Go global or go broke!

Without the internet, our company would no longer exist. That is the stark truth in a business that can no longer be sustained by local markets or conventional marketing. The message is: ‘Go global or go broke.’

It seems incredible that we took our first tentative steps into web trading as recently as 2003. At that time our business was still 95% UK-based and most enquiries came from the traditional sub-contracted plating and finishing sectors.

Having established an internet presence with our first proper web site, my eyes were first opened up to its potential at an exhibition in Germany during spring 2004. A company from the Far East that had found my website came to the stand, bought several items of equipment and handed over a cheque for £45,000.00. This covered the cost of the show by a factor of 10!

That same year, our export sales rose from 5% to 20%, and the following year to 35%. After falling back slightly last year, partly due to the strength of sterling, we are now seeing overseas sales rising again towards the 35% level.

It is not only exports that have benefited from web exposure. For our machinery resale business, the internet has unlocked previously untapped opportunities across a myriad of manufacturing processes and products. From blasting paving stones to barrelling widgets, from tiny workshops in Mumbai to large factories in Minnesota, they are all beating a path to our door.

Their requirements are diverse and unpredictable. Some are looking for a stop-gap solution to a production bottle-neck. Some require major new plants and others have equipment that they want to sell to us. Although many are ‘tyre kickers’, others offer valuable opportunities.

So how do we do it? For a start, we have adhered to the mantra: ‘Content is king’. Just as the dishwasher repair man told me recently that ‘You can never add too much salt’, so our webmaster tells me, ‘You can never add too much keyword content.’ Our site is stuffed with information on all of the key subjects in our industry: Plating, degreasing, peaning, pickling, annealing and rumbling to name just a few. When multiplied by the six languages that the site is created in, it all adds up to a big fat fly for a Google spider.

Secondly, we leave no stone unturned in the process of bringing people to our site. As well as traditional marketing and mass emailing, we have also introduced a website membership scheme. This is building into a large global community of industry professionals, entrepreneurs, academics and others that have opted in to our database. In turn we are able to automatically keep them informed about items of interest as they are added to our stock.

We employ a professional company to undertake ‘organic’ search engine optimisation. This maintains our position on the front page of Google for many of the key search phrases that are relevant to our business. Because our products are so diverse, we have a ‘long tail’ of over 200 search terms hitting our site on any given day.

For tactical marketing of specific areas, such as our new product lines, we utilise the Google ‘pay-per-click’ scheme. This places short, punchy classified ads onto Google pages to initiate page views and encourage enquiries.

Of course, none of this activity comes cheaply. However, we have discovered over the years that the Business Link network is a very valuable resource to industry. For our most recent phase of web development, we received 33% funding, which is well worth having.

As the recession starts to bite and doing deals gets more complex, we can console ourselves in the knowledge that our web site continues to creep up the search engine rankings, our membership scheme is attracting new potential buyers every day and our brand recognition is growing throughout the global finishing industry.

In the next issue, I will reveal how our development has integrated our purchasing and accounting systems into one web-driven business platform, linked to a worldwide marketing network.

Article September 2008

Riley Surface World recently used the inaugural exhibition of SAMFA (The South African Surface Finishing Association) to launch its new trading name and web site.

SurfacEx 08 in Johannesburg featured mainly home-grown South African companies or subsidiaries of international manufacturers and chemical suppliers. We were the only UK company to attend, having forged strong links with SAMFA over the last few years.

Our involvement in the South African market occurred almost by chance back in 2004. To improve our exports we were following a government-sponsored programme entitled ‘Passport to Export’. Part of the course offered subsidised travel and market research to several countries, including South Africa.

Now for the personal motivation. As a keen kite surfer, I knew that the Cape region offered some of the best conditions for my sport in the World. What a great opportunity to combine business with pleasure.

Prior to embarking, I contacted the SEA to find out if there was an equivalent organisation there. They duly put me in touch with SAMFA’s general secretary, Tony van der Spuy, who by chance lived and worked in Cape Town. Over a few beers a new friendship was formed and we agreed to become a SAMFA member.

