North West Exporter: ALS, Oliver and WFEL vie for award
TWO manufacturing companies and a provider of translation services are competing for TheBusinessDesk.com’s North West Exporter award.
Voting for The North West Business Masters awards closes this week, and all three shortlisted companies have strong credentials to win, having made major progress in international markets over the past 12 months.
The awards, sponsored by luxury car brand Jaguar, culminate at a high profile lunch on April 26 at the Midland Hotel in Manchester. Click here to submit your vote.
Based at Delph near Oldham Applied Language Solutions is an entrepreneurial business which has been recently acquired by outsourced services giant Capita.
Since 2003 the business has grown to a turnover of £10.6m and employs more than 130 people across 11 offices located in the UK, US, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, France, Germany, Spain, Ireland, India and Guatemala.
It works with a growing number of international companies – between 2010-2011 overseas revenues rose from £2.8m to £4.3m.
ALS is focused on developing new services and strengthening existing offices by hiring more experienced staff to enable the company to deliver more translation projects without increasing overheads by opening new offices.
In the last year the company has rolled a new product SmartMATE, a customised machine translation solution which has been used by Dell, Credit Suisse and PayPal.
Family-owned engineering business Oliver Valves, designs and makes high performance valves for the world’s biggest oil and gas firms.
2011 saw it win two record orders – the first in August was for £7.2m came from a Brazilian customer – but this was trumped in September by a £12.6m contract to supply 105 of its large ‘Twinsafe’ valves for a major oil-extraction project off the coast of Qatar.
The Knutsford-based business, founded by its chairman, inventor Michael Oliver in his Hale garage, entered 2012 in bullish mood having reported record financial results.
This year it has continued to gain momentum with export orders coming from Australia, Japan, China and Dubai.
The company is now planning to hire new staff at its Cheshire headquarters to meet demand.
Military bridge manufacturer WFEL, which has its headquarters at Heaton Norris, Stockport, has also blazed a trail in international markets over the last year.
The business, owned by its management and private equity firm Dunedin, has supplied 39 armed forces across the world over the last 40 years, and counts the US Department of Defense among its major customers.
Last December it signed one of its biggest-ever orders – a £57m deal with the Swiss government for its dry support bridge. The agreement followed a two-year international procurement contest and saw WFEL see off competitors including BAE Systems and EADS.
International sales represent more than 90% of the long-standing company’s overall revenues.
It is currently pursuing a dual-track growth strategy focused on new bridge sales to previously untapped markets in Europe, Latin America and the Far East. The Swiss, Turkish, and more recently an agreement with the Indonesian armed forces, have been secured as customers as a result.
WFEL has also invested in expanding its support services division, which accounts for 10% of our global sales.
