RD&I support takes SeaQuest Systems around the world

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Investment in research, development and innovation opened up a valuable new market for second generation marine equipment specialist SeaQuest Systems.

Based in Killybegs in County Donegal, SeaQuest Systems was founded by Bert Leslie, current managing director in 1986, serving local and national fishing fleet. Brian Leslie joined the company twenty years ago, after graduating from Dublin Institute of Technology with a degree in mechanical engineering.

Since then, the company has become a leader in the design and manufacture of pumps and hydraulic systems for fishing and offshore vessels. Its products are prized for the excellence of their design, sturdy construction and superior performance.

The company’s strong reputation in the fishing sector led to an unexpected call from a company in an entirely new industry for SeaQuest Systems – aquaculture.

“One day we got a call out of the blue from an aquaculture company in Norway, to ask if we could design and build a pump to move salmon,” explains Brian.

The Norwegian company was searching for a solution to a recurring problem with farmed salmon – sea lice. With lice a naturally occurring parasite in wild salmon, nature’s remedy is simple – when salmon swim back upstream to their spawning grounds, the freshwater kills salt-loving lice.

As farmed salmon don’t make that trip, sea lice numbers proliferate in the confines of seawater cages.

 

Innovating a sustainable solution

“Freshwater kills off sea lice but, in this instance, it’s not a sustainable solution,” says Leslie.  “Similarly, the traditional way to manage the problem, through the use of antibiotics, is not a long-term solution because anything treated that way becomes resistant to it. Of course, consumers don’t want to think about antibiotics ending up in their food either, so there has been a move away from that approach for a number of years.”

With transferring salmon into slightly warmer seawater being shown to work, the Norwegian company wanted to know if SeaQuest could engineer a pump to do just that. “I told them I didn’t see why it wouldn’t work,” says Leslie.

“My feeling was that we’d give it a good go. Either way, it would be the cheapest R&D we’d ever do. If it worked we’d have a new customer and it was a good way to check out a whole new market.”

Aquaculture, or farmed fish, is a growth industry. “Ultimately it is going to be bigger than fishing as a sustainable way of feeding people,” says Leslie.

But only if it solves the problem of sea lice.

SeaQuest set to work designing, manufacturing and testing a pump that could safely transport the salmon from cold to warmer water and back. Getting the solution right was painstaking.

“Our earliest attempts didn’t work but it was only when we installed windows into the test pump that we could see why. What was happening was that the smaller fish would go with the flow but the bigger ones would swim against the current. It comes naturally to a salmon to do that but they were getting bruised and stressed, and in some cases dying. In the end, we could see that rather than adapt one of our own pumps, we needed to design an entirely new solution, something that would be completely stress-free for the salmon.”

SeaQuest was already renowned as one of the best makers in the world of pumps for pelagic fishing. “That’s why the Norwegian company came to us with its problem. Their problem piqued our interest, ultimately opening the door to an entirely new sector for us.

“Once we got a feel for the potential opportunity – given the size of the aquaculture market – we reckoned we needed to invest around €360,000 to take advantage of it.”

 

Using R&D funding to target commercial opportunities

The company made a successful application to Enterprise Ireland for R&D project funding. “One of the things we stressed in our application was the time-sensitive nature of the R&D project. We needed it to be ready in time for Aqua Nor in August 2017. That is the world’s biggest aqua culture trade fair and takes place biennially, but we also needed the pump to be fully tested before the show.”

Not alone did they achieve both goals but such was the pump’s success in use that it sparked enormous interest at Aqua Nor. So satisfied was the Norwegian customer that it acquired worldwide distribution rights for the pump from SeaQuest.

“It’s an arrangement that suits us perfectly, as it will bring our brand around the world, without requiring a major sales input for us.”

The success of the R&D project has helped grow the business, which employs 60 people. “We are now expanding our facilities again, just three years after having already extended. It’s happening sooner than we had expected to due to demand driven by that R&D project, we will be investing approximately €3.5 million in this new expansion and will expand our workforce.

“Focusing on Norway was hugely helpful because Norway is the biggest aquaculture country in the world. What it does in aquaculture, the rest of the world follows.”

 

The importance of innovation

The Enterprise Ireland RD&I grant application process was straightforward. SeaQuest is also applying for a patent for the pump, and hopes to avail of the lower tax rate applicable under the Revenue’s Knowledge Development Box initiative. Much of the content used in its Enterprise Ireland application will be suitable for Revenue, streamlining the process, Leslie comments.

The timing of the new intellectual property couldn’t be better either, as a patent currently of value to SeaQuest heads towards its end of life.

 “Innovation is key for us because we don’t want to compete on price,” he says.

But while Brian has been an innovator ever since he designed and built his first fish pump while still at college, until now he never viewed SeaQuest’s innovations as research and development.

“We never thought of that work as R&D. We are all about innovating, in so far as clients have a need, we build a solution. We’re always trying to make our clients’ job easier, that’s just what we do. To me, R&D was always something I associated with paperwork.”

The impact of the innovation support SeaQuest received from Enterprise Ireland rectified this misperception. RD&I is now something that Leslie expects SeaQuest to do a lot more of.

“Because Ireland is never going to be the cheapest place to do something, we have to do it better, we have to innovate.”

For more information on how Enterprise Ireland supports R&D visit our innovation supports.

On demand dispatch delivers success for WeBringg

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When Alan Hickey forgot his wife’s birthday, it seemed like a disaster. In fact, it turned out to be a very good thing indeed. It gave him the idea for WeBringg, an on-demand crowdsourced delivery service.

 

Hickey set up the business with co-founder Sean Murray after a discussion about whether or not a delivery company already existed that could save the day by allowing him to buy a present online and have it delivered immediately.

Not possible, said Murray. Why not? said Hickey, in what proved to be their eureka moment.

