Tompkins Wake forms new regional partnership with The Icehouse

Thursday 4 February, 2021

Tompkins Wake are thrilled to announce a regional partnership for the Waikato and Bay of Plenty with The Icehouse, that specialises in business capability building programmes, workshops and coaching & advisory services.

The Icehouse has been helping New Zealand’s business community grow since its inception in 2001. Lifting the capabilities and aspirations of owners, entrepreneurs, start-ups and SME businesses through knowledge, connection and investment, The Icehouse enables and empowers business growth and success.

Both organisations have long supported NZ entrepreneurs and SMEs by giving them the skills, clarity and support they need to grow their businesses and unleash NZ’s economic potential.

Through the newly established partnership, Tompkins Wake will contribute $15,000 in scholarships for the first year. This will consist of two Owner Manager Programme scholarships valued at $5,000 and five ‘Taking Your Business Forward’ scholarships of $1,000 each.

The Owner Manager Programme is The Icehouse’s flagship programme for business owners to develop skills, address issues in the business, hone strategic plans and drive forward to greater success. Taking Your Business Forward is The Icehouse’s interactive three-month e-learning programme for business owners where they have the opportunity to rethink aspects of their business and reset for the future. 

“We’ve seen several of our clients – Civtec, for example – go through The Icehouse programmes, describing both the programme and experience as ‘game-changing’ for their businesses,” said Tompkins Wake Partner and AdviSME lead, Phil Monahan.

“We’ve long admired the work The Icehouse does and really like what they deliver, so when the opportunity came up to collaborate, it was a very natural next-step and easy decision.

“The Icehouse empowers businesses to succeed, employ more people, do bigger and better things in the community, and make a real difference.”

Tompkins Wake has been a central figure on the region’s legal stage for nearly 100 years and, while the firm’s growth has seen a shift to working with corporates and large businesses over the past 10 years, it has always had the SME market at its heart.

As a result, Tompkins Wake launched AdviSME in May 2019 – a technology-driven legal service which uses automation tools and AI to provide innovative and affordable legal solutions for SMEs, to make access to legal information less daunting and more cost-effective for small businesses.

”We wanted to create a legal product specifically for New Zealand SMEs with our goal to deliver value and help businesses grow. Every cent counts for SMEs, so owners and managers need to know exactly what they’re getting. AdviSME is built around a suite of free resources and automated documents with fixed pricing. We wanted to demonstrate to potential clients that there was real value in what we have to offer,” said Phil.

“We wanted to go with a partner who was equally trusted and had a good brand in the SME market, and was clear that it had a similar goal to us, which is essentially to help people,” said Maryse Dinan, Customer Growth Partner at The Icehouse.

“We play in the same space – offering great products to enable the local SME sector to flourish and grow. More than that, we think differently and innovatively to other organisations in how we find solutions for businesses, just like Tompkins Wake.

“The collaboration is so exciting because our values align, we’re community focused, and take great pride in championing the incredible innovation we see every day within the Waikato business community.”

Scholarship recipients will need to meet The Icehouse’s qualifying criteria for each programme. For more information and enquiries visit The Icehouse website at www.theicehouse.co.nz