Partnership between NZ and Microsoft deepens with new SaaS initiative
Wednesday, 25 May 2022
Microsoft initiative will allow NZ companies to partner with them to sell products to business customers in markets like the US
PM Jacinda Ardern will spend a significant amount of time at Microsoft’s Seattle offices on Saturday as part of her US tour
Microsoft says the new initiative will help NZ digital companies overcome traditional challenges around scale
The relationship between Microsoft and the NZ Government has grown markedly in recent years with Microsoft products ubiquitous in the public sector
Microsoft has announced a new initiative to encourage Software-as-a-service(SaaS) startups in New Zealand as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern prepares to visit their offices as part of her tour of the United States.
The initiative will see Microsoft partnering and providing a marketing and sales channel for New Zealand SaaS companies to promote their products in overseas markets, and through Microsoft’s digital Azure marketplace.
Microsoft NZ commercial partner director Matt Bostwick said it would be particularly valuable to New Zealand companies trying to break into the business-to-business (B2B) SaaS market and reach companies Microsoft had existing contracts with.
Bostwick said New Zealand companies were traditionally strong on innovation, but companies in places like Singapore were better at scale, because they were more engaged in partnerships like the ones Microsoft is hoping to promote to New Zealand SaaS companies.
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“New Zealand is great at innovation, we’re creative, we’re innovative, we think outside the box when it comes to solving problems – but the challenge we need to solve for ourselves is how do we scale those innovations?
“If you’re a SaaS company in New Zealand with a great innovation, beautiful product, that solves a problem that’s common around the world – you have to have partnerships to enable you to scale and grow.
“It’s just impossible to be successful without strong partnerships.”
The Government has allocated $20m over four years to try and grow New Zealand’s SaaS sector through an initiative to market the country’s “tech and innovation story” globally, and another to fund short courses in digital skills development.
Microsoft has also announced it will plough resources into increasing the diversity of New Zealand’s cybersecurity workforce in a bid to increase the number of trained personnel in the country.
The announcements and the Prime Minister’s visit to Microsoft’s offices in Seattle on Saturday are the latest in a string of developments that show the deepening ties between the company and New Zealand.
Microsoft has already said it will open a new data centre in Auckland next year and Microsoft president Brad Smith – who was visiting New Zealand at the time of the 2019 mosque attack – reportedly played a pivotal role in creating the Christchurch Call.
The Government has also signalled it sees the growth of digital tech exports as a high priority on this trip to the United States.
Numerous tech sector representatives are accompanying Ardern as part of New Zealand’s business delegation travelling there.
Microsoft NZ SaaS partner lead Hayley Horan, who is currently in the United States as part of that delegation, said three New Zealand companies – Auror, LawVu and Volpara – have already signed up to the initiative.
Tauranga-based LawVu has hired staff in Seattle. Chief executive officer Sam Kidd said three-quarters of its business now comes from the United States.
Kidd has travelled to the United States meet his staff over there and to attend an event with Ardern at Microsoft headquarters on Saturday.
“I think when you have someone with Microsoft’s clout being able to endorse the product and brand, it goes a long way.
“When you’re a New Zealand company, and they haven’t even heard of you before, but then see you’ve got this partnership with Microsoft, it’s certainly a big validation check.
“[It] certainly helps with those large companies – it gives them a lot more comfort around what you do and the quality of service that you provide as well.”
Scaling up New Zealand’s smaller companies has been a priority of late for policymakers in New Zealand.
A Productivity Commission report on “frontier firms” released last year said the presence of such large firms could lift productivity and wellbeing, but noted New Zealand’s small domestic market “makes it difficult and risky for firms to get the scale required to be world class in their industry”.
Horan said scaling up those companies was “where this initiative [from Microsoft] really has the power to add rocket fuel to local SaaS businesses and our economy”.
Rush Digital chief technology officer Danu Abeysuriya, who has worked with a number of different tech providers and platforms including Microsoft, says the tech giant’s products are deeply embedded within Government.
“I’ve never seen a country more allied to a tech stack than New Zealand … the amount of Microsoft stuff sold in New Zealand is laughable, we should be called New Zealandsoft or New Micro Zealand.
“A lot of our Government [software] is Microsoft, like everybody uses Teams here, you go to Europe and there’s a lot more competition for platforms.”
But he does not see the dominance of Microsoft here as an altogether bad thing, and Abeysuriya noted they were one of the better-behaved tech giants.
“I have a huge amount of respect for Microsoft the company, they do a lot of things really well and proactively.”
CORRECTION: A previous version of this story incorrectly attributed comments from LawVu chief executive officer Sam Kidd to senior implementation services manager David Webb. (Amended at 11.55am, May 26, 2022)