Gillian Bonnar, sales and marketing manager with Quad-X, comments: 

“We started out as a small company but through the years have grown steadily and the business now has a number of divisions, including Blaney Agri, Blaney Motor Company and Blaney Gears.  The companies, which between them employ more than 20 personnel on a multi-site basis, all work together to produce high quality, innovative products mainly targeted at the agricultural market and we now manufacture more than 100 attachments for quads.”

How Challenge helped

Quad-X continually aims to innovate to improve and create new products and in a bid to refine their development process, they turned to InterTradeIreland’s Challenge programme in 2013. 

The programme helps businesses to lead their employees to work more creatively, more commercially and with greater innovation, resulting in a much more competitive business. 

Gillian explains: “We first heard about the opportunity to take part in Challenge at another InterTradeIreland event.  Quad-X has been developing successfully for 20 years but we know that there is always room for improvement and we felt that the advice and support offered by Challenge could be invaluable to our future innovation and growth strategies.”

The programme’s main aim is to assist companies in creating new, profitable products but it also hopes to improve the way in which a company innovates across its business.  Gillian comments: “Working with the team from InterTradeIreland not only developed our creative process but also the way the company worked as a whole.  Generally I think Challenge improved our communication and teamworking skills, making the business better on the whole.

“Challenge encouraged both the engineers and sales and marketing team to work together in the development of new products.  Before taking part the two departments had not collaborated as closely or on such a regular basis.  We have since learnt that it is much better for sales and marketing to have direct input into what will be manufactured as it makes it much easier for us to market the product and ultimately will result in better sales figures.

Company sees real results

“We have seen real results from our participation in Challenge - as well as adding to the company’s profitability, a huge benefit of having InterTradeIreland to guide us through innovation and product development was learning how to create, market and launch new products in a way which minimised the time, money and risk involved.  Prior to participation in the Challenge programme, Quad-X had focused on agriculture but we have since begun to adapt products and diversify our customer base.  We have uncovered a wealth of new opportunities through our involvement in Challenge and are now looking at the potential opportunities for manufacturing products that cater to other sectors such as forestry, landscaping, golf, amenities and airports.

“Financially, the programme has helped us to significantly increase our turnover and we recently launched six new products at the National Ploughing Championships in Co. Laois, including a new swather – a tractor attachment that maximises silage wilting for better quality fodder. We have several other products still in the pipeline which include tractor sprayers, mowers and topping machinery.  We have increased our market share significantly and we hope that with the launch of our remaining products, this will continue to grow.”

Why consider 'Challenge'

Gillian sums up: “If you are an SME interested in developing new products then you will find the Challenge programme extremely beneficial.  At Quad-X we have always placed an emphasis on innovation but the programme was able to equip us with the tools we needed to refine the process.

“We found our Challenge mentor very approachable and dedicated to helping us move forward and the whole experience has made us more efficient and ultimately more profitable - I couldn’t recommend it highly enough.”

Are you up for the Challenge?

Do you think Challenge may be the programme for you?  To register for the upcoming workshops and to find out more information, please visit http://www.intertradeireland.com/challenge/