New Zealand's small business wake-up call - and what we do about it

Every year, CPA Australia releases its Asia-Pacific Small Business Survey. Every year, 
New Zealand reads the results. And every year, not enough changes.

This year's findings, released this week, deserve more than a collective nod of 
recognition. They deserve a reckoning.

Across 11 Asia-Pacific markets, New Zealand's small businesses rank last - or near last 
- on growth, innovation, hiring and technology adoption. Not for the first time. Not by a 
small margin. Last, again, for the second consecutive year. Only 38 percent of New 
Zealand small businesses reported growth in 2025, against a regional average of 62 
percent. Just five percent plan to introduce a new product or service - the lowest result 
in the survey's 15-year history. Fifty-four percent cite rising costs as their single biggest 
challenge, the highest proportion of any market surveyed.

These are not abstract statistics. Behind each one is a business owner working long 
hours, often for modest returns, asking themselves whether it's all worth it. And here's 
the thing, 79 percent of them still say they're satisfied with owning a small business. 
That resilience is both admirable and, if we're honest, a little heartbreaking. Because 
satisfaction shouldn't mean settling.

This is not a blame game

Before we go any further, let's be clear about what this is not. This is not an indictment 
of New Zealand's small business owners. These are people who took a risk, who back 
themselves every day, who are often the beating heart of their communities. In many 
respects, they are victims of a system that hasn't been designed to help them succeed.

The incentives aren't there to invest in technology. The pathways into business 
ownership for younger New Zealanders are unclear and underfunded. Succession 
planning gets pushed to the bottom of the to-do list because the urgent always crowds 
out the important. And the support infrastructure, the coordinated, sequenced, 
practical kind, is patchy at best.

What the data is really telling us is that the ecosystem around small business in New 
Zealand is not fit for purpose. That's a systemic problem, and it demands a systemic 
response.

The productivity problem hiding in plain sight

When people hear the word "productivity," their eyes glaze over. It sounds like an 
economist's talking point, disconnected from real life. But productivity is simply this: 
our collective ability as a country to generate the wealth we need to fund the things we 
care about.

Good hospitals. Well-resourced schools. Mental health services that can actually meet 
demand. Infrastructure that works. A country where young people want to stay. All of it 
depends on businesses being able to grow, to employ people, to pay taxes, to generate 
genuine prosperity - not just financial, but social, cultural and psychological.

When 62 percent of small businesses across our region are growing and only 38 percent 
of ours are, that gap has consequences that ripple through every corner of New Zealand 
life. Productivity isn't a dry economic metric. It is the foundation of everything we want 
our country to be.

The demographic time bomb

One number in this year's survey stopped us cold. Sixty-eight percent of New Zealand 
small business owners are aged 50 or over, the oldest ownership profile in the entire 
region. The survey data is unambiguous: younger owners are significantly more likely to 
grow, hire, innovate and adopt technology.

This is not a criticism of older business owners - experience and wisdom matter 
enormously. But an ageing ownership base without a clear pipeline of younger 
successors is a structural vulnerability. Many of these businesses will not be sold or 
handed on. They will simply close. And with them goes institutional knowledge, 
community connection and productive capacity that took decades to build.

Encouragingly, when business owners are exposed to the right environment, their 
appetite for growth becomes very clear. In five weeks, 600 ambitious owners from 
across New Zealand will come together at Icehouse’s Growth Summit, Ignite - not to 
talk about survival, but to share stories of growth, challenge each other, and lift their 
ambition. The demand is there. The question is how we unlock it more consistently 
across the system.

Where the Icehouse comes in

For 25 years, the Icehouse has worked with New Zealand businesses at exactly these 
pressure points - growth strategy, leadership capability, technology adoption, 
succession and scale. We've seen what works. We've seen what happens when 
business owners get the right support, at the right time, from people who understand 
the New Zealand context.

The CPA Australia report recommends a coordinated national strategy: mentoring 
programmes, digital capability support, improved access to finance and professional 
advice, and deliberate efforts to bring younger New Zealanders into business 
ownership. We agree. And in an election year, we'd add that this is precisely the kind of 
practical, high-return policy agenda that deserves serious attention from every party 
seeking a mandate.

The Icehouse cannot solve this alone. No single organisation can. But we know that 
partnership - between business, government, advisers and educators - is what actually 
moves the dial.

New Zealand has the talent, the creativity and the entrepreneurial spirit to do far better 
than these numbers suggest. The data isn't a verdict. It's a challenge.

It's time we started treating it like one