How Brexit drove Associated Rewinds to grow in new markets

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“Our focus up to two years ago was on the UK and Scandinavian markets, so when the Brexit vote came we recognised quickly that we were very exposed”

– Eamonn Griffith, International Sales Manager

Key Takeouts:

  • A strategic decision to target EU markets in response to Brexit.
  • Niche specialists with clients that invest millions of euro in locomotives who want to maximise the lifespan of that investment.
  • The Enterprise Ireland market research support was the ideal mechanism to help realise market diversification ambitions.

Case Study: Associated Rewinds

The outcome of the UK Brexit referendum in June 2016 prompted a strategic rethink on the part of Associated Rewinds, the Tallaght-based company that is the largest independent specialist in Europe for re-engineering, repairing and maintaining traction motors for trains, trams and metro systems. While the company boasts customers stretching from Scandinavia to Spain and Saudi Arabia, it had concerns in relation to its level of exposure to the UK market.

“Our focus up to two years ago was on the UK and Scandinavian markets, so when the Brexit vote came we recognised quickly that we were very exposed”, says international sales manager Eamonn Griffith. “We couldn’t predict the long-term impact but fluctuations in sterling became a problem again very quickly. It was like going back to the pre-euro days.”

In 2015, Associated Rewinds completed a large investment of approximately €5 million in a third factory in Tallaght, increasing capacity by 30%. “Due to Brexit and our increased capacity, we took a strategic decision that we needed to reduce our exposure to the UK as quickly as possible. We targeted EU markets – France, Germany, Austria and other countries where there is a sizeable volume of train assets and currency stability.”

The company enjoys considerable advantages when it comes to exploring new markets. “We are a niche specialist in traction motors for the rail sector”, Eamonn explains. “We remanufacture and maintain the motors. Our clients invest millions of euro in locomotives and they want to maximise the lifespan of that investment. They want to get 40–50 years’ life out of their assets and maintenance is crucial. It’s like owning a car, if you maintain it well, you will get a much longer life and better value from it.”

Associated Rewinds services all the main motor brands – GM, Bombardier, Siemens, Alstom and so on – and it has earned a reputation for solving difficult problems for customers. “Our clients have different environmental challenges. Scandinavia is subject to big weather extremes, with hot summers and very cold winters. We have the experience and capabilities to redesign and rebuild the motors to suit the environment. This sets us apart from our competitors.”

One example of such a customer is the Royal Mail in the UK which, 12 years ago, was experiencing severe difficulties with motors failing and trains breaking down on the tracks. “It was causing such chaos that it got to the stage where they were told to take the trains off the line until they resolved the problem. They asked us to investigate and establish what was causing their problems which resulted in us redesigning the motors. They haven’t had a single failure since. Royal Mail has since been happy to recommend us to other rail companies.”

Associated Rewinds discussed its ambitions for market diversification with Enterprise Ireland. “We wanted to reduce our UK exposure and fill our increased capacity as quickly as possible”, says Eamonn Griffith.

The Enterprise Ireland market research support was “the ideal mechanism to help us. It enabled us to do what we intended to do much more quickly than our resources allowed us to do and helped us carry out detailed market research in each of the target countries. We put in our application to Enterprise Ireland in late 2016 and received approval in January 2017. We have made some really good progress in the past 12 months.”

The French national rail company SNCF audited the Associated Rewinds facilities recently. “We have just received our first order from them. In addition to our original target markets we have received our first orders from Spain and Belgium. Our increased access to the European rail market is a direct result of the expansion of our sales team, combined with the results of the Enterprise Ireland market research undertaken into each of our target markets.

This research helped find where there was most demand for the company’s services. “We wanted to identify companies with problematic motors. That is the sweet spot and gives us something concrete to bring to the table with potential customers.”

“I would recommend the Enterprise Ireland programme very highly to other companies. Their office network in Europe is very helpful and the Enterprise Ireland people have been around the block many times. They are knowledgeable about both the positive and challenging aspects of researching and entering new markets. Enterprise Ireland has experienced the successes and failures of many other companies before us and can help companies like Associated Rewinds avoid the pitfalls and capitalise on previous success.

Researching and validating new markets can be an expensive and a time-consuming process. The Enterprise Ireland market research support assists with that. But you need to have a very clear focus on what you want to achieve and know your value proposition for that market.”

 Learn how Enterprise Ireland’s Diversification supports can help you to develop market knowledge and prepare for the challenges of entering new markets.

