The company’s strong internal focus on what it calls the LCD – listen, care, deliver – has helped deliver transformative change that has renewed the company to deliver a strong client-centric business.

During the global financial crisis, the company took the opportunity to reinvent itself.

“We saw the GFC as a generational opportunity to do a seismic jump in terms of where we sat on the competitive landscape. We didn’t see ourselves on the top tier at that stage, but we saw an opportunity to be very clearly top tier,” managing partner Mark Weenik says.

Following an assessment of its business against competitors, the company decided on how to renew itself. “We decided firstly, we needed to get bigger, to grow our revenue. Secondly, we needed to get younger, reflecting the age and stage of our clients that were coming through, and thirdly, we needed to grow in the areas where the opportunities were.”

AUT awards evaluator, lecturer (Accounting) Gillian Craig, says: “Minter Ellison has a clear long-term vision that defines its strategy well. The entire business revolves around a philosophy to “Listen, Care, Deliver”, which is essential to excellence in business support.”

The firm made it its business to get its lawyer who were mostly left-brain follks, to develop “right-brain” behaviours, central to listening, proactivity, innovation, communication and understanding other industries.

It also developed an innovative communication tool called ClearME, based on the Barbara Minto Pyramid Principles of Communication, where ideas are organised as a pyramid under a single point.  

When the lawyers use ClearME in a report, clients should be able to get to the core of the message within the first 30 seconds of scanning, Weenik says.

Caption: That’s Vincent Heeranga, our publisher, on the podium. Idealog is proud to be a sponsor!

Check out the winners’ circle

Image Centre Group < $5M T/O Management Services?

Catapult

Idealog Business < $5M T/O Sales & Marketing?

The Research Agency

Idealog Business < $5M T/O Technology?

The Web Company

New Zealand Work Research Institute Business $5M-$20M T/O  ?

Potentia Limited

Auckland Centre for Financial Research Business $20M -$100M T/O?

Minter Ellison Rudd Watts

Fuji Xerox Large Business $100M + T/O

Converga

New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation Not for Profit       ?

Sustainable Business Network           

Drake New Zealand Government    ?

Winner:  Audit New Zealand             

?Highly Commended:  The New Zealand Companies Office  

Drake New Zealand Government Partnerships                  ?

Ministry of Education – Vocational Pathways Programme

New Zealand Trade and Enterprise Export Support?

Joint Winner:  DHL Express (New Zealand) Ltd?; Joint Winner:  AJ Park

Fuji Xerox Leadership?

Franceska Banga (CEO New Zealand Venture Investment Fund)The 2014 Awards sponsors were;

• New Zealand Trade and Enterprise
• Fuji Xerox, Drake New Zealand
• Idealog
• CPA 
• Image Centre Group 
• IBM
• the New Zealand Business Excellence Foundation