David West
Samples of Editing and Writing Work
1. Excerpts from a piece which was edited by David West for one of his clients. A "before edit" and "after edit" version is presented.
BEFORE (as originally supplied)
Foreign investment in the timber industry is blooming, with an $80 million lumber processing facility to be built in Nelson next year.Japanese-owned Nelson Pine Industries will begin building a laminated veneer lumber plant late next year, to process about 200,000 cu m of radiata pine a year.
Nelson Pine is a subsidiary of Japan's largest forestry company, Sumitomo Forestry, which has invested at least $215 million in South Island sawmilling facilities since 1986. The company's new plant will process thin veneers of radiata into a substitute solid wood using hot-press processes.
"All of our investments have been driven by market demand, and laminated veneer is a large growing market for us," said Nelson Pine chief executive Murray Sturgeon.
"The mature infrastructure of the Nelson region in terms of wood supply, transport, electricity, engineering, resin supply and labour are more than capable of supporting this investment."
Sumitomo's decision follows an announcement from United States building products company Brightwood last year that it planned to build a multimillion-dollar sawmill on the west coast of the South Island.
Carter Holt Harvey is also in the process of constructing a $100 million laminated veneer lumber plant near Whangarei.
Mr Sturgeon said Sumitomo had been encouraged to invest further in New Zealand because of an estimated 19 million cu m increase in the forestry harvest during the next two decades. Asia-Pacific and North American demand for processed wood products was also on the rise.
He estimated that the new development would pump an extra $200 million into the economy each year on top of the extra revenue it would generate for Nelson Pine.
"We've done exhaustive market research and that's given us the confidence to go ahead with this development," he said.
Nelson Pine is already the world's largest producer of medium-density fibreboard, a wood product manufactured from low-quality timber chips, processing about 800,000 cu m of radiata each year. It employs 165 people now and the new laminated veneer facility will create up to 50 more fulltime jobs.
Nelson Pine, which had gross operating revenues of $145 million last year, owns about 5000 hectares of forest in the South Island.
AFTER (written to a 200-word brief for a specific client)
The booming forest harvest and rising demand for processed forest products has sparked plans for a second new laminated veneer lumber plant in New Zealand.
Carter Holt Harvey is currently building a $NZ100 million laminated veneer lumber plant near Whangarei, north of Auckland, to utilise rapidly increasing volumes of plantation timber in the Northland region.
And Nelson Pine Industries, a subsidiary of Japanese forest giant Sumitomo Forestry, has just announced plans to build a $NZ80 million plant near Nelson, in the north of the South Island. Construction is to begin next year.
Sumitomo estimates the NZ forestry harvest will increase by 19 million cu m in the next two decades. Demand from Asia-Pacific and North America for processed wood products is also rising.
Nelson Pine is the world's largest producer of medium-density fibreboard, made from low-quality timber chips, processing about 800,000 cu m of radiata each year. It has a staff of 165. The new laminated veneer facility will create up to 50 more fulltime jobs. The company had gross operating revenues of $145 million last year, and owns about 5000 hectares of forest in the South Island.
2. An article published in Trendscope, October 2000.Management and Strategy
Hubbard Foods: A Company with Soul
By Dave West
Dick Hubbard, founder and owner of New Zealand-based breakfast cereal manufacturer Hubbard Foods, is at the forefront of a movement known as "Businesses for Social Responsibility," something he discovered on a visit to the United States several years ago.
Hubbard believes businesses should be good corporate citizens. They should behave decently, ethically, and with dignity. They should measure their performance in environmental and social terms as well as economic ones. The quality of the profit, not just the quantity, has to be considered.
Hubbard's business has grown from a one-man band to a company with approximately 120 employees in little more than a decade. He started the business not long after he turned 40, after decades in the food industry (he has university level qualifications in food technology, and has worked for some of the major food manufacturers). Hubbard wanted to control his own destiny; he was disillusioned with the way traditional companies were run, and he wanted to try out a few ideas. Initially he thought a staff of about 10 would be the right size to do what he wanted.
But business reality set in. In business you have to innovate just to stand still. He discovered that there was always someone trying to take market share away from him. So he kept on growing, kept on adding new products, kept on looking for new markets—he now exports to Australia and Europe, with a volume that translates to about 500,000 breakfasts a day.
So what does being socially responsible mean? "First and foremost," says Hubbard, "We are a company with a soul. By this I mean that, as a company, we have a collective set of beliefs, and, more importantly, a collective set of values. We are an integral part of the social structure of our local community."
It is a people- and community-oriented business; there is a total commitment to job creation, with a preference for hiring people rather than installing machines. And he hires from the ranks of the unemployed when he can.
Similarly-sized cereal processing companies in New Zealand and overseas would employ only 25 to 30 people, Hubbard wrote recently in Clipboard, a regular newsletter posted on his Web site and sent to everyone with a stake in his business, including customers. "We employ 90 people on our factory floor alone." This means that he might not be able to pay top rates for the work, but he keeps wages in the middle range and offers other forms of compensation.