 

East Coast Bakehouse

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“Knowing what Enterprise Ireland do, they are about creating real employment opportunities in Ireland. We knew for us it was a credible soundboard to the plan that we had.”

Darragh Monaghan – Commercial Director

Who

East Coast Bakehouse are a Louth-based biscuit producer. Using the finest ingredients, they have created a range of biscuits which landed on shelves in September 2016.

How

Accessing relevant funding from Enterprise Ireland enabled East Coast Bakehouse to secure and fit out their 50,000 sq ft manufacturing facility.

Result

East Coast Bakehouse are in a position to produce enough product to enter both the UK and Irish market simultaneously.

See How We Helped East Coast Bakehouse

Dawn Farms Meeting Customer Expectations Through Innovation

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“We have had a long-standing positive and proactive relationship with Enterprise Ireland and currently avail of its R&D support programme”

– John McGrath, Head of Business Development

 

Case Study: Dawn Farms

Established in 1985, Dawn Farms is a family-owned company and the largest specialist supplier of cooked and fermented meat protein ingredients outside of the USA. The company currently supplies world-leading food brands across more than 40 markets, including the UK, the wider EU, the Middle East and Africa, offering a “one-stop shop” to customers in the pizza, sandwich, snacking and ready meal categories.

Named Irish Food and Drink Exporter of the Year in 2016, the company employs over 1,000 staff based in state-of-the-art facilities in Naas, County Kildare, and Northampton, England.

According to Head of Business Development John McGrath, a holistic relationship-based service that puts the customer’s brand first – with product, process and service innovation playing a central role in its total value proposition – is at the heart of the company’s success.

“We have identified a number of key trends, based on consumer insights, that drive our product development pipeline”, he explains. These include the “quest for health and wellness” and “sustainable lives”.

In line with these trends, all Dawn Farms products are free from artificial colours, hydrogenated fats and MSG, while also meeting the latest standards on salt.

The company’s new Streetfood Collection, born out of its extensive investment in consumer insights, combines a bespoke cook and sear process to produce a range of Mexican, American and Korean-inspired street food cooked meat products to allow their customers meet growing demand in the hand-held snack and food to go markets across Europe. Cooked “low and slow”, this new range brings all the flavours of street food alive and comes in vacuum-sealed pouches for better and more consistent recipe and flavour delivery in store.

“Today’s consumers are seeking out authentic and better tasting food experiences”, says McGrath. “The Street Food Collection delivers on that need for Dawn Farms customers.”

 

     

    The company’s Texan BBQ Beef Burnt Ends sandwich filling is another example of this consumer-led innovation in action. “Consumers today are becoming more discerning about barbecue food and this is evident in the different types of regional barbecue sauces offered in burger chains as well as the broad choice of restaurants seeking to deliver authentic American barbecue experience and tastes”, McGrath points out. “It also taps into the ‘back to basics’ food trend – a return to primeval cooking methods such as grilling, barbecuing and fermentation. The burnt ends’ concept also fits the sensorial trend towards charring, blackened and burnt textures in ingredients from meat to ice cream.”

    Similarly, the company’s Italian-Style Porchetta product was inspired by traditional Italian street food. “The rationale behind this ingredient is to give food-to-go consumers an authentic Italian food experience. This fits in with the Borrowed Nostalgia food trend, where people are looking for traditional food experiences from other countries. Porchetta is a traditional Italian roasted pork delicacy, typically sold from a cart or a truck, sliced to order and served in a sandwich as a quick treat at the market or at a fair.”

    “We have had a long-standing positive and proactive relationship with Enterprise Ireland and currently avail of its R&D support programme”, he adds. “This has allowed us develop a range of product and process improvements across the business that underpin our commercial strategy and foster new growth opportunities in a very demanding marketplace.”

    CustomerMinds makes digital communications API ever after for major clients

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    “Creating the new API interface was a great experience for the team because the developers knew they were building something that was core to the business in the near term. Almost as soon as they were building it, it was being used commercially.”

    – Jonny Parkes, CEO, CustomerMinds

    Key Takeouts:

    • Enterprise Ireland’s RD&I grant transformed capabilities and opened up a clear path to additional exports.
    • Their forward-thinking approach won major new projects in the UK.
    • Partnerships with third parties are set to drive further international expansion.

