As one of New Zealand's leading employers, we believe that if we celebrate the diversity of our own people, we can empower them to bring their whole selves to work and unlock their potential. This enables us to better understand and meet the diverse needs of our customers and all New Zealanders.
View moreAs New Zealand’s largest telecommunications and digital services company, Spark New Zealand has a powerful purpose: To help all of New Zealand win big in a digital world.
Spark’s success is dependent on customers in one key market: New Zealand. That's why we're passionate about using technology to be truly useful to our customers, helping make our country better and enriching the lives of all New Zealanders.
We believe that digital technology can make a significant, positive impact on our nation's social and economic wellbeing. Technology can enable stronger, safer, more connected communities - even in the most remote rural areas. It can open more opportunities for our children, regardless of their socio-economic backgrounds. It can improve health outcomes for New Zealanders of all ages and walks of life. And it can enable Kiwi companies to compete - and win - on the world stage and become smarter, more agile businesses by harnessing all the benefits of new technologies.
At Spark our purpose is:
"To help all of New Zealand win big in a digital world"
The Māori translation of our purpose statement is: Āwhinatia ngā tangata katoa o Aotearoa, kia matomato te tipu i te ao matihiko. This translates to: "To help all New Zealanders so that they may grow, stand strong and thrive in the digital world".
Spark is the first large company in New Zealand to go all in with Agile. Agile is a business organisational model that has been used for a number of years by some of the world’s largest digital services businesses. It replaces traditional hierarchical control with small, cross-functional and self-managing teams – all working to a central organisational purpose. It also involves working on smaller, faster, incremental improvements to products and services, and looking at a customer’s journey with our business from beginning to end.
Agile is putting Spark’s focus squarely on our customers, providing feedback loops and disciplined frameworks to give deep and clear insights on what customers need and expect. Multifunctional teams and flat structure mean no need to ‘hand over’ work to another part of the business or seek approvals from above. Teams can simply deliver for customers, fast. By focusing our work on Spark’s overall purpose and our contribution to customers, Agile ensures all of our people are engaged and feel empowered to make a difference.
On March 31, 1987, The New Zealand Post Office was replaced by three state-owned enterprises, one of which was Telecom. That year, Telecom launched New Zealand's first mobile phone network.
Two years later, New Zealand got its first internet connection, the telecommunications market was deregulated and in 1990, Telecom was sold for NZ$4.2b in what was then New Zealand's biggest deal. Soon after, it listed on the New Zealand, Australian and New York stock exchanges. In the 90s, calling cards, 0800 and 0900 numbers, voicemail and telebanking were introduced, toll calls became much cheaper, and Telecom launched its first ISP, Xtra.
As we ushered in a new millennium, Telecom celebrated its millionth mobile customer. Next, it acquired Gen-i, greatly expanding its ICT capabilities, and in 2004 launched New Zealand's first 3G mobile network.
In 2011, following changes to New Zealand’s telecommunications industry legislation, Telecom was separated into two distinct companies: Telecom as a retailer of fixed and mobile voice services (and operator of a mobile network), and Chorus as a wholesale-focused operator of fixed-line networks (copper and fibre), selling access to its networks to any retailer (including Spark).
Then on 8 August 2014, our evolution into a provider of digital services including broadband, entertainment media and cloud computing took another leap forward with the company’s rebranding as Spark New Zealand.
