Category: Business

Central Innovation acquires Cadimage Group

AUCKLAND, 1 AUGUST 2016 – Central Innovation Ltd and Cadimage Group Ltd has announced an agreement in which Central Innovation has acquired 100 per cent of the assets of Cadimage Group and Cadimage UK. This action is intended to advance Central Innovation’s mission to become a leading provider of design and workflow solutions to the manufacturing and AEC sectors in Australia and New Zealand (A/NZ).

The acquisition combines the strengths of both organisations to create a comprehensive suite of OPEN BIM solutions in A/NZ. The range of solutions includes best of breed software ARCHICAD, DDS-CAD and Solibri of which Central Innovation is the exclusive distributor across A/NZ.

Chief Executive Officer of Central Innovation, Max Piper, said, “with the joining of Central Innovation and Cadimage we can leverage the strengths of both teams to create complete solutions for customers across the AEC market in Australia and New Zealand.”   

“Cadimage Group has over 27 years in New Zealand and Central Innovation has 25 years of service in Australia to AEC customers. By combining these two great companies, we are essentially placing the final puzzle piece and will be able to go to market stronger than ever.“

“This really is a great step forward for both companies,” said Cadimage Group Managing Director, Campbell Yule. “For us we have found a company that values and understands our business and customers. This deal ensures that our existing team and solutions offering will continue to expand.”

– Ends –

About Central Innovation 

Central Innovation sources, builds and advises on world-class design process solutions to the manufacturing and construction industries. We have over 25 years of experience advising our customers on optimising their design, processes and systems by using the world’s most capable design and modelling software, run on the highest performing hardware, utilising the best people. We enhance this with exceptional technical expertise, specialist consulting, on-going training and education plus access to our specialist recruitment team. 

We are the parent company to Intercad and GRAPHISOFT Australia. Both are leading resellers in their vertical markets of CAD 3D software solutions. We are also Australia and New Zealand’s only licensed reseller of the DDS-CAD product suite. The IC3D suite of specialist software and hardware products is also part of Central Innovation. 

About Cadimage Group 

Cadimage Group distributes, develops and supports a range of design and performance evaluating software for architects, engineers and construction companies that enhance design capability and reduce risk and cost. Established in 1989 as a CAD Bureau, Cadimage Group has evolved into a customer-focused sales and support organisation in the AEC industry to distribute a wide range of products including ARCHICAD, Artlantis and Solibri Model Checker, as well as developing and exporting its own software.

Ten Types of Innovation

On Monday night I attended a joint Deloitte Private / Callaghan Innovation presentation by Larry Keeley.

Larry was an excellent presenter with deep knowledge and a number interesting well researched examples.

The key message was:

Modern innovation is more about elegant integration than invention…

Larry suggested that most recent innovations are not new products per se, but more integrations of a number of existing products in new and innovative ways.

Larry has been researching Innovation with his team for a couple of decades and during this time they have developed the Ten Types of Innovation – the Discipline of Building Breakthroughs.

tentypes

I first came across these Ten Types in the earlier Doblin Model of Innovation and while the principles remain the same the updated model is, in my opinion, far clearer and easier to use.

Most companies spend too much time in the middle (orange) cells focusing on the product, without spending time working on the other areas. A simple rule of thumb for the model above is to focus on five of the ten types, with at least one from each colour – refer to their website for a full run down on each section.

Larry illustrated which areas a number of both NZ and International companies are working on with what one can only describe as some disturbing results for some of NZ’s up and coming companies. That said, the model helps point out where these companies are lacking and is the perfect starting point to review and improve from.

Overall it was a most enjoyable presentation and I am sure Larry’s other New Zealand presentations have been equally well received.

Flounders Club

On Wednesday night I was invited to speak at the Flounders Club.

The theme for the night was Pricing and Revenue Models and as the oldest company there I was the last to speak so was wondering how much I’d have to add to the topic after hearing from Dale from Weirdly and Vaughan from Vend.

As it turned out while we were all on the same page, we had all got there in different ways. This in essence sums up pricing in my mind – experiment, experiment experiment.

