New Fast50 entrant still growing rapidly

New Fast50 entrant still growing rapidly

Bizzone, one of the country’s fastest growing companies, has major plans for expansion despite the current economic climate.

Business champion Bizzone (formerly Sarah Trotman & Associates) just announced as 29th on the 2008 Deloitte/Unlimited Fast50 list, has rebranded, will take the Business Expo online in the New Year and is franchising its operations globally, starting in Australia.

Bizzone, a business services company focussed on small and medium businesses, is one of only three companies named on this year’s Fast50 which is solely owned and operated by a woman. Sarah Trotman and her team are organisers of the Small Business Expo, Trotman is editor of New Zealand’s largest circulating business magazine and instigator of the Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards.

The company is also one of the youngest on this year’s Fast50 list having been established in January 2005.  Since then it has expanded its Business Expo from Auckland to Wellington and Christchurch, encouraging 13,000 people to visit the expo annually and making it the largest event for business in New Zealand. The Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards have become a major annual fixture on the business calendar with 600 VIPs from the business support sector attending each year. Bizzone is now actively seeking to franchise its operations in Australia and elsewhere overseas. The company is also developing an online business expo and online business community, initiatives that expect to double the company’s revenues and Bizzone has recently achieved CarboNZero certification.

Sarah Trotman says she is delighted to have made the Deloitte/Unlimited Fast50 and believes it is evidence of her walking the talk. “Our focus has always been on providing business owners with clarity on future vision – ensuring business owners keep their eye on their business direction - and being on the Fast50 sits well with that,” she says.

“Our expansion with the Business Expo into Wellington and Christchurch was very well received so I am confident the business will continue to expand and we will meet our ambitious targets despite this more challenging economic market.”

“Sarah Trotman has a passion and energy for business that inspires her own team and takes her business forward but also, through the Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards and the Business Expo, she challenges thousands of New Zealand business owners to be innovative, to strive for excellence and continually improve their business," says Roger Bell, Chief Executive Officer of Vero.

Key challenges for business growth, Trotman says, are managing the risks associated with growth and designing a business structure that will support growth.

In 2006 Sarah Trotman was selected as an emerging leader of New Zealand in the Sir Peter Blake Leadership Awards.

Business leader Craig Heatley says “Sarah is an inspiring, focused and energetic person who has the courage to look at things in her own way and to question when appropriate, she is a good communicator and remains open to new concepts and ideas.  In short, a really talented young woman who I’m sure has further business successes ahead of her.”

Only 40, Trotman has changed the face of business support in New Zealand. She has consolidated a previously fragmented sector and mobilised some of the biggest advocates of business support from Ministers of Small Business and their government agencies including Statistics NZ and the Ministry of Economic Development to large providers such as Vodafone, Vero and Microsoft.

Information on the Small Business Expo and Bizzone Business Expo is available through the website www.bizzone.com

People can get information on the Vero Excellence in Business Support Awards at www.excellenceinbusinesssupport.co.nz

ENDS

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