Execution Summary

After only 7 months as a Young Enterprise company, we have built an extraordinary brand, Tumeke Clothing, a cultural and innovative company. Owned and operated by four Tokoroa High School Students, Tumeke Clothing endeavors to revitalize Te Reo Māori by printing a simple, meaningful and easy-to-learn Māori quote on clothing.

Māori language is a central component of Māori culture, and an important aspect of participation and identity. It also forms part of the broader cultural identity and heritage of New Zealand. In 1987, the Māori language was recognised as an official New Zealand language.

(http://socialreport.msd.govt.nz/cultural-identity/Māori-language-speakers.html)

Tumeke has been created to increase the visibility and use of Te Reo Māori, Tumeke prints simple meaningful Te Reo Māori phrases on T-shirts. We aim to sell our product to high school and University students, but not limited to just them. We follow the morals and values of Māori and therefore enhance the core value of Kaitiakitanga, we aim to increase the use of Te Reo Māori by increasing the visibility of the language. In the 2013 Census, 21.3 percent of all Māori reported that they could hold a conversation in Māori about everyday things. This was a decrease from 23.7 percent in 2006 and 25.2 percent in 2001. Of the 148,400 people (or 3.7 percent of the total New Zealand population) who could hold a conversation in Māori in 2013, 84.5 percent identified as Māori. (http://socialreport.msd.govt.nz/cultural-identity/Māori-language-speakers.html)

This Annual Review will comprehensively go into depth about how Tumeke Clothing hopes to achieve our goals by strongly embracing our tikanga. Tumeke Clothing hopes to achieve our goals and vision by working with other parties in ensuring that we take every opportunity possible to sell and promote our product. With New Zealand, preserving our Native Language, it is important as a company we apply Māori values to our company and business. Tumeke Clothing has a group of passionate directors who strongly embrace the culture and are excited to move forward with this idea.

From research conducted we have been able to come up with ways where we can sell to a wide range of people, as well as what they would be happy to buy. The vision of Tumeke Clothing, is to increase the visibility and use of Te Reo Māori.

Business Objectives.

Mission Statement

To provide a platform for the use of Te Reo Māori to be actively visible in our community by selling t-shirts with Te Reo phrases.

Vision

Arohatia Te Reo (Cherish the language)

Goals

To be a major clothing brand within the Māori community (nationally and internationally)

To increase the visibility and use of Te Reo Māori in New Zealand

To sell 200 T-shirts by the end of November 2017.

To gain an excellence in AS3.6

To make a profit of $2000.00

To win YES regionals awards

To win the Culture and Arts award

To win the marketing and sales award

To win the operations award

Jay McLaren-Harris- CEO

Innovation Aim: To develop an innovative marketing strategy and operation chain that provides our customers with a detailed description of the meaning behind our products, and to increase the visibility of Te Reo Māori through creating a brand.

Achievements

To innovate is to "make changes to something established" this is the epitome of what Tumeke Clothing has achieved, taking an established product (clothing) and by inventing a kaupapa of meaning and innovative sales channels; to add value to our innovative brand.

Our main source of sales was online via our Facebook page, with a majority of our post's reaching over 7,000 people. We started and launched our #ISTANDWITHTUMEKE campaign that led us to getting our name out there and reaching people from all walks of like.

Unique Selling Point Tumeke Clothing had to think outside the box, and create a product that people wanted. Tumeke Clothing is more than just words on a shirt, it is who we are as Māori and everything on our shirt is therefore relevent. After long consultation with mentors, iwi leaders and cultural advisers, we were able to print a simple, meaningful and easy-to-learn Māori quote on a shirt. Through achieving this, we were able to increase the visibility of Te Reo Māori. We were able to promote and sell at high scale events such as Nga Manu Korero, Wearable Arts and Business forums all around the Waikato. We were not only focused on selling the product, but more so, the kaupapa was essential and allowed us to have an open korero with our customers.

We were innovative in creating a brand that increased the visibility of Te Reo Māori. We created our logo with Photoshop after a long consultation with our cultural and business advisors. We also, were able to create our Tumeke Clothing slogan with the help of the Minister Te Ururoa Flavell, Tu what! Tumeke!

Marketing Strategy

Our primary marketing mode was the use of Social Media

Through our social media account we were able to reach over 5000 people with our Facebook posts, we used Facebook as it reached a specific demographic, mainly teenagers and adults who use Facebook. This also became cost effective as we didn’t have to pay any money towards our page and ads, which meant that we were able to allocate money to other areas of the business. Through social media, we were able to not only sell our shirts, but also sell the mission. Using social media, we were able to enter the international market, and we now have products in The United States, Hong Kong, Canada, Australia, China and New Zealand.

