Case Studies
Don't just take our word for it. The Language Networks across the UK have helped hundreds of companies across the UK to develop or fine-tune their foreign language and cultural strategies. Below, businesses that have profited from understanding foreign languages and cultures share their experiences.
Engineering / Electronics
AgustaWestland
(Yeovil, Somerset)
AgustaWestland, a Finmeccanica company, is one of the largest helicopter companies in the world. A key challenge for AgustaWestland has been to adapt to the new culture and operating language of both the joint venture and parent companies.
Air Control Industries Ltd
(Chard, Somerset)
Air Control Industries Ltd (ACI) was established in 1969. The company supplies a wide range of high-specification, small to medium-size industrial fan units for virtually all industrial applications ranging from extraction, cooling and ventilation to aeration and surface drying processes.
Alphasonics (Knowsley, North West)
(167 kb pdf document)
Alphasonics designs and manufactures bespoke ultrasonic cleaning equipment to the printing, engineering and electronics sectors. The company employs 12 members of staff at its head office in Merseyside and, in addition, has a growing network of 20 international agents.
Analox Sensor Technology (Tees Valley)
Gas sensor manufacturer Analox is detecting a real change in the bottom line, through its commitment to international communications.
(Case study opens on the RLN North East website)
BMW (Coleshill, West Midlands)
BMW traces its history back to 1916 and now conducts automotive production in 22 sites across fourteen countries. Their presence in the West Midlands is concentrated at the Hams Hall plant near Coleshill. The site, employing 750 personnel, is the sole supplier to the BMW group of the four-cylinder Valvetronic engine.
(Case study opens on the RLN West Midlands website)
Brightwater Engineering (Letchworth)
Brightwater Engineering specialises in high-efficiency small footprint biological processes for the treatment of sewage. Based in Letchworth, the company employs 45 people, and is already active in the French and Spanish markets, and is looking to expand into Eastern Europe, initially in Poland.
(Case study opens on RLN East website)
Centrax Ltd
(Newton Abbot, Devon)
Centrax packages and sells industrial generator sets mainly for the European market including the U.K and Ireland, but also emerging markets such as North and South America and Asia.
Cooknell Optronics
(Weymouth, Dorset)
Cooknell Optronics has been designing and producing fibre optic products for the telecommunications and defence industries for almost ten years. Its customers include customers in the telecommunications, defence and medical industries as well as various university "spin off" companies.
CRD Devices
(Shildon, County Durham)
CRD Devices specialises in bespoke electronic solutions for manufacturing clients. And with the UK manufacturing sector shrinking, they recognise that they will need to diversify to survive and expand.
(Case study opens on RLN North East website)
Elfab (North Shields)
For Elfab, ten is the magic number. With the appointment of graduate Laura Williams, the company can now talk to its customers in no fewer than ten languages. The company is a leading supplier of pressure-relief systems.
(Case study opens on RLN North East website)
GKN (West Midlands)
GKN has evolved from a largely domestic exporting company in the 1960s to a truly global operation with subsidiaries in twenty different countries spread across all six continents. Almost half of its workforce and more than half of its sales revenue come from outside the UK. The Frankfurt factory alone has employees who speak 17 different languages.
(Case study opens on the RLN West Midlands website)
Hedley Purvis Ltd
(Morpeth, Northumberland)
In the language of oil and gas, "joint integrity" means ensuring stress-free, leak-free joints in pipelines. And Morpeth-based Hedley Purvis Ltd, UK arm of the Hedley Purvis Group, has made itself the industry watchword for joint integrity.
But 20 years of trading (and with a North East Business of the Year Award among its accolades), have taught the company that there are other words and other languages that are equally as important.
(Case study opens on RLN North East website)
HUCO Engineering Ltd
(Hertford, Herts)
HUCO Engineering, with 60 employees and an annual turnover of £5million, manufacture and distribute precision engineering components for special purpose machinery used in the food, packaging, robotics & process control industry. With worldwide sales, the company’s major international markets are Japan, the USA and Western Europe.
InTouch Monitoring (Northampton, East Midlands)
(100 kb pdf document)
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. The company has produced brochures in Spanish and German and their website has content in English, Spanish and Dutch.
ISEKI Vaccuum Systems (Daventry, Northants.)