 

WeBringg connects retailers and consumers

Hickey was a financial broker, while Murray’s background was in app development. While still employed in their day jobs, both worked nights and weekends to develop a crowdbased delivery platform to connect retailers and consumers.

WeBrinng co-founders

Martin Daly, LEO Fingal with WeBringg co-founders, Alan Hickey and Sean Murray

They launched in 2016, doing deliveries for local retailers themselves before landing a partnering deal with restaurant delivery operator Just Eat.

To support its growth, Local Enterprise Office Fingal referred WeBringg to Enterprise Ireland, who identified it as a High Potential Start Up. With its support, the company raised seed funding of €850,000.

What appealed to investors was its compelling offering. “If you wanted to be the largest logistics delivery business in the world, you would need billions of euro. The other way is to build and sell robust scalable software to any retailer in the world,” said Hickey.

“Rather than provide either an off the shelf delivery service, or an off the shelf software as a service (SaaS) product, we wanted to really partner with retailers.”

Providing dispatch software, operator services and consultancy allows it to differentiate itself in the markets it operates in.

 

Simplifying logistics for retailers

“We totally ‘get’ dispatch because we are a hybrid model spanning every vertical, through to last mile delivery, which we can do direct or through third-party delivery partners. And we help large-scale retailers, who have thousands of vans on the road, to optimise their existing fleet.”

It wins its business by understanding that retailers are expert at marketing and selling products, but not at logistics or last mile delivery. “So let us be that expert,” he said. “Last mile delivery is a totally new area of logistics. We have an opportunity to set the global standard for it.”

Today WeBringg operates in the UK, Spain, Australia and New Zealand and has a team of 38 staff, and more than 1000 independent drivers worldwide.

It has an annual run rate of €5 million a year and three revenue streams – providing crowd sourced deliveries directly to consumers, including for Just Eat; partnering with retailers such as Musgrave to provide dispatch technology; and providing data driven consultancy services to the retail and delivery sectors.

 

Working with Enterprise Ireland to go global

Working with Enterprise Ireland also helped WeBringg to develop its board, which it did by taking on experienced non-executive directors. “If we wanted to be a big global company, we had to start thinking like one,” he said.

While the UK was the business’s obvious first choice for exports, the Brexit vote provided an unexpected challenge. “With Brexit, we needed another market to expand into. Lots of companies go the Eurozone route but for language and cultural reasons, we decided there were more opportunities for us in Australia and New Zealand.”

Funding assistance for market research trips helped, including participation on an Enterprise Ireland trade mission to Australia. Being part of a high-level governmental trade delegation proved invaluable.

“We were able to take the CEO of Menulog out to dinner at the Sydney Opera House,” he said.

 “A dinner is just a dinner, but when you are introducing people to your Minister for Trade and Enterprise and the President of Ireland, that’s worth so much more.”

 

Partnering with the largest food ordering platform in Australia

WeBringg subsequently signed a partnership deal with Menulog, the largest food ordering platform in Australia, and opened an office in Brisbane.

In June 2018, it acquired Spatula, a spin-out of the University of Western Australia. “We knew we needed to take the software global and that we had gaps in our technology. These guys had unbelievable dispatch software but were not commercial,” he said.

Spatula has helped bring seamless real-time tracking for customers, enabling WeBringg to perfect its infrastructure as it grows, accelerates and expands worldwide. “It’s now our entire tech team, all our development comes from there,” he said.

WeBringg has continued growing in the UK market too, recently setting up a UK subsidiary in Scotland, to help mitigate the risk from Brexit. “If there is a hard Brexit we can transfer all the trade into that subsidiary.”

All along the way the company has benefited from a variety of Enterprise Ireland and Local Enterprise Office supports, with mentoring, funding, guidance and advice. Murray participated on a CEOs’ retreat too and that kind of networking is invaluable too, said Hickey, “because, if you haven’t experienced something, you can be sure someone else has.”

 

PM Group and Diversification Success

After recession drove PM Group to look further afield, it didn’t look back

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PM Group is an Irish headquartered, international project delivery company, operating in Europe, the USA, and Asia. The company has a 45-year track record in project management, process design, facility design, and construction management for leading multinational companies.

A decade ago, things looked a little different, business development manager John Brophy told delegates at Competing for the Future, a panel discussion which took place at the RDS in Dublin as part Enterprise Ireland’s International Markets Week.

In 2007, the recession left PM Group faced with a diminishing home market. At the time, it had offices in Ireland, the UK, Russia and Poland, but the majority of its work was Irish based and, therefore, highly exposed to the construction downturn here.

 

PM Group expands to mainland Europe

“In order to diversify, we had to look out and mainland Europe was a very accessible market,” said Brophy. “We focused initially on Belgium, which was a massive market for many of our customers. We went out on a project by project basis with our customers.”

It opened an office in Brussels and has continued to grow there right up to today. Earlier this year, it acquired a company in Belgium which it has brought into PM Group.

“That gives us a greater presence. Most of our customers don’t want a single project, they are looking for continuity of relationship. So you need to be on the ground. You need to have people who can speak the language and you need to be able to service them time and again.”

Establishing partnerships with locally based companies has been an important part of its export strategy over the past 11 years, helping to guide it through language barriers, differing tax, visa, planning, permitting and other regulatory rules.

 

Forming strong local partnerships

“As an Irish company, we have found that we are quite good at partnerships, and if you form partnerships and alliances with local companies, you share your workload but they also help you to deliver and be successful for your clients,” said Brophy.

“You can’t go in and disrupt a market and say ‘We’re the best’. You need to work in partnership and understand how things are done. They are never done exactly as they are at home and you’ve got to learn very fast throughout a project. Local partners help with that.”