SAMFA was formed in 2003. It came about as the result of an initiative by the Danish government to improve the safety standards in the South African surface finishing industry. In order to benefit from the funding, the companies needed to form a recognised trade association, so SAMFA was born.

The association has followed the blueprint set by the SEA for much of its organisation and activities. It holds regular seminars and networking events’ and it gives out awards to encourage enterprise and excellence.

It has also followed the example of the UK’s Surface World show when planning its own exhibition. Although it was on a smaller scale, SurfacEx 08 had a similar number and variety of exhibition stands and attracted visitors from across a wide spectrum of South African industries.

The result has been that South Africa has become one of our best export markets, offering opportunities to sell and buy used machinery in all areas of the country. It has buoyant engineering and automotive sectors and, unlike the UK, is still growing strongly in areas such as mining and foundry, exploiting the country’s rich natural resources.

Members of SAMFA are benefiting from this solid industrial base. They are also reaping the rewards of South Africa being the powerhouse economy for the whole of Africa. Of course, there are challenges as a result of the changes that are taking place in society. South African industry is no longer white dominated as it was in the past. Positive discrimination is prevalent, particularly in the public sector, but this seems to be working well as the country undergoes transition.

With the World Cup due in 2010, there are even greater opportunities with many new infrastructure projects taking place. There are also emerging markets in neighbouring countries such as Botswana, Angola and Tanzania, who are developing their manufacturing in conjunction with their mineral resources.

South Africa, as a former colonial country, looks to the UK and Europe for most of its practices and partnerships. By helping to play a part in the development of its surface finishing industry, we in the UK will ultimately benefit as well.

Article July 2008

The great wit and raconteur, Noël Coward once wrote a song entitled ‘Bad times are just around the corner’. It would make a fitting signature tune for the harbingers of doom in the surface finishing industry, many of whom have been humming the tune metaphorically for as long as I can remember.

They bemoan the decline in the traditional, sub-contracted electroplating sector. Indeed, there has been a steep decline in the numbers and sizes of these companies in the current decade. I speak as the head of a company that has, until recently, relied on the wet treatments sector for its bread and butter.

However, the reasons for this apparent contraction are much more complex than the anecdotal evidence would suggest. In fact, I would argue that, on the contrary, there has been a steady increase in special surface engineering activities in recent years.

Surface finishing has always been a dynamic and flexible part of manufacturing. Equipment, chemicals and processes are constantly evolving to meet industry demands. Influencing factors are qualitative, legislative and environmental to name just a few.

The restructuring of many UK based manufacturers into global players has resulted in a large percentage of primary manufacturing activities moving to developing countries such as India, China and Eastern Europe. So it is natural that the sub-contractors and their suppliers in those areas are benefiting from the organic growth taking place.

Conversely, what we are seeing in our home market is the re-emergence of ‘start-to-finish’ manufacturing that encompasses some or all of the procedures that were previously out-sourced. In our own business we are seeing an increased demand for items such as shot blasting equipment, mass finishing machinery and heat treatment plants.

The re-instatement of these processes gives manufacturers much more control over their production cycles. Modern conveyor systems allow for finishing stages to be integrated into fully automated production lines, some with CNC controls, which are far more efficient than older manual systems.

We are also seeing a trend for high volume component manufacturers in India, China etc. bringing raw, unfinished products into UK factories for in-house ‘re-finishing’. This is particularly true when the skills of UK surface finishing engineers are superior to their counterparts in those countries.

The UK has also witnessed a renaissance in new ‘clean’ industries, for which metal finishing makes a vital contribution. There may be a decline in the old, metal-bashing industries, but this is more than made up for by the growth in sectors such as aerospace, medical equipment, electronics, specialist automotive and value-added component manufacture.

This intrinsic dynamism provides vital opportunities for OEM finishing equipment manufacturers, chemical suppliers and technical consultants right across the board. In my company, we are benefiting because there are much more frequent changes in the structures of production plants, with more relocation and refurbishment of machinery, both within these shores and overseas.

Bad times may be just around the corner for some. However, for those with the skills, flexibility and foresight to see the opportunities that these changes present, the future looks much more positive.