Lister Shearing Equipment

Lister Shearing Equipment can trace their origins back to 1860 and with their first shearing machine produced in 1909 they
claim to be the longest established sheep-shearing
manufacturer in the world.

An independent UK company with 45 staff based in Dursley, Gloucestershire, Lister is a subsidiary of the US firm Wahl Clipper Corporation. Their shearing products are used for llamas, alpacas and goats as well as for sheep, and they also supply clippers for horse, cattle and veterinary users.

Currently about half of their sales are exports, and not surprisingly Australia and New Zealand represent important markets. The Middle East and India are also developing, but closer to home they have customers in Spain, France, Portugal and Italy. They are looking to enter Eastern Europe, including Russia, in the near future, and they recognise that China represents a major opportunity as well as a huge challenge.

Towards the end of 2005 the Sales Manager, Ginny Collis, recognised that the development of their new markets might need a fresh marketing approach. Angela Russell, the Export Sales Coordinator and a graduate in Languages with Business Systems, was able to deal with any communications with France and Spain, and the company had a satisfactory relationship with a translation agency, “the bigword”, for product literature. But Ginny realised that this might not be sufficient for the levels of export growth that they would like to achieve, and responded to an invitation from RLN-SW to discuss their language needs and to attend an event at the University of the West of England, Bristol.

Peter Gold, of RLN-SW, went to Dursley early in 2006 and discussed with Ginny and Angela a range of issues including

• the value of website translation and localization, especially for new markets;
• alternative suppliers of professional translation services in case they wished to explore the market;
  the option of language learning, which Ginny was interested in;
• how to find placement students as a relatively inexpensive way of accessing foreign languages for “in-house” use;
• using postgraduate students to undertake an initial exploration of potential overseas markets.

Shortly afterwards Angela and Ginny attended an event at UWE which was designed to give local businesses a taster in a foreign language, followed by a discussion on whether acquiring a foreign language would make sense for their company. The event also provided a presentation on Russian business culture, in order to impress upon those attending the value of understanding cultural differences in the ways in which business is conducted.

Recently Lister Shearing has appointed a new Export Sales Executive, Simon Freegard, to take forward the plans to expand their exports and implement some of the ideas proposed by RLN. Ginny said: “I think RLN’s advice will certainly be put to good use now we have a person specifically responsible for increasing the export market.” Peter Gold, of RLN-SW’s West of England hub, believes that Lister Shearing has the potential to increase its export activity significantly. “They were already doing some of the right things with languages,” he said, “but I know that they realise that there is a lot more that they can do, and I look forward to working with them so that they can achieve their objectives.”

Visit the Lister Shearing website at www.lister-shearing.co.uk

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