After launching the I STAND WITH TUMEKE campaign and receiving funding from Tokoroa High School Student Council, Te Puni Kōkiri and the South Waikato District Council, on Saturday 14th October 2017 Tumeke Clothing will be hosting its very first 'LET'S HAVE A KORERO FORUM' held in Tokoroa at Tokoroa High School. The kaupapa of this hui is to find ways where we can increase the visibility and use of Te Reo Māori and how we can incorporate core Māori values into our homes, schools and workplaces. Tumeke Clothing has one way to increase the visibility, but we know that there are heaps more ways we can achieve this goal. Hosting over 150 people from all walks of life, from politicians, teachers, lawyers, businessmen and women, this event is one not to be missed. We used a number of platforms to market Tumeke Clothing, however our major base for marketing was primarily through our Facebook Page. We ran a marketing campaign called I stand with Tumeke, which was an online campaign used to promote Tumeke Clothing and our mission of increasing the visibility and use of Te Reo Māori.

Reflections

As we quickly realized, to get anywhere in an arguably saturated clothing market, we knew we would have to stand out, be innovative in our marketing strategy and network considerably. Because of this, we continually aimed to make the most of our differences. As high school students, we had the backing of the Lion Foundation Young Enterprise Scheme and we developed a product that was instantly recognizable, but also new to people all over the country. This provided a unique angle in the clothing market, and with innovation in our marketing, we were able to promote this.

We put in a lot of effort in to creating a network of people we could gain advice from, which included cultural and business professionals, from Professor Tom Roa from the University of Waikato and Wayne Price from the BP Business Challenge. This combined with direct feedback from the public, allowed us to tailor our shirts as best we could, to the needs of the market. In fact, our innovation and unique market angle provided us with a product that was extremely memorable and which quickly spread through word of mouth.

Sustainability

Aim: To enact all aspects of the Quadruple bottom line to achieve sustainable and manageable growth for Tumeke Clothing

Achievements

Economic benefits:

We are selling each shirt for $29.95 will allows us to make a profit of $9.95 each shirt. Our shirts will be made in New Zealand, by Custom Clothing in the North Shore, Auckland. Therefore, we contribute to the New Zealand economy by buying from a local source. We will earn $2000.00 by the end of our business in 2017.

We have compared quotes from different suppliers and chosen the cheapest supplier. This will keep our costs down and help us to maximise our profit.

Social responsibility:

We are selling shirts to raise the awareness of Te Reo Māori, as we believe that everyone can play an important role in preserving and promoting the language.

This encourages the community to get involved with the language.

Our product will be of the best quality, so our customers get value for their money.

We will cater for all age groups, gender and ethnic groups (Manakitanga)

Environmental impact:

Our shirts are printed and posted to Tumeke Clothing in bulk; this helps the environment so that fewer boxes are used in shipping shirts to us, instead of individual orders and shipments.

Most of our business is done online and via email, this is a positive, way so that we don’t have to use paper.

Our packaging is a brown recyclable bag, which is environmentally friendly (Kaitiakitanga)

Cultural/Ethical benefits:

Our group is multi-cultural and we will respect and value each other’s cultures. As we are a cultural based company; we encourage all Company Directors to embrace Te Reo Māori and the Māori culture (Tikanga, Kotahitanga).

Our product promotes the native language and we feel this is a great way to raise the awareness of the language so that it does not die out. Our company is based on core Māori values such as Kaitiakitanga which means Guard our taonga, and Arohatia Te Reo which means to cherish the language.

Tumeke Clothing is more than just words on a shirt, it represents who we are. Everything on our shirt serves a purpose, the Tumeke Logo is printed on the upper-left hand chest, which represents that our culture is the heart of our company and on the back is a simple, meaningful and easy-to-learn Māori quote, which represents that the language is the backbone to us achieving our mission.

Reflections

Throughout the year, we became increasingly aware of the need to create sustainable growth. Due to a high growth in sales and communications, we placed a significant emphasis on managing financial growth, in order to not lose track off orders or payments. This became increasingly necessary when we received over 50 orders within 2 weeks of being in operations

In reflection, we were able to sustain this growth quite well, which is shown through our sales. A number of operational measures put in place, also allowed us to improve efficiency and sustain growth, such as setting up customer ID numbers, which made it easy for us to identify a customer's order, and by buying stock in bulk, to lower costs of production.