Dale explained how they had continued testing different pricing and even updated what service they actually sell (though not as a result of changing the product).

Vaughan talked about Negative Churn as the holy grail for a SaS business and how to set about achieving this – or at least trying to.

I talked about the history of our Cadimage pricing over the last 10 years and how we recently moved from a perpetual model to a SaS model.

Overall it seemed that the biggest questions for the night revolved around the assumptions required to get a SaS business started.  All three of us were asked the question in different ways but ultimately the message was, you have to make some assumptions (and various rules of thumb were suggested) and then you just need to get started, experiment and evolve. The more you get into it the more you can tweak your original assumptions.

 

 

Cadimage turns 25!

25years-gridlines

18 years ago I started with Cadimage Solutions as a summer job during university holidays and never left! During my initial six weeks I convinced Murray to take me on permanently and I decided having completed my Bachelor of Architectural studies to take a break before completing the full B.Arch.

Over the last 18 years I have grown with the business, first becoming a shareholder in 2002, then Managing Director in 2005 and buying Murray and Sue out in 2006.

18 years is a long time in business with many ups and downs. It will come as no surprise that I have learnt the most during the downs.

This month we celebrate 25 years in business which is a milestone the team is truly proud of.

What do the next 25 years hold for Cadimage? I don’t know exactly but I do have some ideas about the next 5-10!

Read a little more about our 25 years at cadimage.com or for more history check out cadimagegroup.com

Graphisoft IPC 2014 – Budapest

I’m just back from the Graphisoft International Partner Conference – the first I’ve attended for a couple of years and the first I’ve attended in Budapest since the Icelandic Volcano Episode.

This year was the biggest yet with about 400 people representing 175 Partners.

As always the event was a great chance to catch up with old friends and make many new friends. It was also good to hear the results of 2013 and both, hear and see, the plans for the future – and there are some exciting things to come!

This year provided two very special highlights for Cadimage Group and myself personally.

First up, we were awarded the Distributor of the Year award. This is an award I have worked towards for a long time and have come close to before. To finally win it was a proud achievement.

GS_DotY

Secondly, I had been invited to present the New Zealand Story to the conference so on Tuesday morning I presented the history of ArchiCAD in New Zealand over the last 22 years – 17 years of which I have been involved in.

The story had been billed as “New License Sales Success” and everyone was expecting our sales secrets. Instead they heard about the steps we have taken over 22 years to build up a successful business. There were no silver bullets, but a huge array of stories of what had worked and hadn’t worked for us.

Presenting to partners who have been invovled in ArchiCAD longer than I had was a nerve racking experience, but even some of these partners were able to take some ideas away for their own business.

To those who attended the IPC I trust you enjoyed my story.

To the New Zealand ArchiCAD Customers, thank you for being the essential part of our business and staying loyal over the 22 years of ArchiCAD in NZ. While Distributor of the Year was a proud personal achievement it was a direct result of the fantastic team and customers we have here in New Zealand.

Disrupt by Design – Day 2 BBD Summit

Day two of the Better By Design CEO Summit was just as good as day one but in different ways.

David Kester from Thames & Hudson started the day talking about Design being at the intersection of Lover, Power and Respect and how these attributes need to be realised both internally and externally by a business. David used a very simple framework and outlined some amazing examples. One striking example was FreshPaper.

Dave Gliboa Co-founder and Co-CEO of Warby Parker took us through his amazing journey to date and how they are disrupting the eyewear industry and keeping a social conscience as a core part of their business. In a word, Jeremy Moon summed this up simply with ‘wow‘ – which couldn’t have been a better reflection!

Next up Sam Morgan talked about his Foundation and about making an impact. Too many charities measure the wrong things, for example measuring schools built, rather than the number of kids who are educated. Sam was as direct as ever during Q&A and will have no doubt unsettled a few participants.

Two other notable presenters were Trey Ratcliff who shared some deeply personal stories – his slide presentation was simply an array of the amazing photographs he has taken – a passion he has only developed over the last few years. Mark Pennington of markpenningtondesign talked about the development and the success of the Life Chair by Formway as an example of the innovation and success that New Zealand businesses need to aim for.