In recent years, PM Group has been taking action to mitigate the risk of Brexit.  The UK has already seen a slowdown in business investment since the Brexit vote, he said. “We work in capital projects, so it tends to be at the forefront of what people are deciding strategically for their business.”

Rather than diminish its footprint in the UK however, PM Group has responded to Brexit by growing its UK presence, acquiring a company there and adding two new offices, in Manchester and Edinburgh, “Because no matter what, the UK is a big country and you need to have a regional presence,” he said.

 

Diversification strategy

The Group has also diversified sectorally, including into chemical and petro chemical sectors, which the recent acquisition will help it service, he said. “So we have widened what we can do.”

Its UK acquisition is also helping it with its overall talent pool needs, creating a fresh and valuable new pipeline that can be fed through to the rest of the organisation.

Not every decision in relation to exports strategy will be correct, he said. PM Group moved into some markets, such as Russia and the Middle East, from which it subsequently departed. “By and large though, where we chose to go was good,” he said.

Any overseas expansion comes at a cost however. “It took a huge stretch on the management team. We sell a service, so the important thing for our customers is that the service they get around the world matches the service they get here, so we had to put people in the field. Finding the people was a challenge. We now have a local manager in China, Belgium and Poland, and that’s where we have got to in terms of maturity.”

Finding staff is only ever the start, it’s finding customers that counts. “It’s hard,” said Brophy. “You really have to find a way to differentiate yourself from the competition. You can’t go in there and say ‘We’re here, isn’t that good enough?’”

Today, PM Group has 17 offices around the world and works in high-tech sectors such as pharmaceuticals, medical devices, data centres, and food. All through this overseas expansion, investing in innovation has enabled PM Group to differentiate itself, as has its ongoing commitment to staff training.

“We have a lot of subject matter experts now. You have to be the best. You have to be someone who is sought after because price isn’t the only factor. It’s about being sought after and being able to offer a service that maybe they can’t find locally.”

Learn how Enterprise Ireland supports business to diversify with the Market Discovery Fund.

 

 

map of Ireland

Competing for the future at International Markets Week

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Competing for the Future

Developing foreign markets can be daunting even for companies that are highly successful in their home market, the audience heard at Competing for the Future, a panel discussion organised as part of Enterprise Ireland’s International Markets Week programme.

“When you go abroad to foreign markets you are starting at ground zero, which is not an easy place to be,” said Harry Hughes, CEO of Mayo-based safety clothing and equipment company Portwest.  “It just takes time and you have to stay with it.”

Hughes has helped grow what was once a small family business with a turnover of €100,000 in 1978 into a €205 million a year business employing 3,000 staff. The UK was Portwest’s first export market and remains an important one, accounting for 40% of its sales, he said. However, by taking on new markets one at a time, the company now sells into 120 countries worldwide.

 

Top export insights from International Markets Week

He was joined onstage by Vivian Farrell, CEO of Shannon-based Modular Automation, a 32 year-old company that delivers advanced technological solutions to customers such as Johnson & Johnson, Boston Scientific, Stryker, and Medtronic.

Working with their manufacturing sites in Ireland provided Modular Automation with an entry point into the US market, which has transformed the business over the past five years, enabling it to double staff numbers to 150, Farrell said.

Delegates also heard from John Brophy, business development manager of PM Group, a leading project delivery company that works in engineering, architecture, and construction management.

The now 45 year-old company began developing export markets in earnest during the last recession. Today, while PM Group remains headquartered in Ireland, it has 17 offices around the world.

 

Fulfil your export potential

Complacency can make companies fail to fulfil their export potential, delegates heard. “We were probably very slow learners in the beginning, in that we were 25 years selling in Britain and had reached maturity in that market before, 15 years ago, we started looking into Europe,” said Hughes.

Portwest has taken a “one step at a time” approach to new markets since then, starting with the Netherlands, and then France. “There are only two ways to get sales, you can either buy them by purchasing a company in the market, or you can go out and build them yourself,” he said. Either way it costs money.

Modular Automation was able to leverage its multinational clients here and follow them overseas. International markets are now “hugely important in terms of reaching our ambitions for growth,” said Farrell.

“We’re investing heavily in R&D and innovation in Ireland and we see that as a catalyst for growth, in particular in the US.”

Read about Enterprise Ireland’s R&D and innovation supports

Three years ago, the company opened an office in Florida, both to service the sister sites of clients in Ireland and as a base to develop new customers. “That is our strategy for growth and it is working for us. But it’s only achievable if we do a good job for multinationals in Ireland, and critical to that is R&D and innovation.”

In 2007, PM group was faced with a diminishing home market. At the time, it had offices in Ireland, the UK, Russia and Poland, but the majority of its work was based in Ireland.

“In order to diversify, we had to look out, and mainland Europe was a very accessible market,” said Brophy. “We focused initially on Belgium, which was a massive market for many of our customers.”

 

Target opportunities in the Eurozone

Irish companies should view the eurozone as “a continuation of the domestic market,” said fellow panellist Julie Sinnamon, CEO of Enterprise Ireland. Doing so may require a “mindset shift” but having role model companies such as Portwest, Modular Automation and PM Group helps encourage other companies, she said.

That includes steps companies are taking in response to Brexit, such as Portwest’s decision to acquire 140,000 sq ft of warehousing in Poland, reducing its warehousing space in Britain. Regardless of the ultimate outcome of Brexit, such a move makes good business sense, said Hughes.

PM Group has also taken action to mitigate the risk of Brexit. It has responded by growing its footprint in the UK, acquiring a company there and adding two new offices, in Manchester and Edinburgh – “because no matter what, the UK is a big country and you need to have a regional presence,” he said.

It has also diversified into more sectors, including chemical and petrochemical, which the recent acquisition will help it to service. “So we have widened what we can do,” he said.

