Gate 7 wins a Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade
Multi-award-winning company Gate 7, based in the North East of England, is an innovative company specialising in the supply of decals and printed components to the Construction equipment, Agricultural and Industrial Machinery markets. Gate 7 announced today (21st April 2018) that the business has been awarded The Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade 2018.
The Queen’s Awards for Enterprise is an awards programme for British businesses and other organizations who excel at international trade, innovation or sustainable development. They are the highest official UK awards for British businesses.
Gate 7 was founded in 2000 and the company’s product portfolio includes safety, warning and instructional decals, livery, branding, machine IDs, aluminium identification plates and reflective components. All products are manufactured across three facilities in Gateshead UK, Pennsylvania USA and South Carolina USA.
The company’s customers include many leading OEM’s, who demand the highest level of quality and performance from their suppliers. Customers include Komatsu, JCB, Volvo, Kuhn and Caterpillar. Gate 7 supply to multiple divisions of these companies worldwide.
Last year, the company’s Managing Director Kate Wickham was awarded an MBE for services to Export and Outward Investment. Kate said, “We (Gate 7) have always been focused on global growth with export targets being key to the company’s business plan. We are delighted to have been recognised for our efforts and awarded the Queens Award for Enterprise for International Trade.”
Kate added, “Exporting is the life blood of Gate 7. We are able to provide a consistently quality product across the globe by utilising the same materials, equipment, processes and expertise across the world. International trade has resulted in outstanding year on year growth for Gate 7 in the last three-years.”
JCB are an excellent example of the company’s export strategy’s success. In 2008 they were nominated as a strategic partner to implement JCB’s new branding globally with a one product to fit a global solution. A rigorous R&D programme led to Gate 7 supplying eight domestic divisions and four international divisions along with the single source supply.
“Trading internationally is not an easy business model where the distance between us and our customers can sometimes be an issue.” Reported Kate. “We have been able to overcome this by visiting our customers anywhere in the world – it is this reactivity that customers find as an invaluable part of our service.”
The Gate 7’s ‘top five’ overseas markets include France where total percentage of sales was 32%, India where the percentage was 28%, followed by the USA with 12%, then Sweden with 8% and the Netherlands with 7%. New overseas markets recently established for Gate 7 include India, Sweden and the Czech Republic with a total of 4% of overseas sales.
Maintaining a strong domestic market provides the foundation to expand further into Europe, USA and Asia. This is done organically through the division structure of the OEMs and is heavily dependent on Gate 7 maintaining an excellent reputation as experts in their field.
The company also utilise worldwide exhibitions as an opportunity to present and market Gate 7’s products. Kate said, “Overseas exhibitions are an excellent way to meet potential new customers, research new markets, new products, competition and to showcase Gate 7.
Support from trade organisations such as UK Trade and Investment and the CEA (Construction Equipment Association) are integral to our growth strategy by offering support through funding, contacts, advice and support.”
