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Lovibond Tintometer: a colourful past ... World-class companies from across the region
... and an even more colourful future. Perhaps something in the Wiltshire water has sustained Lovibond Tintometer for 127 years in our fast-changing technology world ... and if it has, this Amesbury-based company would be able to tell you
Lovibond Tintometer is at the forefront of the measurement and analysis of liquids and solids – through the science of colour.
Today this multinational company’s colour measuring instruments and specialist products are used worldwide in industries as diverse as petrochemicals, wastewater, pharmaceuticals, and foodstuffs. Its proven scientific technology helps to maintain safety, quality and compliance standards in activities ranging from textile dying to swimming pool maintenance to beer-making. The latter is where it all began.
Teenager Joseph Lovibond travelled the world during the 1880s, made his fortune gold-mining in Australia, then saw it lost, falling into Sydney Harbour as he set off home to England. He went to work in his family’s brewery in Salisbury.
Lovibond was amazed that master brewers could tell good beer from its colour. He wondered if a colouration system could help less skilful workers to gauge quality. Salisbury Cathedral’s windows inspired Lovibond to use variants of coloured stained glass for his colorimeter equipment. The science of colour measurement was born and Lovibond Tintometer has stayed at its leading edge ever since.
This year, Chris Counsell (pictured), MD of The Tintometer, as Lovibond’s original Wiltshire company is known, expects to report an £8.5 million turnover and another year of 10% growth. The UK business is responsible for roughly a third of Lovibond Tintometer worldwide sales to 140 countries, now generated by operations in UK, Germany, USA, China and Malaysia.
Counsell rates Lovibond Tintometer as the world No 1 for colour measurement of industrial liquids and No 2 for water testing in the field. It’s also No 1 for its range of liquid testing reagents, supplied in tablet, powder or liquid forms.
Counsell views Lovibond’s 19th century travels as “a worthwhile gap year“ and credits him with the wide-ranging adoption of colour science and the company’s early worldwide marketing focus. “We’ve actually found Lovibond’s sales catalogues from 1891 with products marked in dollars and the word colour spelt ’color’.“
That’s professional recognition. Counsell, the UK company’s former marketing manager, returned in 2005 as MD, when turnover was flatlining around £4m, and has since led a resurgence within Lovibond Tintometer.
THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – SOLENT & SOUTH CENTRAL – APRIL 2012
Counsell restructured the UK company with a fresh management team, and invested in new products. He set up a dedicated eight-person sales team and insisted they worked face to face with distributors and customers. Product information and marketing support was radically improved with a new interactive website.
Strategic M&A activity by Lovibond Tintometer has also gained new business in North America (Orbeco Hellige acquired 2006), and complementary expertise (App-Chem UK in 2011 – microbiological and electrochemical specialism)
The 93-strong Wiltshire business (it also has sites in Wrexham and Wadebridge) has achieved 20% growth in its core sectors of colour measurement, and now Counsell wants to expand trade within the emerging BRIC nations, notably through an improved product service portfolio supporting the existing distribution network.
The key thing is that Counsell has achieved much by changing the culture to one of collaboration and mutual, professional respect: a happy team (several long-serving), proud of its niche technology products, competently handling client requirements. Interestingly, increased sales have been achieved without the use of target- driven incentive schemes. Counsell is adamant that these are counter-productive.
Staff are involved hands-on with the company’s operations. There is an air of autonomy and R&D, manufacturing (even its own glass-making furnace), colour-grading and sales support are all housed in bright, open-planned surroundings.
Measurement by colour sounds a bit like herding cats, but Lovibond Tintometer has succeeded in providing products that make this science easy
to use – either by the human eye or electronic spectrophometric equipment. So, doesn’t that make it easy for competitors to develop rival products?
“We make complex science simple. People may have something that looks good on paper, but it often doesn’t work well in practice. It comes down to our long heritage of knowledge and experience. We know what works,“ says Counsell.
Even so, the company ensures its leading edge stays sharp through R&D involving UK universities, and industry exhibition and conference attendance.
It may be master of an old science, but Lovibond Tintometer is readily embracing the new. The company has already introduced Internet-based colour measurement services, and in June will launch an innovative new electronic colour measurement system – “technology that will give us a fresh business platform.“
“But, we are not complacent. We realise there are areas where we need to improve more, “ says Counsell.
This is the latest article in a series looking at leading-edge companies that we have identified in association with business advisers BDO.
What makes Lovibond Tintometer leading edge? – the view of BDO director Darren Phillips
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Throughout its 127 years the company has managed to retain a ’family’ ethos while establishing its market-leading position. It now serves an extremely broad range of customers; from public to private sector, in industries as diverse as oil and gas, food and drink and pharmaceuticals to name but a few. And the application of its colour-testing technology is still widening.
Its ability to increase, let alone maintain, its market dominance makes it a very fitting leading edge company. It has achieved this through continuous research and development, partnering with the latest university research, and, perhaps most fittingly, listening to its customers’ requirements.
To think it all started by staring at a pint of beer.“
www.businessmag.co.uk Leading Edge
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