Quanton marks a decade with six million hours saved

Quanton has marked its tenth anniversary, saying it has saved more than six million hours of manual work for organisations in New Zealand.

Founded in 2016, the New Zealand-founded AI and automation consultancy says it launched the country's first Robotic Process Automation programme that year. Since then, it has expanded from an automation specialist into a broader AI transformation consultancy working across banking, financial services, insurance, utilities, healthcare, government and manufacturing.

Its client base now spans Australia, New Zealand, Europe and the wider Asia-Pacific region. Quanton operates with teams in Australia, New Zealand and Malaysia, while remaining New Zealand-owned and led.

Growth model

Over the past decade, Quanton says it has grown without materially increasing headcount by using its own automation tools in internal operations. It says that approach helped it remain stable through the Covid period and the weaker economic conditions that followed.

Garry Green, Managing Director and Founder, said experience in AI projects had shown that the biggest obstacles were usually not technical.

"Ten years of AI implementation teaches you one thing above all else: the tools are never the reason transformations fail," said Garry Green, Managing Director and Founder, Quanton.

"Leadership alignment, cultural readiness, the discipline to see change through properly - that's what determines whether AI delivers or doesn't. That's what Quanton was built to get right. Six million hours saved is what getting it right looks like," Green said.

Quanton said its operating model also reflected a focus on cost control during the pandemic. It avoided redundancies and instead cut costs by not replacing staff who left, shrinking its office footprint and shifting staff to home working.

"We didn't make a single redundancy," said Ursula Riemer, Strategic Engagement Director and AU Country Manager, Quanton.

"We managed costs by not backfilling roles that left naturally, gave up our large office, moved to a smaller space with twelve hot desks, and let the team work from home. And through all of that, the business kept growing," Riemer said.

She added that the company had kept its team small by relying on automation in-house and backing a more compact staffing model.

"We've grown, but our team has stayed lean because we use our own automation internally, and because we've always believed that a smaller team of highly capable people, properly supported, will outperform a bigger one that isn't. That's been true for ten years and was especially true during COVID," Riemer said.

AI gap

Quanton used its anniversary to argue that many organisations in Australia and New Zealand still lack the structures needed to use AI effectively. It said 97% of organisations in the two countries currently lack formal AI competency, while 68% of small and medium-sized enterprises report having no AI plans.

Green said organisations getting better results from AI shared a common set of traits in leadership and execution.

"The organisations winning with AI right now share three things," Green said.

"They have executive alignment on what they're actually trying to achieve with it. They invest in the change infrastructure - the people, the governance, the culture - not just the tools. And they start with a clear-eyed view of where they actually are, not where they wish they were," he said.

"Most organisations are missing at least two of those three," Green said.

Quanton also pointed to the commercial stakes for New Zealand businesses, citing an estimate that AI could contribute NZD $76 billion in economic impact by 2038. Green said poor execution carried its own cost in failed trials and stalled roll-outs.

"New Zealand's AI potential is extraordinary - and we're nowhere near realising it," Green said.

"We set an ambition to save five million hours for New Zealand organisations. We've now passed six million, and we're setting our sights higher. But realising New Zealand's full AI potential from here will require businesses to invest properly in getting transformation right. The cost of doing it badly - the failed pilots, the stalled implementations, the months spent undoing the damage - is far higher than the cost of doing it properly from the start. The window for first-mover advantage is real, and it is closing," he said.

Australian push

Alongside its New Zealand business, Quanton said it is formalising its Australian presence, with Riemer leading operations from Adelaide. The move follows a decade of work across both markets and, according to the company, reflects strong AI spending in Australia with uneven returns.

Riemer said the issue was not a shortage of tools, but weaknesses in leadership, workplace culture and change management.

"What Australian businesses need right now isn't another AI vendor," Riemer said.

"They need a partner who has already done the hard work - who knows where implementations stall, how the wrong company culture can kill a transformation, and how to build the internal capability that makes AI last. We've spent ten years learning those lessons. We're bringing all of it here," she said.

Quanton said it now operates from Auckland, Christchurch and Adelaide. It maintains that its first decade has been shaped less by software alone than by its effort to tie AI projects to management decisions, operating structures and workforce change.