 

Act now in response to Brexit

Over the past year, companies have moved into action mode in response to Brexit, said Sinnamon. “Companies are beginning to invest in innovation and competitiveness to look at new markets. We are seeing a big increase in the level of demand for participation in trade missions and market study visits,” she said.

Mistakes will happen. In Portwest’s case, a key hire made in Ireland and relocated to Europe turned out not to be the right solution. “Now we employ French people in France, Germans in Germany, and so on. The boots on the ground need to be local,” said Hughes.

Innovation is key. “You really have to find a way to differentiate yourself from the competition. You can’t go in there and say ‘We’re here, isn’t that good enough?’,” said Brophy.

Julie Sinnamon agreed. “You are not going to conquer the world with me-too products. You have to have something that differentiates you,” she said, pointing to Enterprise Ireland’s Market Discovery Fund as a way of helping with costs, and its Agile Innovation Fund as a fast-track way of getting R&D support to ensure a product is fit for purpose in new market.

Above all, see the eurozone as a local market, delegates at International Markets Week were told. “We have the same currency and the same laws and there are no borders,” said Hughes. “You need to see it as a local market and get out there and invest.”

 

Languages Connect logo

The importance of multilingualism

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The drive for new markets shines a light on the importance of multilingualism. Julie Sinnamon, CEO Enterprise Ireland outlines why language matters.

Ireland’s small, open economy depends heavily on being able to trade internationally. The global dominance of the English language has worked to our advantage but with Irish companies looking to export into even more diverse markets, the need to acquire more languages has never been more important.

Recognising the cultural value of communicating in the buyer’s local language and developing a workforce with foreign language expertise can improve relationships and increase efficiency when entering new markets.

Learn how Enterprise Ireland can support your business with the Market Discovery Fund

 

Irish exporters set to benefit from Italy’s economic revival

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Paul Maguire, Enterprise Ireland’s manager for Italy, Morocco and Algeria, describes the opportunities attracting growing numbers of Irish exporters to the country

Two months after Italy’s fraught general election, the IMF’s World Economic Outlook delivered positive economic news for the country. The report indicated that Italy’s 2017 growth rate of 1.5% was its fastest since 2010, with growth projected to remain stable this year.

Following slow growth since the 2010 recession, the Italian economy is starting to strengthen. With a return to growth, sectors such as life sciences and medtech are presenting strong opportunities for Irish exporters, particularly in the context of Brexit.

To support exporters targeting these opportunities, Minister for Trade Pat Breen T.D. led a mission that included 18 Irish companies to Italy in April. 15 companies visited a specialist medtech event and a further three attended a procurement conference in Rome. The Minister visited the Rome Talent Garden (TAG) digital incubator and met Enterprise Ireland-backed company City Wonders, founded by Italian entrepreneur Simone Gozzi.

€2 billion addressable market for Irish companies

The Italian sector encompassing life sciences and medtech continues to flourish, currently valued at €25.2 billion. With 10% of that value reserved for investment, Irish companies have an addressable market of €2 billion. Enterprise Ireland-supported companies are securing wins in the market, increasing life sciences exports to Italy by 147% to €65 million in 2017.

This year’s medtech event took place in Mirandola in the Modena region, known as Italy’s Silicon Valley specialising in medtech. Modena is home to more than 100 medtech companies, including large Italian multinationals such as Sorin, Gambro and CID Vascular.

By attending Enterprise Ireland’s Mirandola medtech event, Irish companies such as Anecto, Synecco and Statistica Medica had an opportunity to gauge the market and network with potential Italian partners. Opportunities for Irish life sciences companies are particularly strong in the drug development, manufacturing, packaging and regulatory sub-sectors.

Anecto see exponential growth in Italy

Galway-based Anecto offers product and packaging testing and are enjoying success in Italy. David Morrissey, Sales Manager at Anecto, commented, “The opportunity to meet clients in Italy has generated significant leads for us. We’ve seen exponential growth there in recent years. Irish companies looking to expand in Europe should look to Italy as a potential market.”

Brexit is also generating opportunities for Irish companies interested in entering the Italian market. Research carried out by the UK Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply in 2017 reported that 46% of European businesses expect to reduce their reliance on UK suppliers.

Earlier this year, 50 senior Italian procurement officers attended an Enterprise Ireland conference held at the Irish embassy in Rome, seeking to source alternatives to existing UK suppliers. Key themes discussed included the impact of Brexit on the supply chains of Italian companies, opportunities for partnership, and Ireland’s commitment to the European market. Sean O’Dwyer President of the Irish Institute of Purchasing & Materials Management (IIPMM) and Board Member of the International Federation of Purchasing and Supply Management (IFPSM) delivered a keynote presentation to the Italian audience.

One insight that emerged was that supply chain opportunities in Italy continue to be overlooked in favour of those in other European markets, such as Germany, France, and the UK. Yet despite being underrepresented in Italy, Europe’s third-largest economy continues to deliver deals for Irish exporters.

How Irish companies can win in Italy

To win opportunities in Italy, Irish companies should take a long-term partnership approach. Taking time to build relationships with Italian clients is essential to securing trust, while having a local presence with ‘boots on the ground’ is a distinct advantage.

Italian companies are impressed by Irish companies that deliver innovative products and services that have been developed with high levels of R&D and can be integrated with their own offerings.

As the Italian market is highly networked and regionally focussed, recommendations from Italian companies carry significant weight during negotiations.

Enterprise Ireland’s Milan office helps Irish companies to facilitate visits to Italy. Pre-visit and in-market supports, such as identification of potential partners and securing reference sites, are included, enabling companies to meet the right clients and create a presence with true local resonance.

This article was originally published in the Sunday Independent.

To learn more about exporting to Italy visit Markets and Opportunities

 

Ceramicx Electronics

Invention, innovation, invoice: How Ceramicx uses Knowledge Transfer to win

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The Herschel machine test instrument, developed in a collaboration between Irish company Ceramicx and Trinity College Dublin won Ireland’s Collaborative Research Impact Award under the Knowledge Transfer Ireland (KTI) initiative.

