Cleaning up with overseas business

A well-established East Yorkshire company has been working with UK Trade & Investment (UKTI) to maximize its export potential.

CPD – Cleaning & Paper Disposables – based at Sutton Fields in Hull is the largest independent cleaning and hygiene supplier company in the UK. As one of the industry’s biggest players, CPD prides itself on having a customer service that is second to none and this has been recognized with a sheaf of awards.

CPD’s range of cleaning products, paper disposables, kitchenware and glassware, also includes their own ‘Maxima’ brand of products developed in-house after extensive research.

Ian Warvill, commercial director said: “After 19 years of trading, the last five years have seen a period of unprecedented growth for CPD in the UK. We are now seeking to gain a foothold in a number of overseas markets and in 2006 UK Trade & Investment’s Passport to Export programme gave us plenty of pointers on how to develop our export plans in a strategic way.

“The timely advice and support we got with Passport gave us a kind of safety net for our early explorations into overseas trade and it was certainly a lifeline in our preparations for a European vendor’s exhibition we were planning to attend in Tenerife.

“Once there we were able to network with potential clients and generally put ourselves on the international map. Suffice it to say we returned from the exhibition with our first major export contract with Office Depot to the value of around £2 million. This was just the boost to our exporting confidence that we needed.”

While involved with the Passport programme CPD were introduced to other UKTI services to assist British companies with an eye to developing overseas trade. Among these services was the Export Communications Review (ECR) which offers companies the opportunity to work closely with a marketing and   communications expert.

Mary Cousins is UKTI’s ECR expert in the region.  She helps companies review everything from their corporate image to their basic marketing material and website content with a view to developing their export potential.

Shuan Chatterton, CEO of CPD, believes the service played a key part in improving the way the company saw itself.

“The Export Communications Review has had a pivotal part to play in the profound change to our business,” he said. Mary helped us redefine our new role as exporters, by looking at all our communication systems with an objective, international business eye. Now ECR has become a key part of our strategy, prior to the review we had no export turnover and now it accounts for 2.5 million, I would attribute at least 200,000 of this directly to the ECR and our ability to secure the rest has been greatly helped by it too.”

Shaun added: ““CPD has also benefitted from UKTI’s Overseas Market Information Service (OMIS) which provides tailored business intelligence reports on specific overseas markets. We commissioned our report from the UKTI team based at the British consulate in Dusseldorf and were able to use the information provided to forge links with a trading partner in Germany which has increased profitability and efficiency.”

Stephan Stahl is one of UKTI’s international trade advisers in the Humber area who has worked alongside CPD for the last two years. Stephan said: “It’s been exciting watching the company expand into the export market with so much success and it’s rewarding to know that UKTI has been an integral part of the process. The quality of their products together with a high level of customer service was already in place, but CPD showed that they were not afraid to make changes in order to capture overseas sales.”

Website: www.cpd-clean.co.uk