    Case Study: CustomerMinds

    “Helping big companies communicate better with their customers is at the heart of what we do,” says Jonny Parkes, CEO of CustomerMinds, a Dublin-based enterprise software company. “Think large banks or utilities, which have hundreds of thousands – or, in some cases, millions – of customers. They want to communicate more effectively with those customers but often have large legacy platforms or different systems bolted on to deal with their core business.”

    Such companies could benefit from a streamlined digital communication capability – and that’s what CustomerMinds offers. Over the past ten years, it’s built a platform to help clients switch from traditional communication channels to digital ones.

    “We give them a centralised platform that picks up feeds from their different systems and then triggers relevant communications that are personalised and targeted,” explains Parkes.

    In 2015, the company received an Enterprise Ireland’s RD&I grant that transformed its capabilities. Parkes, who is chairperson of the Learnovate Centre at Trinity College Dublin, foresaw that APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) were the way of the future; APIs are clearly defined methods of communication between various software components. The funding allowed CustomerMinds to hire an experienced API developer and dedicated business development person.

    “When Google Maps came along with their API, it became very simple to include their maps on websites. All a web developer had to do was pop in a line of code and Google did the rest,” Parkes explains. “Our APIs give similar ‘out of the box’ functionality, allowing our clients to easily access our services.” The CustomerMinds API project yielded immediate rewards, winning the company a number of major new financial services projects in the UK.

    “They wanted to replace all their existing customer communications, which were mainly paper-based with emails and SMS, but their platform wasn’t able to do nicely branded, personalised responses,” Parkes says. The new API allowed them to do just that, quickly and easily, by linking directly to CustomerMinds, where all their content, reporting and analytics now reside.

    The roll-out took a matter of months, when the client had originally estimated that it would take years and cost significantly more. On the heels of that success, CustomerMinds has begun another five projects with the same UK client, all leveraging the new API. For every message sent, the Irish company earns a small fee, as well as receiving licensing revenue for the core platform. “If they are communicating more effectively with their customers, we are benefiting from that as a business,” says Parkes.

    The Enterprise Ireland grant was key to this success, with Parkes describing the funding as ‘special’ because of its combined focus on technology R&D and business innovation. “The new online process streamlined our application and made life easier too,” he adds.

    “Without the grant, we would probably have built an API slowly, while focusing on client projects or billable work,” reflects Parkes.

    Thanks to the grant, however, return has been rapid, with CustomerMinds already securing significant six-figure deals on the back of the new technology.

    According to Parkes, “It was a great experience for the team because the developers knew they were building something that was core to the business in the near term. Almost as they were building it, it was being used commercially.”

    Parkes is now looking to build partnerships with third parties who provide systems to banks and utilities so that they can wrap their systems with the communication layer that CustomerMinds offers. The third parties’ platforms might be running the business for their clients, but without a dedicated communication platform. “The UK and Ireland are our home markets,” says Parkes, “further international expansion will likely be driven by these partnership approaches.”

    Click here to learn more about Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation supports.

    New combined antenna solution helps Alpha Wireless maximise its potential

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    “The Business Innovation Initiative funding allowed us to set up an advisory group of industry experts from across the globe. We worked with them to review the market, decide what technologies were needed and develop something new.”

    – Fergal Lawlor, CEO, Alpha Wireless

     

    Case Study: Alpha Wireless

    “The telecommunications market is changing rapidly; 5G is on the way, and new antennas are required to provide increased data capacity while meeting new stringent environmental standards and legislation” says Fergal Lawlor. “We need our R&D team to consistently come up with innovative new products so we can stay relevant.” Lawlor is CEO of Alpha Wireless, an antenna manufacturer headquartered in Portlaoise.

    Alpha Wireless, a recipient of RD&I funding and Business Innovation Initiative funding from Enterprise Ireland, develops and supplies a range of antennas that allow phone masts to communicate with devices such as smartphones.

    The company is export-focused; approximately 90–95 percent of its sales are in overseas markets, with North America and Israel among the biggest. A recent round of funding from Enterprise Ireland, however, saw the company develop a product specifically to suit the needs of a market a little closer to home – the UK.

    Throughout towns and cities, antennas for telecommunications are now being integrated with street infrastructure, rather than mounted on large masts. This is driven by environmental aesthetics, and is rigorously policed by national planning authorities. Alpha Wireless worked closely with its customers in the UK to design a new product tailored to follow the UK’s specific regulations. Enterprise Ireland’s Business Innovation Initiative funding was key to this effort.

