Vital NZ

Happy holidays from the Vital team! Earlier this week, we were delighted to hand over two Christmas Star Boxes to the team at Wellington City Mission. A big shout out to all the Vital team members that donated festive food and toys to the boxes!  From today (19 December), we’re officially in our holiday blackout period. We’ll be back to normal operations from 8 January 2025. Our Network Operations Centre will continue to provide 24/7 network support over the break. We’ve also published an end-of-year wrap-up on our website with a few highlights from the past year, check it out here: https://lnkd.in/g3wJCbHA

We’re excited to share that Vital has signed an 11-year partnership agreement with Transpower to provide Radio Relay Links (RRL) as part of their TransGO network refresh. We will design, build, maintain, and manage over 26 digital microwave links supporting Transpower’s tele-protection signalling and other critical services between substations and other Transpower sites.   Our CEO, Jason Bull, says: “Vital’s strong position in the electricity sector is driven by our commitment to high-quality, specialised field services partnerships and professional engineering capabilities that address the unique demands of critical infrastructure. As demand grows for robust, always-on communication, our role expands, providing solutions to power generators, the national transmission company, and distribution networks alike.”   Transpower’s Executive General Manager Information Services and Technology, Cobus Nel, says: “TransGO is a critical part of our national electricity transmission network that keeps the lights on for homes and businesses across Aotearoa New Zealand. We are looking forward to partnering with Vital to ensure our network remains reliable and continues to meet the evolving needs of electricity users across the motu.”   You can read the announcement in full here: https://lnkd.in/g_Mu-r-M  

Vital is a proud supporter of Life Flight and we were thrilled to bring back our staff step challenge this year to raise money for them. Grant Elliott from Life Flight recently popped into our Wellington office to meet our step champion Phil Martin who walked an amazing 284 km during the month-long challenge. All up, the Vital team walked 3484 kilometres, raising just under $3500! The Life Flight team does fantastic work, providing time-critical aeromedical care to over 1,500 people each year. We support Life Flight by providing radio communications, volunteering at their golf days (which are always fantastic), and attending fundraising events like their gala dinner throughout the year. 

Yesterday, we welcomed Vital shareholders to our Wellington office, both in person and online, for our AGM. Thank you to all the shareholders who came along. It was good to share more about the Vital team’s work, wins, and challenges over the last year. 2024 saw Vital achieve some significant wins – examples include a new fleet contract of 500+ vehicles on our digital LMR network, providing IP connectivity into new Lodestone Solar Farms, extending LMR coverage for Meridian dams, strengthening relationships with our wholesale partners, and extending some notable existing contracts. We were also pleased to present our improved customer net promoter score (NPS) – which increased from positive 22 in July 2023 to positive 41 in July 2024. Our employee net promoter score (eNPS) trended upwards too, going from positive 25 a year ago to positive 30 at the end of FY24. We thank our shareholders and customers for their ongoing support and acknowledge the entire Vital team and our partners for their hard work and strategic execution over the year.

We were thrilled to team up with Cello and NZ Data to sponsor the Cello Cornhole Championships at Beervana last weekend. There were a few nail-bitingly close matches, including a semi-final featuring our CEO, Jason! A big shout-out to the team at Cello for putting on a fantastic competition.

We released our FY24 financial results and annual report today. We’re pleased to report that Vital has made good progress on our turnaround strategy over the last year. Vital CEO, Jason Bull, says: “Progress against this strategy has continued throughout FY2024, despite a particularly challenging economic operating environment. Momentum is now building, and key initiatives and capital investments are being executed simultaneously across the Wired and Wireless businesses to position Vital and its quality fibre and radio assets more favourably to help back our longstanding customers operations throughout New Zealand. “This focus has resulted in another solid financial year, with results largely in line with expectations, despite very challenging business conditions. With a solid foundation now laid and two full years of disciplined delivery, Vital can increasingly focus on driving revenue growth, greater operating leverage, and the acquisition of new customers.” You can read our annual report for FY24 here: https://lnkd.in/gDrweu3n

🏅 Vital's Office Olympics are in full swing! Over the next two weeks, our teams will be competing in fun and creative events like quizzes, speed finger skating, Wikipedia speed runs, paper javelin throws, recycled paper ball basketball, and more. It's all about teamwork, fun, and a touch of friendly competition. Let the games begin! 🏆 #VitalOfficeOlympics #TeamVital #WorkplaceFun

Have you ever wanted to see what our nationwide radio coverage looks like? Now you can! We’ve refreshed our Land Mobile Radio (LMR) coverage maps and opened up access to them on our website. From Kaitaia to Bluff, you can see Vital’s (indicative) LMR coverage by visiting our radio coverage page: https://lnkd.in/gbVeYt4C If you’re part of our LMR dealer network, we have some specialised maps in the pipeline – so keep an eye out for more on that soon!

A big shout out to everyone who dropped in to see us at our #CommsConnectNZ booth last week. It was a great event, with lots of interesting discussions about critical communications in NZ. The team in the booth enjoyed catching up with our partners, talking about our networks, and showing off our refreshed online LMR coverage maps (and new t-shirts!). 

Who knew we had so many talented chefs at Vital? On Friday our offices held potlucks to celebrate the International Day of Families & World Telecommunication Day. The potluck was organised by our Vitality group who plan a few events throughout the year to bring our teams together outside of our usual workday. The Vital team really brought their cooking skills to the table, whipping up a huge amount of delicious food to share with everyone. The Christchurch office went the BBQ route, while our Wellington office brought in family recipes from throughout the world.