Serving the Teesside Business Community | 39
Houston, we have a solution to your problem
Tees firm ESCS are opening a Houston base as they spread the word about the ES300 passive fire protection machine.
Teesside-based ESCS, a worldwide manufacturer and distributor of surface preparation and surface coating equipment, is building on global successes by opening its first US base.
Headquartered in South Tees Freight Park in Middlesbrough, ESCS is opening its new office in Santa Fe, near Houston, as the firm looks to expand its market within the oil and gas sector across North America and the Gulf of Mexico.
As part of the move, the firm is lining up a series of demonstrations for major oil and gas firms of its self-designed passive fire protection machines.
The specialist machines spray thick coatings of intumescent epoxy materials to protect steel structures from the threat of fire on refineries, chemical plants, fabrication yards and oil rigs.
Having achieved a number of global contract wins for its market-leading ES430 system, ESCS has also developed the ES300 TL system for smaller applications and repairs.
The five-year-old firm already boasts contracts with main applicators and contractors involved with major oil and gas operators in Australia, Singapore, Indonesia and Azerbaijan among its customers but managing director Shaun McDonald believes the unique ES300 TL could revolutionise the fire protection industry.
He said:“ The ES300 is a real innovation because it will save so much time. There is nothing like it on the market, and we’ re already attracting great interest from China as well as the US.
“ With so many leading manufacturers based there, it’ s clear that Houston is a big centre for the passive fire protection industry, so we see great potential there.
“ We have unique machines that are fully certified with all the major material manufacturers, we’ re extremely competitive on price and we have people in place with vast knowledge of the industry, materials and equipment.”
But they remain firmly committed to a future on Teesside, with McDonald adding:“ This is my area – I love creating jobs here and passing work on locally wherever I can.”
M. I. Supplies managing director Alex Ingham with the firm’ s new website developer Neil Shepherd.
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Teesside-based workwear company has set an ambitious growth target after seeing a 240 % surge in online sales.
M. I. Supplies, based on Teesside Industrial Estate in Thornaby, has worked with Stockton e-commerce firm Visualsoft to completely overhaul its website.
And within the first two months of launching the new site, its sales have grown from an average of £ 16,000 a month to more than £ 55,000 a month.
Managing director Alex Ingham has now
set the firm an ambitious aim of achieving £ 2 million in online sales alone over the next 12 months.
If achieved, which would be in addition to long-term supply contracts it already has in place with business clients, it would almost double M. I. Supplies’ total turnover to more than £ 4 million in 2017.
M. I. Supplies has already taken on website developer Neil Shepherd to look after the new site, which now boasts more than 140,000 different workwear products from well-known brands such as Caterpillar and
M. I. Supplies sets ambitious target to drive £ 2m online growth
major European workwear suppliers Helly Hansen and Mascot.
Ingham said:“ Our old website was averaging around 12 to 15 orders a day and £ 16,000-a-month in sales, but already with the new site we’ re averaging around 30 to 35 orders a day, which is typically generating £ 55,000-a-month.
“ So we’ ve already increased orders threefold and, when you break the numbers down, I don’ t think it’ s unfeasible to increase that to 100 orders a day.”
Ingham also says the company’ s new website has played an integral part in helping to attract well-known brands.
He said:“ We’ ve doubled the amount of orders going through mobile devices now, which is amounting to about 40 % of our total online sales and we’ ve won contracts with three major brands in the space of a few weeks.
“ It has gone beyond our expectations so far so we’ re absolutely delighted with it.”
M. I. Supplies has been supplying a wide range of workwear clothing and accessories for more than a decade after celebrating its 10th year in 2015.
For more information about M. I. Supplies go to www. misupplies. co. uk