IT specialist links up with Te Tumu Paeroa
9 September 2022
After an earlier attempt to secure a large-scale government contract but finding it difficult to jump through all the hurdles, Amotai-verified supplier Redline Technology Group has recently connected with Te Tumu Paeroa. They can now provide the Office of the Māori Trustee with nationwide IT support.
Company director Aaron Panapa says the support from Amotai has been instrumental in securing this contract.
Aaron’s customers range from owner-operator businesses to some of the largest corporates in New Zealand. He says his business is arguably one of the only true nationwide suppliers of its kind in the country, providing IT support, IT infrastructure set up, cabling, CCTV, and electrical - basically everything IT.
“We’ve been in business since 2014 and have 18 full-time staff, as well as 146 technicians that we subcontract the work to nationwide. We’ve been in partnership with PB Technologies for the last 6 years as their nationwide IT support partner,” Aaron explains.
“We cover not just the main centres but all areas of New Zealand, from Kaitaia to the Bluff and everywhere in between. We also have 200 technicians in Australia, and we’ve partnered with Fujistu there to provide that resource. It’s a good model and it has worked well for us.”
An interesting journey
A contact at PB Tech got in touch late last year to ask if Aaron had heard of Amotai. At the time, Aaron wasn’t familiar with the organisation and the way they connect Māori and Pasifika businesses to procurement opportunities, but he decided to find out more.
“I met with Amotai in Christchurch and got an understanding of how it all worked. I liked what I heard and went through the process of becoming a verified supplier. It’s been an interesting journey so far,” he says.
Meanwhile, Te Tumu Paeroa had mentioned to someone at PB Tech that they were keen to engage a Māori business for IT services in the future. Redline Technology Group was promptly recommended.
“We had just received our Amotai approval, so we set up a virtual call with Te Tumu Paeroa, introduced ourselves and explained to them what we do. We had the resources in place to provide them with nationwide support and they wanted to start the process right away. It was settled in a matter of weeks.”
Aaron believes that without the Amotai approval and support through the tender process, this opportunity wouldn’t have been possible.
The first government contract Redline Technology Group pitched for was a nationwide hardware rollout for a government department, who were replacing 6500 desktops nationwide. Aaron says his business absolutely had the resources and the skillsets to do it, but the paperwork proved to be a challenge.
“What we didn’t have was the knowledge of how to complete a government RFP in a way that really showed we were the right partner for the job,” he explains.
“We’d just finished an Australasian-wide roll out for DHL, where we replaced all their PCs throughout Australia and NZ and did their Windows 10 migration. So we knew we could do the work, but we didn’t know how to reflect that in the tender documentation.”
Neither Aaron or anyone in his senior management team had done anything of this scale before in terms of answering the specific questions in the RFP and Aaron admits “it was over our heads.”
He now sees this as one of many areas where being part of Amotai can be beneficial. For verified suppliers such as Redline Technology Group, resources, support and training around the bidding process can be provided.
The best gift for you and your whānau
Aaron is of Ngāi Tahu descent but he grew up mostly overseas.
“I was born in Christchurch but through marriage, moved overseas when I was 9.I spent 16 years in the States and Europe - picked up the American accent.”
Aaron has been in business from a young age, and only had one regular job when he was 15, at McDonalds in Charleston, South Carolina.
“From then on, I started my first business at 17 and never stopped. I’ve done so many different things. I don’t have a degree and I struggled through school with dyslexia. Even though I was the first person in my family to graduate from high school, that’s as far as it went for me,” he says.
“Most people get a degree in a field and then work from that knowledge base. I didn’t have that guiding me, so if I liked an idea and thought it could be successful, I’d just give it a go. That led to a couple of different directions, and finally I ended up in IT.”
The best advice Aaron has for other business owners is to persevere and never quit. He says: “We all have our ups and downs. I don’t think there’s a better gift you can give to yourself and your whānau, than showing them that there’s another way. You don’t have to be employed by someone else if you don’t want to. If you have the guts and the will to go into business, don’t let anything stop you.”
A foot in the door for Māori business
When he first thought about joining Amotai and considered the connections that could bring, Aaron did question whether it’s fair for Māori and Pasifika businesses to get these opportunities over others. Throughout his career, he has always strived to succeed by himself and worked hard.
“Part of me was weary of that feeling, but then I realised that Pākeha have been doing business for centuries and are well ahead of us in terms of experience and know-how. Māoridom just needs a foot in the door. And if that leg-up is just a simple introduction, then I think it’s fantastic. We still need to prove we can do the work and bid like everyone else,” he says.
“Taking it back to the big players in our market, their foots are already in the door. Their legs are actually well wedged in there, and that’s where supplier diversity is important.”
Added value for Māori and Pasifika in business
Aaron catches up with Jarrad McKay, Supplier Diversity Lead at Amotai, regularly through virtual meetings and also tries to attend the monthly meetings in person.
“The last meeting Amotai hosted brought us in front of experts to talk about the tender process. The meeting before that was a catch up between Amotai business owners. We all sat down together and talked about our experiences, and how we can support each other.”
Aaron is looking forward to Amotai’s upcoming ‘Meet the Buyer’ presentation.
“This is special, and I don’t know of any other organisation that could get this group of Procurement Heads together. It’s one thing to be on a database, but it will be interesting to actually meet with them,” Aaron says. “I know in my industry, if a government procurement agency wants anything they usually go to the tried and tested, the large organisations such as Spark Digital, Fujistu, and Datacom. I understand that, as these companies have been doing the work for decades and buyers know they can deliver. What we are saying is that there are others who can do the work, too.”
Jarrad McKay explains that it’s Amotai’s aim to level the playing field, so Māori and Pasifika-owned businesses have fairer access to customers and markets.
“It's been a real privilege to work with Aaron and enable his business to be engaged with Te Tumu Paeroa and potentially secure more B2B supply chains in the future," Jarrad says.
"Increasingly buyers are looking to Amotai to connect with Māori and Pasifika-owned businesses, and this highlights why it's so important to join our growing database of businesses across Aotearoa.”