NZer finalist in UK entrepreneur of the Year

New Zealander finalist in UK entrepreneur of the Year

New Zealand businesswoman Katherine Corich is a finalist in the Entrepreneur of the Year category of the prestigious 2009 UK Business Awards. http://www.nationalbusinessawards.co.uk/home

Katherine is founder and managing director of a change management and business process consulting firm Sysdoc. Three years ago she moved to the UK to grow the UK and European side of the business. Despite the recession the company has achieved sales growth in the UK of more than 42% in the last year, and the company's annual turnover in the UK was about $15 million with strong profitability.

The process, knowledge, change management and learning consulting services firm, now operates in the UK, US, Australia, and New Zealand.

Ms Corich said a growth strategy activated in the UK three years ago had paid off. The sales increase of 42% in the UK compares favourably to the UK Plimsoll independent analysis industry average of -1.6%. In the last three years the company has undertaken diverse business improvement projects throughout the world, from Kazakhstan to the US.

Sysdoc specialises in leading organisational change, including design and delivery of business process improvement programmes, online, knowledge bases, staff development and business performance improvement programs. It currently employs 160 permanent and associate staff.

Work in the UK has included a major government change transformation project and a recently completed project for CFBT who provide schools inspection services for the UK equivalent of ERO. UK school inspectors are now using processes designed by Sysdoc to undertake the country's school inspections on behalf of the Office of the Standards in Education.

“We focus on return on investment, and as a matter of course, quantify the value we are delivering. This is increasingly important in the current climate where any investment in consultancies needs to be directly accounted for.”

“In conjunction with our customers, we’ve calculated that our UK-based projects are delivering eight to ten times more in measurable value than the investment that our clients’ make in our services. What we’ve done is to sit down with the clients and quantify what’s been delivered. Much of that value has been achieved through process improvement rather than implementing new systems," she said.

Sysdoc's work in Kasakhstan and the US for Chevron has resulted in quantifiable savings of several million, The company has also completed projects for other customers in New Zealand, the Phillipines, Western Europe and Africa.

• Katherine is currently a member of the Microsoft Leadership initiative, Women in Leadership in the Information Society. The panel has 25 senior members representing European Union MPs, academics and business leaders.

• She is a regular invited speaker at international forums including most recently the annual meeting of the France G9, (the French equivalent of the Ivy league universities alumni group), and the European Women in Leadership Forum in Brussels.

• She is a previous category winner in the New Zealand Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year awards. She grew up on the Kapiti Coast, attending Kapiti College, before completing an MA at Canterbury University in Christchurch.

ENDS

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