    Key Takeouts

    • Enterprise Ireland’s Business Innovation Initiative funding allowed Alpha Wireless to respond to an emerging market need, initially for the UK market, but with the potential to expand to other international markets.
    • RD&I funding helped the company to develop a new type of combined antenna solution.
    • The new product allowed the company to increase sales, exports and number of employees.

    “The Business Innovation Initiative funding allowed us to set up an advisory group of industry experts from across the globe,” says Lawlor. “We worked with them to review the market, decide what technologies were needed and develop a new concept.”

    Many of the challenges were not just specific to the UK market. The combination of the industry panel and a dedicated on-site R&D department helped the company to tailor its solution and break into the market. They needed to integrate multiple antennas into a cylindrical tube that sits on top of a street pole. “UK planning permission and zoning requirements meant that we had only a 330mm-diameter tube for all the required antennas,” explains Lawlor. The challenge was to get the antenna’s multi-band functionality into that space. The Alpha Wireless researchers needed to miniaturise the technology but keep as much of its functionality as possible.

    “It took us six to nine months to design the combined antenna, which was intense in terms of R&D resources. The RD&I funding came in very useful during this period and helped us increase the size of our R&D team,” recalls Lawlor.

    The result was a complete suite of antennas small enough to be mounted onto a lamppost, providing coverage at street level where it is really needed. The company’s focus on learning the needs of its market, and the resulting innovative technology, has paid dividends.

    Since applying for the Enterprise Ireland funding in 2015, Alpha Wireless sales in the UK are now in the millions and it has more than doubled its Irish workforce to 120 employees. It’s not resting on these laurels, though; combined antenna solutions have global potential, and Alpha Wireless has begun selling variations elsewhere, including the US, Canada and Greece.

    Lawlor is enthusiastic about the funding the company received from Enterprise Ireland and explains that the application process can help companies to think strategically. “We always keep our business plan up to date, so applying for the Enterprise Ireland funding was a simple task,” he says. “However, for a company that isn’t already forward-looking then the application will help, by providing an opportunity to think strategically and plan.”

    Click here to learn more about Enterprise Ireland’s Innovation supports.

    Achieve efficiencies in your business using Lean

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    Dr Richard Keegan, Manager at the Enterprise Ireland Competitiveness Department outlines procedures for achieving efficiencies in your business

    Companies challenged by the UK’s vote to leave the EU should review their business models as one part of a strategy for coping with any depreciation in sterling and any loss of competitiveness arising from a UK departure from the Single Market.

    With margins potentially squeezed, managers should consider ways of reducing their cost-base by reviewing processes and procedures.

    At Enterprise Ireland, we work with clients to help them increase performance using what are called “Lean” tools and techniques.

    Perhaps the most important thing to bear in mind about developing a Lean business is that human resource capacity and capability is a thread that runs through the entire process.

    Lean principles

    Lean principles were first developed by Toyota in Japan in the 1950s to make production processes more time- and cost-efficient.

    It is very much about technology and engineering but it is not confined to that. It runs through the whole value chain with the aim of outputting a better offering to the customer at a better price.

    While first developed with manufacturing in mind, Lean is now used widely in services in both the private and public sectors. Management philosophy, workforce culture and human resource development are all part of the Lean approach.

    Product development and design, purchasing, manufacturing, administration, logistics and sales all come under review with the aim of working more efficiently from the shop floor to the boardroom to the point of delivery and after-sales service.

    People

    Experience shows that human resources are central to successful Lean processes. That means being fair to staff. It also means being firm: once you decide how things should be done, everyone must stick with it. That also means being consistent with how you deal with people, problems and issues.

    Much of people’s time in business is spent handling the “day job”, doing what needs to be done, or fighting fires. Lean techniques ask the question “What are we trying to achieve here?”. This helps the business see what is actually being done – the difference between the question and the answer is the gap to be bridged.

    Managers should look closely at processes, go to the place where work is done, see what is happening. It will often be quite different to what you think. That means there is gap in your understanding.

    You need to know the underlying principles that affect the outcome then think about how you can improve things. Can you “put out the fires” once and for all?

    Questions

    In carrying out this assessment be sure the following five questions can be answered: What are you doing?

    How are you doing it? Why are you doing it? Who is going to improve it? When?

    Having taken this approach, whatever you do, do something. You do not have to make it perfect, just better.

