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Speaker 1: So economic insight into our state of play comes from

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Speaker 1: the Hunter Campbell group. Mood about our CFOs, we have

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Speaker 1: an uptick and confidence thirty eight percent, expecting modest to

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Speaker 1: strong growth over the next twelve months. That's up from

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Speaker 1: thirty one, So thirty one up to thirty eight. Lee Marshall,

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Speaker 1: managing partner at Hunter Campbell, is with us. Lee, morning to.

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Speaker 2: You well and Mike, thanks for having on not at all.

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Speaker 1: CFOs versus CEOs versus boards, work versus surveys the value

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Speaker 1: of a CFO, and there insight.

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Speaker 2: Is what look I think for us CFOs who are

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Speaker 2: at the very top of the tree and looking after

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Speaker 2: all of the finances on a day to day basis,

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Speaker 2: they consider economic and legislative factors on a daily basis.

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Speaker 2: So in reality, and there's no one really better place

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Speaker 2: than a CFO to give us a three sixty view

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Speaker 2: of how businesses have performing and what we can expect

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Speaker 2: moving forward.

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Speaker 1: So what are you hearing generally versus their own stories?

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Speaker 1: There are divergence there.

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Speaker 2: Yes, what we're actually seeing. One of the big things

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Speaker 2: that came out of the survey is that we're started

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Speaker 2: to see a little bit of a I guess two

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Speaker 2: speed economy start to take shape in New Zealand. Almost

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Speaker 2: exactly fifty percent of the businesses that we saur they'd

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Speaker 2: had either met or exceeded their targets for the last year,

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Speaker 2: and the other fifty percent had the stagnated or went backwards.

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Speaker 2: So we're starting to see a little bit of a

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Speaker 2: two speed economy start to take shape in New Zealand. Business.

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Speaker 1: Are you seeing the uptickers real? Because we all thought

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Speaker 1: twenty five was going to get bitter it hasn't. We

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Speaker 1: were wrong collectively. How do we know they're not wrong? Now?

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Speaker 2: Yeah? Look, I think the longer time goes on, the

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Speaker 2: clear of the picture will become. You know, we are

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Speaker 2: facing a pretty big mess economically, right so, and the

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Speaker 2: world is a little bit of turmoil, I think.

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Speaker 1: So.

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Speaker 2: I think it's a really complex environment that we're facing

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Speaker 2: and as we work through this though, and what we

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Speaker 2: did say is that if you had a decent year

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Speaker 2: in the last twelve months, you are very confident that

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Speaker 2: it's going to get better in the next twelve months.

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Speaker 2: And so that was heartening to see that and that

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Speaker 2: there's less uncertainty kicking around with those businesses going pretty well.

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Speaker 1: What about the old irony that people are hard to find.

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Speaker 1: How is it possible with the capacity in the economy,

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Speaker 1: good people are still hard to find.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, look for the accounting sector in particular, we sort

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Speaker 2: of started this period in pretty bad shape. I think

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Speaker 2: we read somewhere that the Big four has shrunk their

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Speaker 2: headcount in the last twelve months by five hundred people.

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Speaker 2: We are producing less accountants from university, and we also

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Speaker 2: lose people to overseas on a regular basis, particularly to

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Speaker 2: London and people going on their ow way. So we start,

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Speaker 2: we start from a really poor position from a talent perspective,

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Speaker 2: and then you have all of these factors come into

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Speaker 2: play and it makes it a little bit more difficult.

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Speaker 2: Succession planning for businesses came through the survey as one

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Speaker 2: of the biggest strategic blind spot. Only one in four

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Speaker 2: CFOs are confident that they have the right talent in

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Speaker 2: place for succession planning, So we actually have we have

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Speaker 2: a big issue around future planning and some gaps starting

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Speaker 2: to show in a market there.

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Speaker 1: That's stuff on compliance and simplified text. Every time you

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Speaker 1: ask somebody who deals with pens and papers and counting,

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Speaker 1: they always say, oh, we need a bit of compliance

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Speaker 1: and simplifying text. Isn't that real? I mean, are we

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Speaker 1: really that bad? Have we done nothing in the decades

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Speaker 1: worth of surveys ve and reading about this?

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Speaker 2: Well, I think we've done some things, and certainly there

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Speaker 2: have been some tweaks to tax policy that this was

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Speaker 2: really a big number. Those seventy nine percent of CFO

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Speaker 2: surveyed said they want of the government to move policies

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Speaker 2: so they can help accelerate growth. But interestingly for me,

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Speaker 2: un look sixty five percent of them spoke specifically to

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Speaker 2: tax but interestingly only thirty eight percent of the respondents

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Speaker 2: have actually worked with government to remove these roadblocks. So

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Speaker 2: if you ask me, we actually need to see more

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Speaker 2: business working with governments to try and move this forward.

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Speaker 2: And look, at the end of the day, we've got

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Speaker 2: a general election next year. The likelihood of major policy

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Speaker 2: changing happening anytime soon is probably quite quite unlikely. So

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Speaker 2: I think business is largely to get off their hands

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Speaker 2: and start helping themselves out.

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Speaker 1: Really good on you, I could talk to you for hours.

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Speaker 1: In fact, we may get you back on another day

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Speaker 1: and an interesting insight. Lee Marshall Hunter Campbell, managing partner

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Speaker 1: with us this morning For more from the mic Asking Breakfast,

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Speaker 1: listen live to news talks it'd be from six am weekdays,

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