The Business Success Index explained

10 July 2017

When Suncorp New Zealand launched its ‘From Risk to Reward’ research in June 2017, a key output from the research was our inaugural Business Success Index.

When we conducted the research, we asked businesses throughout New Zealand what factors – based on 23 aspects of business – were most important for driving their success and growth, and which were the biggest factors holding them back.

UMR Research condensed those 23 aspects into eight key factors using multivariate analysis to create the Business Success Index – a metric designed to monitor how Kiwi businesses are tracking against success factors.

The 2017 report shows that staff, leadership, management processes and funding are the factors that New Zealand businesses believe are the most important contributors to business success.

What is interesting is that growth ranks eighth on the list. Traditionally we associate business success with growth. Yet what this research and the Success Index show is that growth is not the only priority for New Zealand business in 2017.

This is backed up by the From Risk to Reward research findings which revealed that 78% of New Zealand businesses value work-life over growth and 58% say they would rather focus on productivity and efficiency over growth.

Suncorp New Zealand will present the Business Success Index again in two years’ time and it will be interesting to see how the next one compares to these inaugural benchmark results.

You can read more about From Risk to Reward and the Suncorp New Zealand Business Success Index here, or read the full report.