Ceramicx won in a tough field, competing against Intel Ireland, Microsoft Ireland, Croke Park, C&F Group, DCU, and Dublin Institute of Technology. The win was testament to the company’s groundbreaking technology and its practical applications, as Ceramicx uses specialist knowledge to directly benefit customers.

In 2016, Ceramicx founders Frank and Grainne Wilson were finalists in the annual Plastics Industry Awards for their work in a capital equipment upgrade at international giant, Linpac Packaging. Ceramicx was also one of four winners selected by InterTradeIreland for a Project Exemplar award, only the latest in a series of its productive knowledge transfer liaisons.

 

Translating knowledge transfer into tangible results

This consistent success demonstrates how seemingly rarefied initiatives like knowledge transfer can translate into the most tangible results. It is no coincidence that in 2016, Ceramicx also signed its fifth Innovation Partnership with Enterprise Ireland, when Trinity College Dublin was selected as its academic partner.

Ceramicx Ltd has been established for over 25 years in West Cork and has been providing Infrared (IR) energy efficient solutions from 1994 – mainly for industrial users but also for consumers in the form of IR heating.

In the last 18 months, Ceramicx has been pursuing similar gains and benefits for the international composites industries, where double digit demand for lightweight materials and structures is helping drive aerospace, automotive, construction and many more sectors.

In short, the Ceramicx view is IR based energy futures are essential and inevitable. Ceramicx is playing its part in IR energy strategies of the future; and also creating a series of popular video presentations that will educate and inform all about the benefits of IR heating.

 

Knowledge transfer as ‘advanced common sense’

Frank Wilson, Founder and Managing Director of Ceramicx, describes the approach, “For me, knowledge transfer works best when treated as advanced common sense. Organisations like Knowledge Transfer Ireland help SMEs like us to connect with a world of academic expertise and institutions they might otherwise find difficult to access. KTI can help your company to focus clearly on what your specific project needs. You might want to implement a product process that no other company is using yet. The expertise and fresh perspective of academic specialists can be invaluable to helping realize those plans.”

Ceramicx follows several preliminary steps before embarking on innovation work, and before any third party, including academic institutions, is involved.

 

Do not try to reinvent the wheel

“The first question to answer is extremely practical,” says Wilson, “What is already out there? No one should try to reinvent the wheel. Do your research. Find out if someone is already supplying something, be it machinery or solutions, that already meets the need you identified. Then work from that.”

If no such service or solution exists, “the next best thing is to find the machine or solution that appears closest. Interrogate the technology and determine whether and how it could be adapted, modified, or changed to suit your purpose.”

In the third scenario, one in which Ceramicx regularly engages, “there is no existing machine or solution on the market – just your ideas. The task, then, is to engage with those ideas, plans and visions. It is also the scenario most likely to benefit from the involvement of academia. After all, who better to involve in ideas than ideas people who can argue a number of options from theoretical positions? And who, thanks to their fresh perspective, can think outside the box.”

This third scenario is also very high risk, Frank warns, “Although the rewards can be great, very few want to risk company time, money and energy on completely new, untested projects.

It is, therefore, essential to work and rework ideas to the point of near exhaustion and to attempt several theoretical dry runs on any project before cutting any metal or committing resources.

Collaborative thinking in this way, the Irish Meitheal approach if you will, is particularly good at airing and articulating ideas and avoiding expensive assumptions.”

 

Invention, innovation, invoice

The cross-functional team, the Meitheal within companies, is also essential for new projects. Any new manufacturing venture needs not only the expertise of engineers and scientist (To answer, “Can it be made?”) but also purchasing and cost mangers (“How much will it cost?”) and sales and marketing (“How and where will it sell?”).

“Ultimately”, Frank advises, “The knowledge transfer process should help sustain and encourage your vision. Always paint your own picture and have a simple end game in mind – invention – innovation – invoice.”

 

Read more about Enterprise Ireland’s innovation supports.

Seed supply causing concern for fintech start-ups

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A shortage of seed funding, and a concomitant need for larger Series A deals, are twin challenges facing Irish fintech start-ups.

Ireland: A Fintech Factory took place as part of MoneyConf 2018 at the RDS in Dublin, attracting more than 100 representatives from the global venture capital and financial services sectors.

Supporting the fintech sector is a national priority

“Enterprise Ireland’s focus on financial services is in line with the Irish government’s focus on it as a strategic sector,” said Leo McAdams, divisional manager financial services and business process outsourcing at Enterprise Ireland, introducing the event.

Ireland’s fintech sector is exciting and disruptive, he told delegates, and includes specialist subsectors such as payments, international compliance, regtech, and deeptech.

Recent years have seen a considerable increase in the number of fintech start-ups, many of which are supported by Enterprise Ireland.

PitchBook identified Enterprise Ireland as the third-largest seed investor in start-ups in the world. “That is quite an extraordinary effort from the organisation but is because we have such an excellent set of entrepreneurs here,” said McAdams.

Ireland’s world-class environment for fintech start-ups

Ireland offers a world-class environment for fintech start-ups too, a central part of which is the partnership engagement Enterprise Ireland offers, providing access to its portfolio of 200 fintech companies. As well as supporting innovation through its technology centres, Enterprise Ireland cofunds in partnership with VCs and banks.

A need to improve funding supply is becoming evident, delegates heard. While Ireland has benefited from significant amounts of capital inflows in recent years, it “hasn’t hit all points equally,” said Donnchadh Cullinan, manager, banking relations and growth capital at Enterprise Ireland. 

