Using statistics for informed decision-making to improve your bottom line Geoff Bascand Government Statistician & Chief Executive Statistics New Zealand

7 December 2012

World Business Capability Congress 2012 University of Auckland Business School

Overview Statistics inform New Zealand business decisions Two examples – Placemakers and Foodstuffs (NZ) Ltd Overview of Statistics NZ and our online tools

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Official statistics

Can be accessed by all Inform debate and research Contribute to New Zealand’s: • economic • environmental • social development

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Our story

10 year programme of change Customer focus Better public services:

Easier to do business with government Easier to find information Easier to supply information

Result Area 9 – Business Facing Services

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Digital Yearbooks 1893 to 2010

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Placemakers Use monthly Building Consents Issued information Statistics help in rebuild of Christchurch

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Productivity

Productivity partnership Statistics NZ, Department of Building and Housing, BRANZ, and others Improving timeliness of official industry productivity indexes Improving timeliness of skills data Understanding more detail around skills migration

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Foodstuffs (Auckland) Ltd Used official statistics to improve their bottom line Responsible for three of New Zealand’s largest supermarkets: • Pak’n’Save • New World • Four Square

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Foodstuffs (Auckland) Ltd datasets

Population data and estimates Occupied dwellings data Household Economic Survey Quick Stats Interactive Boundary Maps National population projections Retail Trade Survey data Consumers price index

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Online tools: Infoshare

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Online tools: Business Toolbox

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Industry Profiler

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Industry benchmarks

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Table Builder (NZ.Stat) Extract information from very large tables of data Customise tables to best suit needs

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How to access data All our statistics are free to download Freephone 0508 525 525 Email us on info@stats.govt.nz www.stats.govt.nz Talk to us about data we can send you

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Conclusions Statistics provide the following: • Macro picture of operating environment • Specific industry and customer information

Business capability includes knowledge assets: • Market trends analysis • Firm performance.

Some firms & industry groups use statistics well Statistics NZ trying to improve capability

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2013 Census

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