Latest / Best of Business / Mahesh Muralidhar: Phase One CEO says New Zealand businesses should save money to expand overseas

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Mahesh Muralidhar: Phase One CEO says New Zealand businesses should save money to expand overseas · Best of Business

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  Speaker 1: You're listening to a podcast from News talks'd be follow
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• 0:17
  Speaker 1: Heather dup c Ellen, the.
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  Speaker 2: Key We Investor reckons more businesses in New Zealand should
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  Speaker 2: be putting money aside to expand internationally. Apparently this would
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  Speaker 2: get our GDP up. It's one way of doing it.
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  Speaker 2: Phase One Venture CEO Mahesh Molla Muralad is with me. Now,
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  Speaker 2: maheshif is totally stuffed up your name, I'm sorry.
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  Speaker 3: That's all right, Heather, You're not the first one, so
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  Speaker 3: that's all right.
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  Speaker 2: I would imagine that's the case. Hey, listen, thank you
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  Speaker 2: very much for joining us. I'm kind of surprised that
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  Speaker 2: that businesses aren't already thinking about trying to get international customers.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I think it's a story that we have right
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  Speaker 4: where we're an entrepreneurial country to islands in the corner
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  Speaker 4: of the world, but we don't see scale, so it
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  Speaker 4: doesn't happen naturally to us. The same entrepreneur, the same
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  Speaker 4: university student in the US or in India has the
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  Speaker 4: same level of skills as anyone in New Zealand, but
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  Speaker 4: they see scale and we so we had to actually
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  Speaker 4: have to like go out of our way to start
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  Speaker 4: thinking globally from day one?
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  Speaker 2: Is it hard to to is it?
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  Speaker 1: Is it?
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  Speaker 2: Is it a difficult thing to try to get a
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  Speaker 2: customer overseas?
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  Speaker 3: No, it's not.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, look, it's it's not complex. It's hard, right
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  Speaker 4: you you're probably working one point one one point two
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  Speaker 4: times what you'd have to do initially, and it's a
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  Speaker 4: little bit more expensive. But you can imagine, I'm sure
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  Speaker 4: you can imagine, Heather, that the dividends on that is
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  Speaker 4: significantly more.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 4: So if you if you just go out of your
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  Speaker 4: way to win one more customer or one customer in
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  Speaker 4: the US or in India or in South Stasia and
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  Speaker 4: the Middle East, it pays so much down the road.
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  Speaker 2: So why don't we have this idea of scale.
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  Speaker 3: It's it's it's because we it's because we just don't
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  Speaker 3: see that, right, Like we're in the corner of the world.
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  Speaker 4: We were richer once, nearly if a couple of decades
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  Speaker 4: ago we were fine. We probably got a little bit complacent.
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  Speaker 4: We haven't connected did with our Kiwi diaspro overseas as much.
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  Speaker 4: I think this is a small country thing, right, Like
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  Speaker 4: you the kings and queens in any situation end up
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  Speaker 4: blaming that glass ceiling and.
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  Speaker 3: You don't look outside and look overseas.
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  Speaker 4: It's we talk about cutting the pie up more often
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  Speaker 4: than growing the pie.
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  Speaker 2: So if you were to to go for certain customers,
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  Speaker 2: which which countries would you be targeting?
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  Speaker 3: Well, you look, you look at where demand is.
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  Speaker 4: US is still going nuts, at least is going nuts,
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  Speaker 4: Southeast Asia is going nuts, and India is going nuts. Right,
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  Speaker 4: so you have four and of that culturally you're more
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  Speaker 4: we're more connected to the US and the Commonwealth countries
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  Speaker 4: which are Southeast Asia and India, right, And so those
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  Speaker 4: would be the natural places. US obviously the easiest because
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  Speaker 4: law and order signals, all of that work. But you'd
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  Speaker 4: take a bet on any one of this whichever is
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  Speaker 4: more in line with the business that you have.
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  Speaker 2: I've got to take you from ben It says, our
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  Speaker 2: freight system here is third world. It's crap, and that's
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  Speaker 2: part of the stroblem. What do you think?
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  Speaker 3: Sure? Sure, yeah?
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  Speaker 4: I mean you don't have to send stuff from New
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  Speaker 4: Zealand to start a business from New Zealand, right, Like,
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  Speaker 4: for example, you could start a textile and manufacturing organization
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  Speaker 4: that thing in India or China and then make sure
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  Speaker 4: that you market it better Exeter and then sell it
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  Speaker 4: to the US A la zuru correct ala zero. You
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  Speaker 4: can do it by Amazon, you can do it by Facebook, marketplaces.
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  Speaker 4: The thing is to try to find ways to not
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  Speaker 4: make excuses. I mean, the government's gone a good way
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  Speaker 4: in regards to reaching out and saying, hey, we've got
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  Speaker 4: to be global, but our entrepreneurs and our businesses have
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  Speaker 4: to go, hey, we've got to do this.
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  Speaker 3: We have to start earning global coin.
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  Speaker 2: I find it fascinating what you said about the diaspora,
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  Speaker 2: because you're not the first person I've heard say this.
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  Speaker 2: That there are other like the Irish, for example, are
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  Speaker 2: really fantastic at kind of harnessing the potential of the
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  Speaker 2: diaspora and making it work for them. If we were to,
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  Speaker 2: and we don't, and if we were to, how would
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  Speaker 2: we do it?
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  Speaker 4: I mean, I was in the US about two weeks ago.
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  Speaker 4: There are so many kiwis doing so well. I think
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  Speaker 4: we have to start talking about global from day one,
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  Speaker 4: so reaching out to more of these, more of our
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  Speaker 4: our kiwis who are doing so well overseas, right, like,
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  Speaker 4: so more of our news media, more of our leaders
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  Speaker 4: looking for best practice globally and saying this is not
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  Speaker 4: good enough. Like the All Blacks means so much to us,
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  Speaker 4: I think because they're one of the best examples of
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  Speaker 4: US hitting like great levels from a global perspective.
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  Speaker 2: What do we want to Diespora to do. I mean,
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  Speaker 2: it's one thing to look at somebody doing really well
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  Speaker 2: overseas reading the news or something. But then what value
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  Speaker 2: is it to us?
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  Speaker 4: A couple of things, role modeling that we can achieve
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  Speaker 4: great things, that we can achieve global things, to bringing
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  Speaker 4: back best practice? Right, How do we think about this?
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  Speaker 4: How do we think about scale? For example, one of
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  Speaker 4: the things you think about when you think about skills.
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  Speaker 4: Don't think about scale straight away. Just understand the market.
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  Speaker 4: Just make one dollar first, and then the systems and
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  Speaker 4: so forth. Global capital, it's actually the US market's US capitals.
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  Speaker 3: Once you go there, it's quite easy.
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  Speaker 4: But you need role models other Kiwis who've done that,
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  Speaker 4: and then we need to look at them and.
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  Speaker 3: Go, oh, I can do that too.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: Interesting, Hey, that's a very interesting thought that you've given us.
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  Speaker 2: Thank you so much for that. Maheshi. It's Mahesh Marala.
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  Speaker 2: I'm going to give up maheshim from here on in.
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  Speaker 2: On this show, Mahshim Phase one Venture CEO, It's all me,
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  Speaker 2: It's not him that's the problem.
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