In particular, a gap at seed stage is emerging. This is having a knock-on effect on the later stages of a fintech start up’s funding journey, pointed out Nicola McClafferty an investor with Draper Esprit. The venture capital firm is based in London and Dublin and invests in early-stage and high-growth technology companies, from Series A upwards.

She, too, identified supply constraints in private capital for early stage investments as a challenge, pointing out too that, as a result, deal sizes in Ireland are increasingly anomalous in European terms.

“Enterprise Ireland is unique in a European context and that brings a significant advantage to Irish companies, but that gap is very real for broad scale, private capital at the seed stage,” she said.

This is despite the fact that, across Europe, there has never been so much private capital available at seed and growth stage level for companies. Its availability has caused European funding rounds to grow to a point where a previously typical €5 million Series A round is now more likely to be €10 million. Series B has gone from €10 million to €20 million, she said. 

This has not happened in Ireland, however, a fact which is not without consequence: “If you are looking at an Irish Series A company, against a UK or a French Series A company, the challenge is that there’s a lot more institutional seed funding available in the UK or France, to get companies further along to support a larger A raise. I often see Irish companies coming in to raise their €4 million A round, and you just don’t typically see that in the UK now,” she said.

Supporting Irish companies to compete globally

“What we need to do is to get companies to be able to compete at that level. It will open up even more external capital.”

Not getting to that point puts Irish start-ups hoping to raise seed funding in the UK at a disadvantage.

“Unfortunately there is a mindset of ‘You should be able to raise your seed capital locally and then go to international investors’,” said McClafferty. “If you haven’t managed to raise your seed locally, the feeling is that it says something about your company, rather than the local eco system.”

It’s a conversation she has had with seed investors in the UK. “Why can’t they raise in Ireland? is their question,” she said.

“Seed investment has shrunk in Ireland in the last year and it’s something we need to look at. Enterprise Ireland plays an amazing role but we need to see that matched from private capital to get these companies to a point where they can compete at an international level for funding.”

 

Enjoyed this article? Learn more on fintech opportunities here: Irish fintechs primed to shine with post-Brexit opportunity

 

Irish Dog Foods learns new market research tricks to target export growth

 Irish Dog Foods learns new market research tricks to target export growth

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When Irish Dog Foods needed to learn more about the relationship between man and his best friend, their first port of call was the Enterprise Ireland Market Research Centre.

The award-winning manufacturer has worked with Enterprise Ireland to develop innovative new product ranges for export during a relationship spanning more than 10 years – but the partnership has stepped up a level in the last two years.

Marketing Manager, Darren Keating explains: “Irish Dog Foods has used the Market Research Centre for every new market we’ve entered in the past two years – Portugal, Germany, Korea and Spain.

Excellent access to information

“The access to information they provide you with is excellent. They give you the tools and facilities to be better prepared when you move into new markets. As a company, you learn and benefit from the process of working with the Market Research Centre.

“We might be having a conversation internally about whether to put some effort into Poland or Denmark. At that point, we have some key questions to ask, such as what is the size of the market, who are the big players, is it dominated by retailers, is it dominated by pet stores, is it dominated by brands, or by private labels?

“One of the best avenues we would use to answer these questions would be the reports which are available at the Market Research Centre. They can give us access to data by company, sector, market and general country information. We still have to clean the data, but we wouldn’t be able to do it as professionally, quickly or as comprehensively without the facilities that the Market Research Centre provides.”

Knowledge it takes to break new markets

After more than 25 years in business and with around 50 exports markets globally, Naas-based Irish Dog Foods is one of the most recognisable names in pet food retail across the globe. However, this old dog is always keen to learn new tricks when it comes to breaking in to new international markets.

Darren explains: “When we launched in South Korea this year it was the result of 26 months of planning and preparation.

“One of the things we learned during our market research is that almost all the dogs are small – there are practically no large dogs in Korea because it’s mostly large population centres with apartment living. That meant we specifically targeted the owners of small dogs.

“We also learned that the average spend on pet food was very high in Korea, so we were able to target our very high-quality foods at the buyers and retailers. That information came from reports provided by the Market Research Centre. It meant that when we were making our pitches, we were knowledgeable, we were experienced, we knew what we were doing, and it was impressive in terms of the buyer listening to us.

“The impression the buyers got was, ‘these guys know what they’re doing. They’re not just throwing everything on the table, they have an understanding of what will work in my market. It wasn’t the reason why we got the business, but it was a big help and it did make our pitches more professional.”

New markets can be big revenue drivers

The new markets Irish Dog Foods has moved into recently are expected to become significant revenue drivers over the next five years, and the company plans to continue its work with the Market Research Centre.

Darren says: “Recently, we started thinking about targeting the Polish market. We want to know things like, what’s the percentage of dog-owning households, what’s the dog population, what is a consumption of dog food – and what about dry food versus wet food? We can get that information in reports from the Market Research Centre and it helps us really get into the detail of the dog food category in Poland.

“We can also use them for lead generation. Who are the top 20 retailers in Poland? Can I get a database of all the pet distributors in Poland? If we get 200 leads and there are 50 targetable leads after cleaning, then that’s a good start.”

“The Market Research Centre doesn’t do our work for us, but it does provide the material
for us to do our work – and that makes the process much easier.”

Learn more about Enterprise Ireland’s Market Diversification supports here.

 

How investing in growth paid off for SF Engineering

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Visit almost any leading food company around the world and you are quite likely to find production line technology supplied by Irish firm SF Engineering.

Since its establishment in 1983, SF Engineering has been responsible for more than €250 million worth of food processing projects in 63 countries across Europe, North and South America, Russia, the Middle East, and Australia.

Central to the company’s success during that time has been its commitment to innovation and unwavering customer focus.

“We started off in the fish industry,” says CEO and founder, Seamus Farrell. “After that, we moved into the red meat sector and the broader food industry. This wasn’t part of a grand plan. It sort of happened accidently.”

