban Advisory
3 Glenside Terrace

HELEN WRIGHTSON
Founder/Owner/Producer
The Stream Shop
8 Couldry Street

GREG CORNES 
Owner/Founder
Goodness Gracious
2A New North Road

PETER EISING
Director
Pacific Environments
6 Basque Road

JOSHUA HEARES 
Founder/Creative Director
Porter James Sports
31 St Benedict's Street

Special thanks to: Kabine & Co for hosting.