Hubbard hit the headlines in New Zealand in 1998 when he took his entire staff to Samoa for a long weekend, to celebrate the company's 10th birthday (many of his employees are Samoan). Since then there have been other company trips, but not on the same scale as the Samoan excursion.
And this year he started a profit-sharing scheme, giving 10 percent of pre-tax profit to his employees, paid out on a semi-annual basis. Payment is based on length of service. A floor-sweeper with 10 years with the company gets 10 times as much as an accountant with one year's service. The average payout for a factory worker could be in the region of $NZ3000 to $NZ4000 ($US1300-$US1800) a time. Workers have an option to put all or some of this payout into a superannuating scheme.
Along with creating jobs, Hubbard puts great value on "creating a sense of dignity and self-worth." He has "structures and tools in place" to achieve that goal. Everyone is on first name terms; no one wears neckties; there are no executive parking spaces (if Hubbard is late for work he parks his elderly family sedan around the back among the containers); bureaucracy has been broken down, everything is interactive; his door is always open; he is not a fan of committees and meetings, everyone is free to raise issues at any time, and everyone will be listened to.
Empowering people is the key, says Hubbard. "I am a passionate believer in the concept of calculated risk-taking and I accept that some failure must come as the price of success. But the rewards of calculated risk-taking are not just those of progress. Through risks and errors and mistakes we also become better people."
Hubbard keeps away from performance appraisals, "because it's easy to keep telling people they're no good, and they start believing it." But he does believe in scientific management, sets production targets, and makes sure staff know what they are.
Customer feedback is encouraged and action taken on their comments. This feedback—good or bad—is often included in Hubbard's Clipboard. One issue that raised concerns—and demonstrates Hubbard's commitment to decency and fair play, perhaps to his own commercial detriment—was the suggestion that Hubbard Foods could be using genetically modified ingredients in its cereals.
"The very, very clear message is that [customers] don't want genetically modified ingredients in our cereals," Hubbard responded. "You, therefore, won't have them."
But he won't label his products as having "No Genetically Modified ingredients." Doing so would imply that "those companies that don't have those labels might have ingredients that are genetically modified. In almost all cases that wouldn't be the case, so therefore, I think that the inference is unfair to our opposition. If labeling is required I think it is better to label those products that do contain genetically modified ingredients than to label those that don't"
Being a socially responsible business means the company "has to provide some form of moral leadership." Hubbard is personally involved in the New Zealand Businesses for Social Responsibility organization and is on the New Zealand Business Council for Sustainable Development, to which he contributes both time and money. He encourages other staff to be involved, and also puts money into local schools and organizations. All of this has no strings attached; there is no requirement that Hubbard's name is mentioned or publicized.
"True social responsibility is below the line, from the heart. It has to be unconditional. It doesn't work if the motive is maximizing profit."
He admits it hasn't all been peace and light. Earlier this year he fell foul of New Zealand's Service and Food Workers Union, which claimed he was underpaying staff, who had to work long hours to make a decent living, and was trying to buy them off with occasional company outings (see http://home.clear.net.nz/pages/wpnz/ap17hubbard.htm for one unionist's view). The dispute, primarily about payment of a meal allowance and overtime rates, was settled in a few days.
Hubbard stresses he is not anti-union. In fact, he sees unions as essential to help protect the rights and conditions of workers. But "[When you take a stance such as ours,] someone will always want to have a whack at you. There is disproportionate criticism if something goes wrong."
Senior union organizer Derek Craig, who deals with some of New Zealand's largest food processing companies, says the union has a constructive relationship with Hubbard, that the two are now working together to iron out a few issues. He sees the profit-sharing scheme as a positive move, and fully supports the policy of recruiting where possible from the ranks of the unemployed. But he is still concerned that some of Hubbard's wage rates are among the industry's lowest.
Hubbard's personal assistant, Marj Kendall, says the general atmosphere is very friendly. "People appreciate that it's a relatively small private business. Dick has to watch his capital and staff understands that sometimes they have to wait for improvements."
Hubbard himself says he has a "gut instinct" that both productivity and morale are higher at Hubbard Foods than at other plants. But there aren't many figures available to enable accurate comparisons to be made. Staff turnover is very low. A lot of people have been there a long time, with pregnancy and greener pastures (mostly Australia) the main reasons people give for leaving.
Some leave because Hubbard Foods has trained them to the point where they have to leave to extend themselves. The company has an active training program in both technical and management skills. "If we can train them and they can move on to make bigger contributions somewhere else, then that's great," says Hubbard. "That's important to us."
At the end of the day, is it worth it? In terms of the traditional bottom line, Hubbard says the company gets about an average rate of return. But the company is owned by a family trust, which means it doesn't have to meet high short-term expectations of investors. A lot of money is ploughed back into the company, to keep it growing.
Short-term, and possibly even long-term, the company would probably make more profit by behaving more conventionally, Hubbard says, particularly if it took the low-labor, more-machines route.
But then there's the quality of the profit. In Hubbard's words, after an unsuccessful attempt to climb Mt. Cook, New Zealand's highest mountain, "one realizes in the mountains that things such as 'money' are only artificial constructs, [not the] center of life itself."