It was a natural evolution, however, given the impact the company had already had on the fish sector. “What we did for the fish industry was futuristic,” he says. “At the time, it cost around €25 per tonne to process fish. We reduced that price to €4 per tonne by automating the process. That was our first big kill and set us up for future growth. After that, we moved into the Scottish and Scandinavian fish sectors – that was quite a natural move for us. We have never been export shy.”

Today, SF Engineering designs, manufactures and installs high-quality food production lines. Specific product lines include conveyors, packing solutions, platforms, weighing equipment, fat analysis, quality control, hygiene equipment, lifting and tipping equipment.

“Our process design expertise enables us to deliver highly efficient food production lines that reduce costs, increase capacity and require less maintenance”, says Farrell. “Our food technology experience covers a range of sectors, including meat, poultry, fish, bakery, dairy, fruit and veg, ready meals and pet food. We are experts in the precision engineering of complex engineering systems for the food sector and we provide a trustworthy support service to our clients who operate around the clock throughout the year.”

Expansion into international markets began in earnest in the late 1990s and this saw the company form a number of key strategic alliances with global partners. “We have formed great partnerships with companies, firstly the main one being Ishida, then following on from that CEIA,  Marelec and Eagle”, says Farrell. “They have been very important to us. They allow us to combine our complementary strengths in different areas to supply turnkey solutions to the global food industry.”

These partnerships have been an important source of new business referrals, but the company is active on international markets winning new orders. “You have to keep driving on,” says Farrell. “We have consistently invested in R&D over the years, with support from Enterprise Ireland and others. Back in 2009, when Irish businesses were severely challenged by the recession, we made a decision to invest in growth.”

That decision saw the acquisition of Opal FPS in St Ives, Cambridgeshire. “That helped us to grow our sales in the UK. It has also Brexit-proofed our business.”

Another key decision around that time was the opening of a new base in Prague, where the company’s Global Installation Team is based. The relationship with the Czech Republic dates back to the late 1990s.

“In the late 1990s and early 2000s we found that we were losing people to the building boom,” says Farrell. “That led to us employing a lot of people from the Czech Republic. We found them to be very good stainless steel fabricators. Without those guys we wouldn’t have been able to expand internationally as quickly as we did. The Global Installation Team is in transit, with all the team travelling around the world from project to project.”

Farrell is grateful to Enterprise Ireland and the other bodies which supported the company in its growth and development over the years. “They believed in the company and supported us, and that was very important.”

He believes export success begets further export success. “Having supplied all these blue chip companies around the world gives us the confidence to go out and win more business,” he says.

“We are also very lucky to come from a country with a very strong food industry, which has travelled well globally and has established a reputation for high quality. Our core values are to be as professional and competitive as possible. We are never going to be the cheapest, but we will add the most value and deliver the best and fastest return on investment to our customers. We are large enough to compete around the world but small enough to be flexible when it comes to delivering solutions for customers. We understand that retailers and consumers want more affordable, safer food on supermarket shelves, and they want very good quality. We provide the solutions that enable our customers to meet that demand.”

These core values have seen SF Engineering expand to employ 110 people in Ireland, the UK and Prague, with business growing strongly year on year. “We will have sales of €20 million this year,” Farrell concludes.

Learn how Enterprise Ireland enables companies to access R&D funding with our innovation supports.

How Dublin’s Novaerus helps the world to breathe easier

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The soaring heat of 2018 highlighted the value of clean water. In Ireland, it was scarcely a matter of days before blue skies and barbecues were replaced by water shortage warnings and hosepipe bans.

Even in a country in which it rains much of the time, there was little grumbling about these restrictions. We understand the complex effort and investment required to ‘create’ water that is fit for human consumption.

Water grabs headlines. But there is another natural resource, just as important to human health, that until recently has been taken largely for granted – the air that we breathe.

Why the quality of indoor air matters

“It’s only recently that we’ve become aware that the quality of our indoor air is not as good as we thought, and is contributing to poor health and infection,” says Kieran McBrien of Dublin-based Novaerus.

“This problem is compounded by the fact that we humans spend most of our time indoors, where air gets trapped and endlessly recycled,” he says. “Each human being is shedding thousands of skin cells every hour, throwing off billions of micro-organisms every minute, and we’re breathing it – all of it.”

For humans who spend most of their time indoors – especially vulnerable populations like children, the elderly, and the sick – particulate matter and contaminants in indoor air can exacerbate asthma, allergies, and chronic diseases, and directly lead to viral and bacterial infections.

This is the problem Novaerus was founded to address. Operating mainly in the healthcare sector, the company has patented a plasma technology that reduces the airborne pollutants which lead to health problems like infection, allergies, asthma and irritation.

Novaerus manufactures a range of portable devices that can be found in hospitals – operating theatres, ICUs, emergency rooms, patient wards, construction areas – as well as elderly and child care facilities, schools, and emergency response vehicles, anywhere in fact that the quality of air can detract from human health, productivity and wellbeing.

Standing up for air quality

Kieran McBrien, Senior Vice President for International Business Development, has been with Novaerus since its foundation and says that in the early days, the main obstacle the company faced was an unwillingness to accept that anything was wrong with the air quality.

“In hospitals, for example, most hygiene standards still don’t apply to air quality so it’s an easy one to ignore,” he says. “That’s despite a mountain of scientific evidence showing that pathogens can travel for long distances on the air currents that swirl around hospitals and other buildings. As long as the air is moving, so is the bacteria.” These bacteria and viruses can transmit infection via the air or they can fall on to instruments or surfaces to contaminate hands.

“Some markets are more accepting that air quality is an issue,” McBrien says. “We started in the US where we targeted the elderly care sector, and today we have a significant number of installations that are helping to reduce the instance of respiratory illnesses and other airborne issues. We’re also branching out through hygiene programs in schools.”

