International Council for Small Business
57th World Conference 2012
Michael Fowler Centre, Wellington
11-13 June 2012
David Pimblott Executive Chairman, NorthSouth GIS Group Ltd
“Plenary Panel: Local Heroes of Entrepreneurship and Innovation”
David Pimblott, Executive Chairman of NorthSouth GIS Group spoke at the 57th International Council for Small Business World Conference 2012. Among companies like Weta Digital, Sidhe and Phil & Teds David introduced the NorthSouth GIS Group (NSG) to an audience representing over 45 countries.
David is a cartographer by profession and he has been using computers to help him with that problem for many years and the company has been at the fore front of technology solutions for many years now. Geospatial systems have become so pervasive in our day to day lives and that is why NSG is building their business accordingly.
NSG is an IT company specialising in Geographic Information Systems which was popularised in the consumer world by Google, and now, as of this week Apple. NSG has established themselves in New Zealand, the United States and India. NSG works with core technology from Esri Inc. Esri is acknowledged as the worldwide leader in the provision of GIS technology and represented in 150 countries. NSG became a gold tier partner, a status which is reserved for the top 5% of such partners. With humour David adds : “You can see where we sit in the Esri global partner ecosystem… just below Microsoft!”
The NorthSouth GIS Group
The NSG Group has been working in 7 different countries over the past 18 months. NSG NZ’s clients are in niche vertical markets and include governments, local governments and the private industry. The NSG US emphasis is on Ports, Airports, and local governments. The showcase client is the Port of Los Angeles, the 9th largest port in the world for whom NSG has built enterprise GIS solutions to support security responsibilities and improved port operational efficiency.
NSG NZ is headquartered in Whitby, Porirua but also has an office in Auckland and representatives in Tauranga, Hastings, Nelson and Christchurch. With their cloud based technology branding called geoCirrus, NSG is delivering solutions for 20% of New Zealand’s local governments e.g. CERA, the Canterbury Earthquake Recovery Authority.
Growth and Opportunities
For NSG everything centres around New Zealand as the business has grown from here to establish offices in the United States and in India. With their ambitions business plan the company tries to stay ahead of the curve by growing their highly experienced team and internationalising the business even more. The next step will be launching the cloud based technology geoCirrus in the United States as part of a global network.
Success Story
NSG has won more than 20 awards for their business peers. “With success comes recognition. We have been visited by the highest level of politicians in the country, it is great to showcase our work, our clients and it is
important for our staff to see us engaged in these forums”, explained David. The competitive advantage NSG has is not money, it is the lifestyle the company has. “New staff comes to us because they want to do cool, interesting and challenging work, and that is what makes NSG unique.” This family friendly, relaxed environment provides another reason for the rapid growth of the company over the past years.
David’s Message to the Audience
“Internationalisation is possible … possible by partnership, development of trusted relationships and generation of a true “win-win” relationship. Money doesn’t necessarily buy success. Be honest, recognise that you can’t do it all so focus is critical. Focus on niche markets. Focus on customer solutions, what is important to them, and what delivers real benefit to them and their business and focus on what you are good at. Success is the result of vision, passion, commitment and determination.”
The positive feedback and the long questions and answer session afterwards have shown that there is a great interest and demand in GIS and NSG’s products and solutions, not only restricted to New Zealand.