INTERNATIONAL TRADE


INTERNATIONAL TRADE Double delight for M Barnwell


HELPING COMPANIES EXPLOIT OVERSEAS TRADE OPPORTUNITIES


the company 40 years old, it has also won a prestigious international trade achievement award. The latter – which was won at the Birmingham Chamber annual awards earlier this year – is quite an achievement for a company that was not particularly focused on the export market until about four years ago. Peter McGarry, export sales manager at the


F


Smethwick based firm, said that when he joined, the company’s overseas sales added up to just £100,000. Today, the company is about to burst through the £1m barrier. Peter, who has more than 30 years experience


of the export market, said that the turnaround was achieved by a combination of introducing the right procedures and hard graft – and also help from the Chamber and UK Trade and Investment, through adviser Mark Sankey. Among that help has been the translation of


the company’s website into various languages, including German, French and Arabic, and grant assistance with exhibiting at the Hannover Industrial Fair, one of the largest of its kind. For that, Barnwell was advised by Stuart


Whitehill of the Chamber’s Overseas Fairs Division, who said: “German shows are the best in the world. Companies in the UK that do shows overseas - and in Germany in particular - say that 99 times out of 100 they are in a different league to anything in the UK.” “The NEC is our largest fairground but the


Hannover industry fair is twice the size of the NEC, with 465,000 sq m of exhibition space. And there are another four exhibition centres in Germany which are bigger than the NEC, so you realise how serious they are about exhibitions. “If you are thinking of doing a building show, or an engineering show, it is a completely different event in terms of size and scale – you are guaranteed to get a heavy attendance from all over the world.” Attending the Hannover show certainly paid


off for Barnwell – Peter McGarry said that during the event, the company met more than 100


Staff at Barnwell’s Smethwick headquarters


‘Companies in the UK that do shows overseas say that 99 times out of 100 they are in a different league to anything in the UK’


people from over 30 different countries, which would otherwise never have happened, and this resulted in valuable new sales leads. “Because of the success of it, we have decided


we should do it again – so we will be exhibiting at next year’s German Agricultural Fair at Hannover.” Agriculture happens to be a key market for


Barnwell, which counts such names as Massey Ferguson and John Deere among key customers. For customers such as these, the company


produces image branded spare part kits. These kits are also available to mechanics, engineers and others who have to service equipment in overseas countries – for example, another big customer is the American firm Compair, which makes compressors. These compressors are used in some of the


Barnwell’s team in Hannover (left to right): Dave Wilcox (export office manager), Darren Barnwell (director) and Peter McGarry (export sales manager)


Battle for the White House


With election fever building on the other side of the Atlantic, UK companies with an interest in the US economic and political landscape were given the opportunity to get an inside view of the battle for the White House. This was done via a ‘webinar’, which is a seminar which takes place using the internet, earlier this month. The speakers at the event were Daniel Gallagher, First Secretary at the British Embassy, and Matthew


Windrum, a political analyst at the British Consulate-General New York. Both spoke about how the outcome of the presidential elections would affect foreign companies doing


business in the US, and also under discussion was the current state of the US economy, a subject which has been uppermost in voters’ minds across the pond. The ‘webinar’ was hosted by UK Trade and Investment in Washington and New York.


18 CHAMBERLINK OCTOBER 2012


most hostile environments on earth. They are serviced in the field and the repair kits made by Barnwell can be a real boon, as they contain all the different parts which may be needed. Barnwell is now the largest distributor of fluid sealing products in the UK, and stocks some 30,000 product lines – its huge range includes seals, sealing washers, gaskets, circlips, o-rings, sealants, adhesives and lubricants.


luid sealing specialist M Barnwell Services is enjoying a double celebration this year – not only is


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56