The firm has also gained traction in Africa, Eastern Europe and particularly Asia – in South Korea, for example, a staggering 80% of all ambulance rescue vehicles now carry Novaerus technology. (Novaerus is also one of only two companies to pass stringent air sterilisation standards set by the South Korean government to enter operating theatres.)

Reaching global distribution

Having started small, Novaerus is now operating in the big time. Sales of the portable devices are expected to grow by 40-50% this year and the company is targeting markets including China, Germany, Japan and India next year and beyond.

Distribution is handled by a global network of partners, mostly in the healthcare sector, who pitch and sell the proprietary technology into hospitals, clinics, ICUs, operating theatres, anywhere there are people whose immune system is compromised – including the staff whose daily attendance is integral to the business operation.

Innovation is the driving force behind this success – “our whole operation revolves around R&D,” says McBrien – and the company has an enviable facility including fully-equipped labs at its HQ in the DCU Innovation Centre, Dublin. (The company also has a US base.)

A decade or so on, however, Novaerus has not forgotten the role played by Enterprise Ireland in its growth. “Enterprise Ireland got involved with us at an early stage and helped us to find distributors in the US, Asia, Europe and the Middle East, most of whom are still with us, says McBrien.

“The effort that Enterprise Ireland puts in to help Irish companies is just fantastic,” he says. “Setting up trade missions, getting small companies onto the big stage, opening doors, where else would you get it?”

McBrien, a native of Belfast with a background in business and languages, is also adamant that being Irish on the global stage is an advantage. “For us, there’s the whole tech side of things where [Ireland] has a very good reputation,” he says. “The Irish are seen as friendly people, very receptive and good to do business with.”

Hanley Energy’s path to powering giants of the internet

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Innovative solutions and a partnership approach have been central to the success of Hanley Energy, a global innovator in energy and power management delivery.

Headquartered in Stamullen, Co. Meath, Hanley Energy was set up in 2009 by co-founders Dennis Nordon and Clive Gilmore. The pair started out in a Local Enterprise Office incubation centre and, thanks to decades of experience in designing and delivering turnkey solutions for Europe’s most power-intensive users, they quickly built up a portfolio of domestic clients, including CIÉ, Glanbia, Roadstone and Largo Foods.

“Initially all our work was with indigenous Irish companies, providing energy management solutions, in real time, for companies who wanted to see exactly what their energy usage was,” says Nordon.

While the company still operates across a range of sectors, from food production to pharmaceutical, transport and heavy manufacturing, in 2010 it began developing specialist power management solutions for the country’s burgeoning data centre sector.

Powering data centres – lynch pin of the digital world

Used to house the vast banks of computing power required to store, process and distribute an insatiable amount of data, these data centres are the lynch pin of the digital world and one for which continuous, clean energy supply is mission critical.

Hanley Energy developed a range of bespoke solutions to enable its Tier 1 data centre clients to maximise uptime and minimise operational costs. Because of the secrecy that surrounds data centres, it cannot name these clients but suffice to say, “they are the giants of the internet,” says Nordon.

In 2013, the company opened a new headquarters and manufacturing facility in Stamullen. Within 18 months it had doubled in size. Demand is such that in 2018 a further extension will see it expand its physical footprint by 50%.

Today Hanley Energy employs 57 people and has grown by providing clients with a one stop shop solution for energy products, software and service, from consultancy and advisory, to design, build & maintenance, as well as the complete life cycle management process.

“Essentially, we help our clients to reduce their overall energy costs, ensure 100% up-time and optimise their operational competitiveness,” says Nordon.

But it isn’t just technical know-how that accounts for Hanley Energy’s success. “While innovation is our unique selling proposition, a key driver of our growth is relationships,” he says.

“Our commercial tag line is ‘Trusted Energy Partner’ and that is our ethos. It’s by being a trusted partner that you can really add value for clients. It’s about building relationships and working with clients on a partnership model over the long term.”

It is this partnership approach that has helped them develop its significant overseas business, starting with an invitation from a client located in Ireland to deliver a cutting-edge solution to one of its overseas plants.

“They realised we are not some ordinary ‘me too’ vendor and asked us to look into a problem they were having in the United States,” explains Nordon.

“Hanley Energy is not simply a reseller or integrator but a developer of innovative technologies. We’ve been working with big data centres for long enough now that we understand the challenges they face. They are enormous power consumers with a mandate that requires them to keep that power on 24/7 365 days a year. For these clients, an outage simply cannot occur. We are tasked with keeping the power on and we create the solutions to do that,” says Nordon.

“We also provide the metrics that allow granularity as to how much power they are using and where they are using it. When you are using energy at this level, a percentage saving is colossal.”

Leveraging the overseas presence of multinational clients based here has enabled Hanley Energy to establish operations in Germany, Sweden, the US and Australia, with a further office planned for South Africa.

Once Hanley Energy has established a presence in each new market it then seeks out additional opportunities there, which require its skillset and expertise.

Resourcing global expansion

“Enterprise Ireland’s overseas offices have been a huge help to us in that, from providing us with initial office space, to making introductions and identifying opportunities,” he says.

Expanding into international markets can put a massive strain on resources. To avoid this Hanley Energy has implemented a Global Competence Centre model as part of its strategic growth plan, based at its Irish headquarters. 

“Our senior management and technical expertise resides in Ireland and all our research & development and new product development operations take place here,” says Nordon.

“Many of our products are IP (intellectual property) protected and have taken years to develop. So when we enter a new market, operating on a Global Competence Centre model allows us to parachute our expert personnel in wherever and whenever they are required, to train up the teams on the ground. This has helped us get up to speed quickly in each new market. It is a very effective way to scale and has been our strategic driver for growth.”

To learn more about expanding your business internationally visit Markets & Opportunities.