'Risk Areas’ In Production

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31984, 10 May 1969, Page 48

'Risk Areas’ In Production

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 9.

Three major “risk areas” which could lead to the failure of the National Development Conference were identified today by a conference delegate during the last debate at the conference’s final plenary session.

Mr N. Spencer, of Porirua, a member of the overseas marketing committee, told the conference that unless New Zealand could develop marketing skills, create teamwork between management and labour, and communicate the objectives of the conference to the ordinary New Zealander, the National Development Conference as an exercise in indicative planning would fail.

He said he had been aware during the debates of the conference of the infrequent mention of marketing skills and the general lack of marketing orientation. “This country needs marketing skills like a blind man needs eyes,” he declared. Combined Operation

The combined operation of labour and management was essential if the conference targets were to be met, he added. Personnel management in New Zealand was not at all satisfactory. Claiming that I

most of the blame for this lay with management, Mr Spencer said industrial relations in New Zealand could very easily be improved by a bit of teamwork between the workers and the employers. The communication gap between planning and achievement was still great. Complex Issues

“To communicate fully to the public on such complex issues as put forward by the conference requires skilled, dedicated and complicated efforts.

“Unless we develop marketing skills, good teamwork and communication this exercise will fail,” he said.

The secretary of Labour, and chairman of the conference's labour committee, Mr N. S. Woods, said the need for teamwork between management and labour was one aspect which the committee in its report emphasised. This problem rested between individual management and their employees, he said.