Momentum Life Receives Feefo Platinum Trusted Service Award for a Second Time in 2021

For the second year running, Momentum Life has received a Feefo Platinum Trusted Service award, recognising their commitment to providing exceptional experiences, as rated by real customers.

Momentum Life, a licensed and trusted direct-to-consumer life insurer in New Zealand, has won the Feefo Platinum Trusted Service Award for 2021, an honour it received in 2020 having also been awarded the Gold Trusted Service Award in 2017, 2018 and 2019. These awards are presented to businesses using Feefo, an independent customer review platform, to collect genuine ratings and reviews from verified customers.

This accreditation remains unique, as it is based purely on interactions with real customers. The Platinum Trusted Service for which Momentum Life has been recognised is awarded to brands that achieved a rating of at least 4.5 out of 5.0 throughout 2020 and who had also received the Gold Trusted Service Award for three consecutive years or more.

Eugeniu Jalba, Chief Financial and Operating Officer for Momentum Life, says: “We’re thrilled to have received the Feefo Platinum Trusted Service Award for a second year. This strengthens our dedication to putting customers at the centre of everything we do – from the minute they first contact us, through to paying claims. We are deeply grateful for all the positive feedback we’ve received from our customers over the years and we are committed to doing all that we can to continue providing financial protection for them and their families.”

Congratulating Momentum Life on winning this year’s award, Steph Heasman, Director of Customer Success at Feefo, commented: “The Trusted Service award has always been about recognising companies that are outstanding in customer experience and generate great feedback from happy customers.

“This year, despite the incredible challenges of a global pandemic, so many companies using Feefo have continued to provide remarkably high levels of service and they deserve a huge amount of credit for what they have achieved.”

Momentum Life was also recently awarded the Reader’s Digest NZ 2021 Silver Quality Service Award for Funeral Insurance. Receiving both awards reinforces Momentum Life’s commitment to delivering best in class products, services and experiences.

Customers can call 0800 111 679 for a no-obligation quote.

About Momentum Life

Momentum Life is a licensed New Zealand life insurance company, providing direct-to-consumer insurance solutions to New Zealanders. Their mission is to put customers’ needs first, by making insurance simple, accessible and affordable at every stage of life.

Momentum Life is also a proud supporter of Heart Kids, the only charity in New Zealand dedicated to providing lifelong care and support for children and families living with childhood heart defects. A portion of all Momentum Life’s first-year insurance premiums are donated to support the valuable work of Heart Kids.

To learn more please visit www.momentumlife.co.nz.

Portainer.io Launches Portainer Business Edition, Bringing Simplified Container Management Platform to Enterprise Scale

Auckland, New Zealand, December 10th, 2020 – New Zealand-based Portainer.io, creator of open source tools to easily manage containers, has launched Portainer Business, which adds premium business-critical features to its container management platform.

Growing to 500,000 open source users in just two years, Portainer.io is anticipating rapid uptake of its business offering, particularly given the recent introduction of support for Kubernetes.

Portainer Business is built on top of Portainer.io’s beloved open source platform, which simplifies container management and orchestration without compromising functionality. Portainer Business serves the CIO and CISO community by offering the enhanced control and security needed to run Portainer in corporate Kubernetes, Docker, and Edge environments.

The new product also incorporates the rigorous pre-release testing and comprehensive support business users need for an annual license fee, while continuing to decrease complexity and humanize container management.

Complexity and security are two of the top challenges facing teams deploying containers, according to CNCF data. Portainer Business solves both. 

“We are thrilled to launch Portainer Business today because it will enable Portainer.io to remain true to our open source roots,” said Portainer.io CEO and Co-Founder Neil Cresswell.

“We are a small team with big ambitions for our open source software and we want to be able to continue to innovate and respond to development requests from our community. With Portainer Business, we can meet the needs of commercial users in a sustainable way while continuing to fund Portainer’s open source Community Edition.”

Portainer.io is well-equipped to support a proven model of offering both paid and open source versions of its product. The Portainer.io team is spread across four continents and covers every time zone and multiple languages. As Portainer Business gains traction, the company will grow its support footprint further and work with partners to amplify its uptake.

