A Leeds-based electronics manufacturing business, Daletech Electronics, has been given free strategic export advice from an award-winning Yorkshire firm as part of a new export network that is exclusive to businesses in the Leeds City Region.
The advice and mentoring from Radio Design director Eric Hawthorn will help Daletech directors realise ambitions for growth into Europe and beyond under the new Government-backed ExportExchange programme.
The scheme puts seasoned exporters, or ‘patrons’ in touch with Yorkshire SMEs so that they can share first-hand expert knowledge with businesses in the Leeds City Region that want to know more about selling overseas.
Eric Hawthorn, managing director of Bradford-based wireless infrastructure firm Radio Design has been an ExportExchange patron since the programme launched in July this year. Through the scheme he has made contact with Daletech, and is providing the business with free, practical advice that will enable it to begin selling its high quality, low volume Leeds-manufactured electronics overseas.
Daletech managing director Tracey Dawson said: “We are just at the start of our export journey and the help that Eric has given us as a patron on the ExportExchange programme has been invaluable. To have someone on hand who has made a huge success of exporting and is able to pass on that real-world expertise and knowledge, as well as being there to field all our questions, really is the kind of resource that money can’t buy.
“With Eric’s help we now have a clear view of the road ahead and have mapped out a strategy that should position us to be able to start selling our electronic manufacturing services in Europe. Having his advice available as we progress towards that point is immensely reassuring and helpful.”
Daletech now has a two-year growth plan in place which will see the business consolidate its UK manufacturing base and take on new engineering and marketing staff that will boost its current workforce of eight. Dawson and her fellow director Andrew Shenton hope to begin exporting in 2019.
Mr Hawthorn said: “Being able to help a Yorkshire business like Daletech that is in a similar industry to ourselves, by sharing my experiences via ExportExchange, has been extremely rewarding. There’s a huge range of help and advice out there on exports, but there’s nothing quite like being able to consult someone who has been on that journey themselves. I only wish this had been available when Radio Design first began venturing into selling overseas.”
Based at Salts Mill, Bradford, Radio Design is a £33m turnover manufacturer of breakthrough technology that enables mobile networks to slash costs by sharing transmission masts. The business employs 290 people in Bradford, as well as 160 in India and China, and received the Queen’s Award for International Trade in 2015.
ExportExchange offers free advice to firms new to selling overseas from companies that are already successful exporters. Launched in July, some 60 experienced Yorkshire export businesses have signed up to become official ‘patrons’ of the scheme, including Seabrook Crisps, Huddersfield Town Football Club, Taylors of Harrogate and Paxman Coolers.
The ExportExchange programme is backed by the European Regional Development Fund and supported by the Leeds City Region Enterprise Partnership (LEP), the Department for International Trade (DIT), and a number of private sector export specialists.