Dummy RAF bombs keep engineering firm on target

That bread and butter is making the tools and machines used by the glass bottling industry. In a year without a practice bomb contract, about 90pc of Lattimer’s £10m turnover is exported. But it has to be this way, says Mr Waterhouse: “There are only six glass bottling plants here, so the UK is only a small part of our business.”

The company sells all around the world – countries it has customers in include Germany, the US, India, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Italy and China – and this geographical spread, combined with the specialised nature of the company’s products, means that while the sales process itself is tough, the work involved in getting there to win orders can be even harder.

“The type of business we tend to deal with wants you to sit across the table from them,” said Mr Waterhouse. “We tend not to visit a professional purchasing department … it’s engineers and manufacturers talking to each other. The type of product we make is something you can’t just look in the cupboard or order it off the shelf – it’s a technical sale and we need to advise them.”

For any company looking to find new export customers, he gives warning to expect the same question. “To get into a market you need to be new and innovative,” Mr Waterhouse said. “They are interested to see you, but always say 'what’s new?’ They don’t expect you to have come all the way to see them only to offer only price as an advantage. You’ve got to offer innovation, as well as English precision, delivery and performance.”

Like many other exporters, Lattimer has been helped by the UK’s network of embassies. “They’ve been excellent for us,” he says. “Setting up appointments with local companies, doing market analysis work for us. We even tasked the Bangkok embassy to do a project, looking for small start-up engineers we could maybe partner with. In the end we did not progress the project but the work they did was first class.”

This level of service has came as something of a shock.

Other advice Mr Waterhouse offers companies getting into exporting is to be flexible, especially on price. “Pricing has got to be quite fluid,” he says. “There are different demands in different territories. You might not make the same margin in the one country as another because of the economics there, the cost of agents, foreign exchange and such.”

He also reminds companies that different territories peak and trough at different times: “Exporting is hard work and not steady and stable.”

But heading a company that has turned in mid-teens growth this year, Mr Waterhouse is confident for the future – and for UK’s exporters. “The £1 trillion export is achievable in the medium term I think,” he says.

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