By volume of users, Portainer.io is already one of the most successful software ventures to come out of New Zealand. Earlier in the year, the company attracted an initial seed funding round of US$1.2 million to fast-track its growth plans and is looking to rapidly convert its open source success into global revenue generation. Portainer Business is launching with more than 800 users already onboard and a backlog of 250 self-identified early adopters waiting to get their hands on its software.

About Portainer.io

Portainer.io was born in 2017 from founders Neil Cresswell and Anthony Lapenna’s own struggle to learn Docker, with the vision to create a simple GUI-based tool to manage Docker – regardless of whether it was deployed standalone, in a cluster, on-premise, at the edge or in the cloud.  In August 2020, the project was expanded to include support for Kubernetes and Azure ACI as well as retaining full support for Docker & Docker Swarm. Portainer Community Edition currently has over 500,000 global users. Portainer Business is the first business product Portainer.io has offered in its quest to humanize container management and orchestration. The team most recently raised a $1.8M NZD/$1.2M USD seed round in August of 2020.

New Zealand’s Newest Online Job Portal Goes Live

Recruit.nz launches innovative employment site that connects local job seekers and employers

New Zealand, (December 01, 2020) Recruit.nz, New Zealand’s newest and most innovative online job portal has just launched and is already connecting job seekers and employers.

What makes Recruit.nz attractive is It is smarter, easier and affordable for everyone to use for both job seekers and employers. Recruit.nz set out to deliver a premium service that is accessible to job seekers and businesses of all sizes.

Premium features come standard for employers on the site.

These features include:

  • Custom hiring teams, where an employer can create approval systems to evaluate applicants.
  • An integrated To-Do List, which is an innovative feature where your hiring team can keep track of the team’s tasks and recruitment operations all within the site.

Supporting local businesses in an atypical way is one of Recruit’s goals, “We wanted a way to support people who were looking for jobs, and also the businesses that were hiring them,” says Recruit’s founder, Sathya Parlapothula.

“By giving local businesses a site where they can post their jobs for free, and take advantage of enhanced features like custom branding, manage hiring teams & applicant management tools if they so choose, we feel we are able to help our economy move forward from what was a very difficult year for many,” says Sathya Parlapothula.

About Recruit.nz

Recruit.nz is an all-inclusive online job portal based in New Zealand that launched in November 2020. They believe in working smarter, not harder. That’s why they created a portal like no other. No matter if you are looking for a job or looking to fill a job, they help make the process easier and faster than any other local job site around.

AMS Launches NZ Cloud-based Workforce Management Platform

Established New Zealand cloud software company, AMS (Advanced Management Systems Ltd), has today announced the launch of AMS Pulse, its secure, cloud-based, workforce management platform.  The next-generation solution puts the Kiwi people management provider in a strong position alongside its global competitors.

AMS Pulse recognises New Zealand owned organisations are increasingly looking for rapid digital transformation in workforce management. AMS Pulse now makes the complexities of compliance, rostering, managing and paying New Zealanders, simple and accessible via the cloud.

The AMS Pulse cloud platform is hosted in a government approved, secure, data centre. It keeps employee records in New Zealand, providing added accessibility and security.

“Buying local is no longer just about the proximity of on ground support,” says AMS, CEO, Joseph Yip. “It’s about data security, accessibility and collaboration.  Lockdown has put much greater emphasis on the ability to be able to manage complex workforces remotely – for both employer and employee.”

AMS currently provides payroll and other services to the majority of NZ healthcare employees and is strongly represented across the public sector and other large enterprises in New Zealand  AMS Pulse also provides the platform for a secure, collaborative, eco-system across industries to  benefit New Zealand as a whole.

Users will be able to participate in sharing knowledge to establish best-practice and identifying the most effective and efficient way of managing the complexities of their industry’s workplace practice.  This includes setting industry best-practice and standards many of which can be built into the AMS Pulse platform.

“We already have a handful of companies using the AMS Pulse platform, including Callaghan Innovation and the Electoral Commission”, explains Joseph Yip. “We hope to see exponential benefit for these companies from AMS taking a collaborative approach to future development.”

AMS remains a privately owned and operated company with a forty strong in-house research and development team at its Auckland headquarters.  As a company AMS takes great pride in being New Zealand born and bred, with a culture of innovation that has successfully supported it over four decades in business to date.