(79 kb pdf document)
The company designs, manufactures and installs vacuum sewerage systems worldwide with the aid of local representative offices and licensees. Given the importance of markets outside its home country, it is little surprise that the organisation has made a commitment to communication with its customers in their own language.
Linvic ( Wolverhampton, West Midlands)
Linvic Engineering Ltd was created in 1971 to offer a fast-track, top quality service supplying flanges to the then emerging North Sea oil industry. For the next 20 years or so they maintained their market position but were only supplying UK based customers.
(This case study opens on the RLN West Midlands website)
Liverpool Water Witch (Liverpool)
(320 kb pdf document)
Established in 1963, the Liverpool-based family business has been tirelessly cleaning up the polluted waters of the city with their patented marine clean-up vessels. Already established in 14 countries across the globe, further opportunities to sell the equipment abroad were identified.
MKW Engineering Ltd
(Gateshead, Tyne & Wear)
When a young French engineer called unannounced at a Tyneside company he inadvertently set in train a focus on languages that has paid real dividends.
(Case study opens on RLN North East website)
Modulift Design & Consulting Ltd.
(Poole, Dorset)
A manufacturer and supplier of specialist lifting equipment, Modulift has researched cultural and business differences of target markets, leading to successful expansion into non native English speaking countries.
Phoenix Vessel Technology
(Gloucester)
The company manufactures cylindrical pressure vessels. It continues to expand its European markets and is using a research student and website translation to support its efforts.
Power-Sprays Ltd
(Bristol)
Power-Sprays' machinery is used by the building and civil engineering industries in over 100 countries. This volume of export activity has prompted the company to recognise the importance of overcoming language and cultural barriers when trading overseas.
Powrmatic Ltd.
(Somerset)
Powrmatic, Europe’s foremost specialist in commercial and industrial heating and ventilation, chimneys and flues, overcame the language barrier and communications with customers in their non-English speaking export markets.
R & D Tool and Engineering (Mansfield, East Midlands)
(88 kb pdf document)
The company supplies tooling to the plastics moulding industry worldwide. From a position where all business was conducted in English, R&D now has language skills at the centre of its trading in overseas markets and plans further recruitment of language speakers in its quest for increased export sales.
Renishaw plc
(Wotton-under-Edge, Glos)
Renishaw plc designs and manufactures high precision metrology equipment for use in a wide range of industries.
Rolls-Royce plc (Derby, East Midlands)
(46 kb pdf document)
As well as being one of the largest and best-known employers in the East Midlands, Rolls-Royce plc is of course a global brand. When the need arose to transfer staff from the civil aerospace division and their families to Germany to work on the V2500 engine, the company made sure of a successful transition by offering both cultural and language training in the months before the move.
Scopevital
(Portland, Dorset)
Scopevital Ltd is a Portland based firm that specialises in engineering systems for bio-dryer technology. The company went on a trade visit to the Baltic in October 2005 and engaged with RLN SW for translation of their website. This was just the start.
Sinclair International (Norwich)
Sinclair International is the market leader in automatic high-speed fruit labelling systems. 95% of Sinclair’s business is outside the UK, and UK-based staff deal mainly with rest of Europe.
(Case study opens on RLN East website)
Strain Measurement Devices (Chedburgh, Suffolk)
The company which employs 22 staff manufactures thin film sensors for force and pressure measurement in medical and sub-sea applications. With a turnover of just over £1 million, 40% of the company’s exports are into Germany, with the remaining sold to the USA, Norway and France.
(Case study opens on RLN East website)
Unwin Safety Systems
(Martock, Somerset)
The company is a market leader in passenger safety systems for wheelchair users. Unwin is already exporting around the world, and capitalised on RLN SW's expertise to incorporate a language and cultural strategy into their business plan.
Umicore Laser Optics Ltd
(Stevenage)
Umicore is a global supplier of optics and part of the Umicore Group with 15,000 employees worldwide. The company uses languages to capitalise on opportunities and to facilitate rapid entry into international markets.
(Case study opens on RLN East website)
Zytronic Ltd
(Tyneside)
Zytronic's sales force is fluent in German and French and the company has a comprehensive range of sales literature and other material in a variety of languages. So pleased is Zytronic with the results, that it is not stopping there and plans are now being made to translate the website into new languages.
(Case study opens on RLN North East website)
