Ekspan

Sheffield company gets its bearings in the world market

Supporting thousands of tons of steel, cement and glass is what Ekspan is all about. Now the South Yorkshire company is holding its own on the world stage.

Based in Sheffield’s Brightside, Ekspan has been producing bearings for bridges and other huge structures since 1990. The company’s maxim is: “Bridging the Years, Supporting the Future” and with the help of UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) it is now finding new ways to produce and sell its bearings world wide.

In a recent development Ekspan has set up in China using a winning combination of strategies from UKTI’s wide range of export services.

Says managing director, Peter Dronfield: “The services made available from UKTI have been invaluable to planning our business growth. We have an excellent relationship with Simon Bedford, their Joint Ventures specialist, who is always on the look out for programmes and services that could be of use to us in our business plan. As a matter of fact, we now consider Simon and his colleague, Duncan Slater to be part of our extended management team and we value the consultancy skills and export acumen of all the UK Trade & Investment staff we deal with at South Yorkshire International Trade Centre.

“When our sales director, Simon Turnock, took part in the Passport to Export training some time ago, he came back buzzing with ideas. The advice, information and guidance it gave us broadened our view of the whole export process and showed us how we could make it work for the company. It lifted our horizons in terms of international trade.”

Structural bearings are vital to bridges and other large structures. These must be able to move due to thermal expansion in certain weather, settlement, dynamic forces from loads and even earthquakes. Ekspan bearings are currently bearing the load of 36,000 tonnes of steel and glass in the Peace Pyramid in Kazakhstan and the company is in the process of developing special bearings to support a rotating 86,000 ton structure in the Middle East.

Things began to take off internationally for the company when it won a contract in China and representatives went out to finalise the details.

Says Dronfield: “While in China we were introduced to a company that could make very high quality components for a fraction of the cost that we can produce them in the UK. That’s when we decided to follow the trend for outsourcing some of our production. Operating in China allows us to sell in China, thus opening up the Far East and South East Asian markets to us. What’s more, being in the same time zone as these countries is a huge advantage to doing business in this part of the world.”

Ekspan has also taken advantage of UKTI’s Export Communication Review service which looks at a company’s marketing requirements and helps it develop the right kind of marketing materials to successfully target its products or services internationally.

Says one member of the Ekspan board: “UKTI’s Mary Cousins gave us some fantastic support with regard to our advertising and sales brochures. We are now able to go back again and again to the template she set up for us to monitor our progress. We can check that we are covering all areas efficiently against the original marketing plan and we can modify it as the business changes.”

Dronfield regards operating in China as a fundamental necessity in export business. He believes that staying competitive empowers the future of UK and Sheffield factories.

“People always say ‘what happens to UK jobs?’ Well the answer is they get better and more specialised. Operating in China allows us to focus on the high tech end of the business and spend more time on research and development here. We can’t hide from the reality of the situation. China will take more world trade and they are already supported by global players. We simply can’t ignore the rising tide of world competition. It follows that we must take part and take advantage.

“I see our quality controlled operations in China as a way of defending and enhancing our business by becoming a global SME and securing our UK future with overseas investment. This also naturally drives growing export trade that needs the combination of best engineering, quality and price.  The UK is traditionally an innovating, manufacturing and trading nation. Today we refine our global strategy to ensure that a UK lead endures. In short, the future is made secure when overseas profits are delivered back to our home industry. We are using UK Trade & Investment’s principals to make this happen and we consider their help and support to be pivotal to the success we have had and will have in the future as a world player.”

Website: www.ekspan.co.uk