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Cin7 appoints David Kennedy as Chief Operating Officer

Technology business leader will help Cin7 scale with accelerating demand

Auckland, New Zealand and Denver, Colorado – October 14, 2020 – Cin7, a pioneering inventory and order management software company, announced today the appointment of David Kennedy as Chief Operating Officer, who brings nearly 20 years of technology and operations leadership experience to the global business.

As COO of Cin7, Kennedy will focus on leading and building teams to efficiently scale Cin7’s digital, cloud-based software-as-a-service business, cementing its position as the global leader in inventory management software, and rapidly expanding in key markets such as the United States.   

CEO David Leach says Kennedy’s background as a global CIO with a focus on cybersecurity is particularly key for Cin7’s future focus.

“In the modern world, tech is integral to all parts of the business, and it’s embedded more than ever in our operating model. We’re really fortunate to have a COO in David who has that Global CIO background that can help us scale but also use systems, teams, and technology to their full advantage. We can automate, and speed up, as we continuously improve the experience for our customers, partners, and employees.”

“I really enjoy the challenge of creating value for customers and helping growing teams become more effective and efficient,” Kennedy says. “The world is changing at an ever-increasing pace, and it is our responsibility as leaders to help our teams innovate so that we ultimately give our customers the best experience possible.”

Previously, Kennedy held Global CIO positions at Orion Health and TSG, with a focus on creating secure technology solutions and building tight, innovative, flexible teams. Before that, he worked as an advisor at KPMG for almost a decade and a security architect at IBM. His experience has been forged by working in multiple verticals including FinTech, MedTech, banking, Big Four consultancy, military, and FMCG.

About Cin7

Cin7’s inventory and order management platform connects more than 550 ecommerce platforms, online marketplaces, 3PL warehouses, and native EDIs in one solution, helping retailers and product sellers quickly and efficiently get their products to customers wherever they are, from any channel. Founded in New Zealand and featuring a global customer base across 25 countries, in early 2020 Cin7 established a significant US presence to serve its growing customer base and accelerate capture of the North American market. Every month, millions of orders flow through the platform, representing over a billion dollars of product sales, as Cin7 helps growing brands sell more products, to more customers, in more places.

Facing pandemic lockdown challenges, entrepreneurs find new opportunities

Founder of ‘Inka Bands™’ in Auckland recently launched a new online store featuring stylish exercise accessories to meet rising demand for at-home fitness gear

Auckland, New Zealand — Oct. 12th, 2020 — The COVID-19 pandemic has presented a mountain of challenges to entrepreneurs everywhere.

But any ambitious visionary knows in challenges there are often opportunities.

Many entrepreneurs have used the pandemic as a chance to rebrand, pivot, and activate new ideas for these new and unusual times.

For Auckland entrepreneur Wayne Bowater, the pandemic presented him with an opportunity to launch a new brand to meet a new need.

Bowater is the managing director of McKenzie Group, a global distributor of quality health and wellness products sourced in New Zealand, and Mckenzie Distribution for its New Zealand distribution requirements. Recognizing a spike in at-home fitness due to the pandemic, he launched Inka Bands™ to introduce stylish and fashionable wrist weights and ankle weights for fitness enthusiasts in New Zealand and Australia.

“Though many entrepreneurs have taken a big hit during the pandemic, some of us have tried to stay alive by looking for new opportunities during the coronavirus lockdown,” Bowater said. “With so many people now working out at home, I came up with a fun new idea to power their workouts with great-looking hands-free weights to go along with their great-looking workout gear.”

The name INKA is a nod to a slang term referring to “the best friend you could ever ask for.” Inka Bands offer a comfortable way to add resistance to a home workout with attractive wrist and ankle weights manufactured from the highest quality fitness materials. Every Inka Band is waterproof. They come in a range of contemporary colours.

“Whether exercising along with a virtual workout at home, running, biking, hiking, rehab, yoga outdoors, or heading back to the gym for a Pilates session, we’ve got you covered with Inka Bands,” Bowater said. “Our beautiful weighted bands are perfect for boosting the muscle-building and fat-burning power of any workout. Best of all, you can wear them down to the cafe afterwards due to their stylish design sensibility.”

Learn more about Inka Bands and shop online at https://inkabands.co.nz.

Top Seven Finalists Through to Innovate

Over the course of the past two nights, 15 of Innovate’s mentors, including four finalists from previous years, listened to 20 semi-finalists pitch their ideas, hoping to gain access into the rigorous Innovate programme.

