| Intouch
Monitoring was established in 1997 by partners John Hardwick and Karl Edwin to
produce and install real-time production monitoring, scheduling and reporting
systems for manufacturers. Their first customers were in the UK but via referrals
they began to receive enquiries and leads from mainland Europe. Speaking
the language is key to winning business, according to the partners. Both have
developed their language skills to increase communication with overseas customers:
Karl has topped up his French skills by attending intensive Business French classes,
and John has been on a beginners' Spanish course with Lincoln Chamber of Commerce.
The company has also built up a small team of multilingual distributors based
in Europe. Intouch has produced brochures in Spanish and
German and their website has content in English, Spanish and Dutch. They are now
working with Northamptonshire Chamber of Commerce to produce German website content,
a brochure and mail shots. The company is now hoping its
language skills will help to increase market share in Spain and Germany. Karl
and John are also looking at breaking into the Italian market. In the long term
they recognise that the plastics manufacturing sector may begin to move operations
to Central and Eastern Europe and this may be a future area for expansion for
Intouch. John says: "Languages have been vital to our
overseas growth. Our product has a long lead time, so it's important to build
relationships with potential customers and this has to be done in their language.
We wouldn't have got anywhere if we had just approached potential customers in
English." - back Source:
RLN East Midlands | 
