INCINER8 Receives Queens Award For Enterprise For International Trade

Queens Award For Enterprise For International TradeA major development this year was the supply of 13 medical waste incinerators to Rwanda, this was a great opportunity for Inciner8 as the project was funded by the Bill Gates Foundation to fight HIV in the region.

The story of how this was achieved by Vince Ferguson ...

"In 2005 I formed INCINER8 Ltd. My original ambition was to import incinerators and re-sale them through my website. I didn’t have particularly high expectations; in fact I thought it would be something of a part time job whilst I was looking for a position in the food / agriculture industry.

The main consideration for my new business was for minimal initial investment, low overheads and low risk. To achieve this, I had very tight controls on credit, in fact there was no credit given and I expected customers to pay in advance of shipping, with an initial deposit on order. To avoid large overheads everything was done by third parties, including manufacture, storage, shipping, accounting etc. I was the company!

To my surprise the first incinerator was shipped to Australia and the second to Jordan, all of which was through the website.

Within the first year the company had turned over £380,000 and a successful business was starting to form. I avoided all temptations to grow quickly and resisted increasing overheads. I believe this gave the company the opportunity to build a healthy cash balance in the bank.

I looked at business in very simple terms; I would calculate my overheads and cash in bank and calculate how long I could keep trading without receiving a sale, a simple but effective marker in the early days. There was certainly a great amount of comfort in calculating that I wouldn’t need to sell anything for a year without needing an overdraft.

Of course thriftiness only goes so far in a business and if you want to get serious and grow, then you need to expand at the right pace to suit your industry and the economy. Careful and sustainable growth is paramount in building the successful business.

Export sales can be very rewarding but also great care needs to be taken.
I found the best way forward was setting up dealerships or agents. This way you can control your overheads in terms of salesmen and marketing. In effect the dealerships will provide the sales force and marketing for that particular country.

It is important that a good relationship is formed with the dealer / agent and that they can achieve good margins and have your full technical and sales support. It goes without saying that honesty and integrity is also extremely important with long distance business relationships. A word of warning though, don’t rush into building your portfolio of dealers around the world, take your time and make sure you are getting people who are genuinely determined to make a great business out of your product and that it fits well into their business in terms of their industry sector.

In the early days I was signing anyone up who approached us if it was a country we were not selling in, all too often their interest was for one project and that as a general trader, they would move on to another product. Great relationships produce great business and your dealer has all the local knowledge within their country in terms of targeting customers, import issues, legislation etc. This will save you a lot of time and money.

British manufacturing and British business ethics are still highly regarded around the world and this is a great start for any business trying to achieve overseas sales.

My checklist:-

Have a quality product
Ensure that there is a demand for the product
Integrity and honesty
Aspire to be the very best company for after sales service / care

There is a huge amount of help for British Businesses through various agencies. We used the UKTI on many occasions, especially in the early years. Their advice and access to various grants was invaluable.

My company, INCINER8 Ltd are export champions and we have pledged our support for British businesses trying to export overseas. I believe that small businesses and entrepreneurs are the solution for the British economy, with this in mind, I am happy to advise any UK businesses that are aspiring to export".