In its ninth year, Innovate is a staple of the Manawatu entrepreneurial eco-system.  What started out as a “Dragon’s Den” competition in 2011, has turned into a process that not only builds business, but more importantly, builds people.

“We’ve had over 1,700 entries in nine years and Innovate has helped shape business and people during its time.  Each year we’re hopeful of finding those that are stuck or have a novel idea and need a bit of guidance to push forward, and each year we are elated at the quality that continues to come in,” says Nick Gain, General Manager of The Factory.

“This year was no different.  61 entries competed for five spots and the quality forced the mentors to select seven and if I’m honest, there were many more that could have made it.”

The programme for the finalists begins Thursday night where they will be guided through a structured process that not only will help them validate and build their business but also connect them into a mentor pool of talent that spans New Zealand and the globe.

“We’re humbled to have business leaders, thought provokers, Innovate alumni and others that understand the power of foundational entrepreneurship put their hand up each year to help.  It was incredible to see four of our Innovate Alumni in our mentor room this year, helping select the next round of entrepreneurs and then ask to mentor them using the knowledge they learned through their Innovate journey,” says Dave Craig, CEO of The Factory.

Chelsea Hirst, Innovate winner in 2016, was one of this year’s mentors tasked with selecting the finalists for the programme.  “I received amazing support from Innovate with starting my business and I’m excited to give back by supporting this year’s finalists on their own Innovate journeys!”

The Process

Over the next 8 weeks, the seven finalists will meet each week at The Factory in Palmerston North and dive into building their idea into a validated business.  Each finalist will be paired with mentors as well as have access to the full mentor pool The Factory has built over the past 12 years, which includes national and international presence.

Using lean methodologies, finalists will learn about intellectual property and protection, cash flow and budgeting, validation but most importantly, what it’s like to be an entrepreneur.  This all cumulates into a pitch night happening on the 26th of November in Palmerston North, traditionally a sold-out dinner, where each will have an opportunity to present their validated idea to local Manawatu business leaders, angel investors and others that support entrepreneurialism in the region.

Finalists

Mike Saywell and Dr. John Kirkland
Mike and Dr. John have discovered six levers that that will allow people to improve thinking and learning and to unpack content. They have designed a set of increasingly complex levers that learners may use for prying into content, called The Six Learning Levers.

Dieter Stalmann
Dieter is hoping to help those with stomas. A stoma is an opening on the abdomen that can be connected to either your digestive or urinary system to allow waste to be diverted out of your body, traditionally into a stoma bag. These bags are prone to leaking when they become full. The wearer of the stoma is not always aware that the bag is full causing sleepless nights, embarrassment and frustration. Dieter wants to build a device that can be attached to the bag that will alert the wearer that the bag has reached capacity.

Toni Grace and Iain Lees-Galloway
Toni and Iain are working on Here’s Good, a social enterprise that plans to independently measure the activities of participating businesses and give them a score that quickly tells consumers how much they are investing in social impact; and then develop that into a software platform delivered through an app.

Jeanette Rapson
Jeanette has created freeze-dried baby food powders containing only vegetables (e.g. broccoli, spinach, beetroot, kūmara, green bean, potato, pumpkin). The sachets are travel/storage friendly with a long shelf-life. With the simple addition of water (or breastmilk), the powders rehydrate to smooth baby purées. The freeze-dried method retains the nutrients and is cost-effective, enabling a competitive price but at a high profit margin.

Barbara Kelly
Barbara has built an online supported programme called Event Ready Bodies to help bridge the knowledge gap for sports event participants about long term physical development. The programme doesn’t replace the coach or personal trainer, rather supports the individual to structure their training activities so they are injury-free, functional and experience continued physical improvement (even as they age.)

Emma Buchannan
Farmers have been putting information into recording software for years, but no one has created a way to get value out of that data. Emma will use her qualifications as a farm environment planner and greenhouse gas advisor, and her experience in user based design and farmer training to create a modular farm plan system that mines that data to create low cost, high quality compliance plans.

Ian Meredith
Ian’s created an urban focused electric motorcycle for Gen X / Y / Z. His main focus is on design, trying to outdate the small, ugly and sometimes smoky bikes. The motorbike has a 2kw electric motor and is designed for urban/town/city use. The bike has been in development for almost 2 years, the 1st prototype is complete (which we saw) and looks a treat!