Miraka
The Situation:
Miraka is a high growth Maori food company based in Taupo. It has achieved rapid growth since inception and exports globally with turnover in excess of $300m business. Over the last few years Miraka had explored high value consumer products as a departure from the core milk powder processing business but with mixed results - several products taken to market didn’t achieve desired results and there was recognition in the Board that the consumer market was a different beast than Miraka’s core competency in B2B milk powder. The Miraka Exec team were keen to learn and adapt.
The Work:
Having been a strategic advisor helping the CEO and Exec team on and off for a number of years, Melissa was asked to take an initial audit of a consumer product that launched unsuccessfully. This involved a full audit of strategy, thinking, processes and execution alongside recommendations to take forward. One of the key findings was the gap in organisational capability - not just in knowledge but in practice. Melissa recommended building greater organisational capability in Design Thinking and Innovation skills across all teams.
The Exec team requested Melissa to develop a tailored training programme to build up Innovation across the organisation. This kicked off with a small piece of discovery research interviewing a select diverse group of staff from every team, at all levels of seniority, so as to understand their worlds, the problems they faced and their respective needs.
Taking this in hand, Melissa developed and executed a 6-month training programme, training a group of Innovation champions. These champions were trained in Design Thinking principles and how to apply them in all types of Innovation and continuous improvement projects. They were also given tools to up-skill their teams in Design Thinking techniques to lift overall organisational capability. Separately Melissa worked in more detail with the Marketing and Innovation team, as well as the HR team to ensure Design Thinking was embedded in wider HR led productivity improvement and decision-making frameworks and programmes.
“The design-led training she took us through was invaluable. She gave us a totally new way of looking at problems and gaining solutions. She has this amazing ability to dig down to find the real, not perceived issues. She’s dynamic, empathetic and thoughtful. I’ve used what she taught us in my employment, my personal life and my studies. Using her techniques as resulted in winning the Miraka Auaha (Innovation) Award 2019, a new role, and 99% on my assignment. We have made some amazing changes just over lockdown and my new fellow colleagues are fast becoming enthusiasts as well! Thanks Melissa, I’m indebted to you. Forever an avid and loyal Design-Led supporter!!! #ravingfan #loyalsupporter”
— Sheri Thomas, Miraka Innovation Champion
“Melissa is able to relate well with a wide range of people. She’s well structured and prepared but also flexible to adapt her approach and is caring about people and their problems. She was able to relate and understand what challenges people had and work through a path to arrive at a solution. She is great with building and developing personal relationships with a range of people to help build trust with those people. She gave us simple takeaways that are easy to recall 12 months later. “
— Jason Te Brake, Commercial Manager Miraka
“During 2019 I was fortunate enough to be selected to be part of design-led group sessions led and coached by Melissa. I benefited both personally and professionally from Melissa’s expertise, guidance and mindfulness. Melissa listened and adapted to the group and was able to spend valuable 1 to 1 time with each of us, providing honest feedback with tips to improve. By following her advice, I’ve been able to achieve significant wins.”
— Warren, Sustainability Manager Miraka
“Melissa is a real gem to work with. A knowledge expert who’s inspiring, genuine and caring. I will have the design-thinking skills she gave me forever. She helped me break down problems into bite size pieces and work through the process in manageable chunks. It was a really powerful way of problem-solving - practical and real and you have something to show for it afterwards. The skills we learnt as a team are now helping us resolve wider organisational issues at the root cause, rather than ‘solutions’ that require a whole lot of work but don’t actually hit the mark. This has been really meaningful piece of work.”
— Aleesha Price, HR Manager Miraka