    There are three key areas of focus in developing a Lean Business: time, money and effort. It is also necessary to benchmark against your competitors as an ongoing basis.

    Time: Examine how long it takes to carry particular tasks such as: processing an order, dealing with a claim or providing a service.

    Effort: Look at the elements involved in getting work done. Be sure you know the value and need for every step along way to fulfilling a particular task.

    Money: Use it as a metric for identifying wastage and putting a value on issues, problems and delays.

    Waste

    Wastage is a key area for identifying savings. Declare war on waste. Taichi Ohno of Toyota is credited with identifying the “Seven Wastes”: Defective Service, Over Production, Inventory, Motion, Processing, Transportation and Waiting. Today we recognise a significant eighth waste, people, ie not utilising their capabilities to improve the business.

    There are many more wastes than the core eight and there is some variation between manufacturing and service businesses, but these are a good starting point on a Lean journey to competitiveness.

    When implementing Lean processes, it is important to identify a problem or issue that is both challenging and achievable. It needs to be challenging enough to allow people to feel that they have contributed to its solution and also needs to be achievable within a reasonable timescale. If the problem or issue is too big or too difficult, then the team may fail, with ongoing negative repercussions on future improvement activities.

    Enterprise Ireland provides clients with access to the best SME benchmarking systems and data in the world through our Lean Service Benchmarking tool, which gives an objective view of the competition and the client’s strengths and weaknesses.

    We also have checklists and other tools for the type of work-practice audit that could make the difference between remaining competitive in the UK and being priced out of the market.

    In fact, many exporters are already employing Lean techniques to address the threat to the bottom line caused by currency fluctuation.

    Enterprise Ireland Lean programmes have helped companies in sectors such as agri-business, manufacturing, engineering and services to improve their competitive position.

    Often, companies develop simplified and standardised ways of working that are not just more efficient but easier for implementation, training and monitoring. For case studies, see: www.enterprise-ireland/lean

    This article originally appeared in the guide Exporting to the UK? Read the full version here

    Enterprise Ireland companies with Global Ambition

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    Attendees at Enterprise Ireland‘s International Markets Week heard from established Irish companies successfully selling globally and had the opportunity for meetings with Market Advisors, available to provide expertise on exporting to new markets.

    If you are attending IMW please consider the following:

    • In which markets are you successful and how have you achieved this success?
    • What is your business/value proposition?
    • Why have you decided to target this new market?
    • What market validation have you carried out and what evidence do you have for a demand for your product / service?

    Contact the International Markets team at International Markets Week for further information.

    precision engineering

    Market Diversification – Burnside Autocyl’s Way of Dealing with Brexit

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    The fact that it has pursued a market diversification strategy for over 30 years means Burnside Autocyl’s growth is unlikely to be unduly affected by Brexit.

    Established in 1974 in Tullow, Co Carlow, Burnside Autocyl was focused on the domestic market for its first ten years and when it became saturated the UK was the logical first export market.

    However, it soon recognised the potential that existed in other markets and so branched out into Scandinavian countries and then Germany, France, the Benelux countries, Italy, the Czech Republic and Romania followed after that.

    Currently exporting into 16 different countries, its most recent venture was to establish a manufacturing and warehousing facility in Pennsylvania in the US – the company’s first global footprint outside Co Carlow in terms of manufacturing capability. It also has sales and marketing offices in Germany and France.

    Sales DirectorBurnside Autocyl designs and manufactures customised hydraulic cylinders for original equipment manufacturers in the manual handling, construction and manufacturing sectors.

    “In 2013, we identified the US as a market that we had to pursue with more gusto and so established a physical presence in 2014,” says sales director Caroline Kelly.

    “It is a hugely exciting market for us, which we are looking to grow right now. We have already seen 10% growth in sales year on year.”

    All of Burnside Autocyl’s product shipments to Europe are currently routed through the UK. This is a concern for the company post-Brexit, but a challenge it will overcome, according to Kelly.

    “It may mean our shipments will have to be bonded. A lot of questions remain to be answered. At the same time, UK competitors are in a stronger position than us because of weaker sterling,” she says.

    “However, we are not overly concerned about Brexit as the UK doesn’t make up a significant part of our overall business and we are confident about growing in other markets.”

     Learn how Enterprise Ireland’s Diversification supports can help you to develop market knowledge and prepare for the challenges of entering new markets.

