I recently attended a small seminar run the British Business Club and UKTI. The guest speaker was Steve Backley, and the premise was export and the connection was London 2012. At first I was not entirely sure why I went, as Pailton Steering Systems do not make product you would at first associate with London 2012, or for that matter any Olympic event. While waiting for the event to start I was talking to Robert Boswell, a director from Weatherite Holdings, a manufacturer of large air conditioning equipment. He posed the question above, to which I had no immediate answer, but after some consideration realised that actually, London 2012 would definitely have an effect on our business. I remember reading before joining Pailton that TFL would require 150 extra buses and 75 extra coaches to be made available for transporting the athletes and the visitors to the games, and that was just London. Other events are being held all over the country, such as 12 football matches are being held locally at Coventry City football ground, where we have access to a box. Weymouth and Portland are hosting the Sailing events; all of these locations are likely to need extra transport. The increase in the bus sales alone at customers of ours such as Alexander Dennis and Optare can be at least partially attributed to London 2012. Robert complained that his company were not able to quote on any of the major contracts for the building projects, but the fact that some of his competitors were now very busy supplying these, meant that he would have had opportunities elsewhere.
The opening speaker was from UKTI, and once again, when you think about it, even foreign major sports events can offer opportunities. He talked about upcoming Olympic games, and one that particularly caught my eye was the Sochi Winter games, which are apparently going to be the most expensive winter games ever, with a whole city being constructed on the coast, and the actual Ski resort up in the mountains, a total of £45bn will be invested in the project, a massive construction that makes the east London site look small beans. That kind of construction and supporting infrastructure, will require vehicles of all sorts, from construction equipment to buses to transport the workers and then to transport the athletes and visitors to and from the ski resort. When that kind of money is being spent on the event, companies competing for the supply of product take the opportunity to develop something new, a perfect opportunity for companies like ours with all of those vehicles needing steering Products.
The next speaker was from Lloyds bank, which did not interest us very much at first as it was aimed at the inexperienced exporter, and we already export 72% of what we make, until they used a video as a case study, featuring Severn-Lamb, a recognised leader in leisure transport, and a customer of ours. As they say, it’s a small world! Steve Backley was up next, and although his speech was not necessarily business orientated, he was pretty inspirational, telling us how he took his eye off the way ahead when he became world number one, and started looking over his shoulder, loosing focus. Great speech, inspirational event, and to cap it all free! It was well worth giving up a morning for. For more information go to http://www.ukti.gov.uk/britishbusinessclub/home.html