Overall the two days were best summed up for me by the following quote from the final Q&A Panel:

“In times of change, the learners will inherit the world and the learned will find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer

Disrupt by Design

I’m just back from Day 1 of this years Better by Design CEO Summit – Disrupt by Design. Unlike last year I didn’t have my note taker so had to take notes myself!

As always the event is extremely well put together and the venue at Villa Maria is just perfect and the team there do the most amazing job along with the whole Better by Design Team.

The day has been extremely stimulating and the Tyre Changing Challenge was the perfect way to finish the conference part of the day before the dinner and networking that followed.

The stand out speaker for me today was a tie between Professor Jeanne Liedtka from the Darden School of Business and Rob Fyfe, former CEO of Air New Zealand.

Jeanne started the day with Louis Pasteur’s quote:

“Fortune favors the prepared mind”

Many of the opportunities for any business are already out there, but you need to be prepared in order to see them. Jeanne, then went on to outline the three keys to having a prepared mind:

  • A learning mindset
  • A broad repertoire
  • Customer empathy

Two examples involving George and Geoff were then outlined to contrast how these items help open up opportunities when applied to design thinking or how it impacts this process when you don’t have these attributes. The rest of the day involved many conversations about how many George or Geoff’s we all had.

Incidentally, Jeanne is also co-author of Solving Problems with Design Thinking, a book all conference attendees received in the post a few weeks ago.

Rob Fyfe, had left shortly after Jeanne’s presentation and we found out later this was to collect his thoughts. Jeanne had pretty much covered all of Rob’s content so Rob threw out his presentation and accompanying slides and took us through a number stories regarding mistakes that Air New Zealand made during his tenure. A very well put together presentation considering he had less than two hours to get prepared.

Rob outlined that it is important to embrace your mistakes, learn from them and adapt. There were many examples of great solutions that would never have been discovered except for having first made a mistake.

The other presenters were all of an extremely high calibre and Day 2 looks to be just as inspiring.

NZ Governance Diversity (or not)

This quote from this mornings NZ Herald will probably come as no surprise:

“New Zealand’s most influential and connected directors are made up of a core group of 17 men and women,”

The Herald article covers a recently released report by Effective Governance Ltd covering “Director Network Analysis of New Zealand Organisations.”

While the report probably doesn’t provide overly surprising results it is worthwhile quickly reviewing if you are in the governance space. I guess one interesting item to emerge given recent talk about board diversity is that the percentage of female directors actually increases when measured based on the number of boards on which they sit.

Icebreaker – Design Discipline

As mentioned previously I as recently at the Better by Design CEO Conference. The Chairman of BBD is Jeremy Moon who is the founder of Icebreaker.

For those of you unfamiliar with Icebreaker there was recently an article in the New Zealand Herald. While not a comprehensive overview of the business it does outline much of the underlying philosophy of Icebreaker.

One quote mentioned at the BBD conference that I particularly liked was:

“Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.”

– Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Jeremy shares this attitude  in his words:

“It’s much easier to add stuff than take stuff away. Taking stuff away is discipline”

 

Developing Better Boards

There has been a lot of discussion over the last while about the need for New Zealand companies to focus on developing better boards. These discussion are as varied as talking about the importance of a formal Board of Directors for SMEs through to creating diversity on the boards of New Zealand’s publicly listed companies.

SpringBoard NZ is an organization that was set up to encourage younger people to take up board positions and to encourage companies to appoint younger directors.

SpringBoard has now led to a new website that is focused on Appointing Better Boards and to keep it really obvious that is what the website url is - http://www.appointbetterboards.co.nz/

On the subject of diversity the NZX have recently released a consultation document. Not overly surprising is the submission being made by SpringBoard is that diversity of age is as important as other forms of diversity.

For those of you interested in governance I strongly recommend looking at both SpringBoard and Appoint Better Boards – if you are interested in roles or have a board opening make sure to sign up.