    Acquiring a Company in the UK: 5 tips for Buyers

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    1.  In the UK more due diligence is done upfront than in Ireland, well ahead of creating the heads of terms agreement. It’s also regarded as a confirmatory process rather than looking for issues that could stop the process. Irish buyers need to be aware of that, advises M&A specialist Brian Murphy, a Corporate Finance Partner, DC Corporate.
    2. Brian also recommends getting lawyers involved at an early stage because, although it is very similar to Ireland’s, it is still a different legal system.
    3. There is merit in going the adviser-to-adviser route. It’s an approach that advocates say enables a buyer to be taken more seriously, more quickly. It is assumed that the adviser will have done his or her homework and have a good grasp of their client’s seriousness of intent and their ability to execute a deal.
    4. Make direct approaches to potential targets you are genuinely interested in, initially through your advisers, advises Alan Bruce MD of Anderco, a Cork-based company currently acquiring companies in the UK. “I’d advise picking up the phone and talking directly; get an appointment and have a discussion.”
    5. Remember that the UK is very open to discussing positions and tends to be transparent. It is pretty much ‘what it says on the tin’ – direct, proper and very English.

     

    Image by ‘tmy‘ on Flickr Creative Commons.

    Starting To Export – How to Get Export Ready

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    The progression from mainly operating in the Irish market to exporting is one of the most transformative and challenging transitions many companies make. Here, co-founders of Monsoon Consulting, Dublin Bharat Sharma and Stephen Kenealy, explain how Enterprise Ireland’s Get Export Ready programme helped them embark on that journey.

    What does the company do?

    We are one of the leading digital agencies in Ireland offering content and ecommerce solutions that are built on the open source Drupal and Magento content management platforms.

    How long have you been exporting?

    We’ve been exporting since taking an office in the UK in February 2014.

    What was the pivotal point that made you look at exporting?

    We were looking at enterprise-level projects, and the Irish market was limited in size, so we decided early on we should attempt to break into the UK market.

    What changes did the business have to make to become ‘export-ready’?

    We needed to become certified solutions partners in the two technology stacks we work on so that when we were going into pitches against UK firms, we’d be operating on a level playing field. We achieved certification with Magento and are now one of just 17 partners at our level across the UK and Ireland, and the only one here with it. We also became an Acquia enterprise level partner [Acquia makes a popular version of Drupal] and are currently in the process of getting all our developers certified.

    Are you targeting any other markets currently?

    At the moment it’s just a case of trying the UK and It’s just been a case of trying the UK and seeing where it goes from there. Obviously, the European market would be a target for us on a more long-term basis but we need to get traction in the UK market first to demonstrate a capability there and then to go out further. In terms of the two technologies we focus on, most of the market for these is driven and controlled from the UK and so we need to expand our footprint there and can then hopefully scale from there elsewhere in Europe. In hindsight, focusing on the UK market early in the piece, has proved beneficial as the UK works its way towards Brexit.

    What routes to market do you use?
    We have channel partnerships that we’ve established with both Acquia and Magento, and they have been good lead generation providers. We’ve also become close allies with service providers who are not our direct competition, but who complement our solutions so there’s a good reference network with them. We also realised early on that opportunities wouldn’t just fall from trees simply because we’d opened up an office in the UK so we engaged with Enterprise Ireland on a sales mentoring programme and that’s been a really great help to us. We are also looking to partner with a company over in England for more lead generation opportunities and we’ve spent a lot of time ourselves flying in and out of London, which has helped us get traction there.

    What changes did your business have to make to become export ready?

    We invested in some areas such as expanding our team. To support this, we also signed a big lease for an office near Clonskeagh where people can more easily collaborate and together. With the help of Enterprise Ireland, we’ve also looked at how we can fundamentally improve the way we do business and have embraced lean principles in our processes, which has led to a performance and productivity boost of up to 50%.

    What advice would you give other would-be exporters?

    Don’t take your eye off cash flow or off your existing clients in Ireland.

    Any mistakes you’ve made you’d care to share?

    I think we charged into the UK expecting things to take off immediately on the basis that we’d been successful in Ireland. If you can get some key references from operational stuff you’re doing here before breaking into the UK and can establish a go-to-market strategy ahead of time, it will serve you well. We didn’t do enough of this early on and it made it difficult to get in the door.

    How would you like to see the opportunity you have evolve?

    We aim to be one of the largest and most successful e-commerce and content agencies in Europe.