Decals and Vehicle Livery for Construction Equipment

06 December, 2017

First published in the November 2017 issue of Quarry Management as Vital Signs

While the company Gate 7 may not be particularly familiar to readers, their products almost certainly will be. The niche business has been steadily making a name for itself both at home and abroad, and earlier this year managing director Kate Wickham was awarded an MBE for Services to Exports and Outward Investments in the Queen’s Birthday Honours list

Based in Gateshead, Gate 7 are specialist providers of decals and vehicle livery for construction equipment and agricultural machinery. Managing director Kate Wickham, who has been with the company since 2005, runs the UK division of the company. In addition to managing a business with 40 staff, she looks after overseas exports, which currently make up around 60% of Gate 7’s revenue.

Commenting on receiving an MBE for Services to Exports and Outward Investments, Ms Wickham said: ‘We won a Queen’s Award for International Trade back in 2005 and we have also won local export awards in the past, but being awarded the MBE was completely unexpected – and I am still taken aback by it now. I have since discovered that UK Trade & Investment (UKTI), who we work with on a regular basis, nominated me. I had no idea they had made the nomination and had to call the Cabinet Office to confirm the award was real.

‘We work with UKTI when we are looking for information on new markets. For example, when we started to do business in India we did some work with them looking at other manufacturing facilities over there and how they do business in the country. More recently we have looked at further opportunities for possible partnerships, to have some level of supply or manufacture in India. The UKTI is able to establish lines of communication, develop relationships with potential partners and give us advice on how to navigate the market.’

She continued: ‘Joining the Construction Equipment Association (CEA) in 2001 was also a turning point for the company. The Association gave Gate 7 the confidence to export and it was with the CEA we discovered that overseas exhibitions were the way forward. It was under the umbrella of the CEA and UKTI that we embarked on our journey of taking Gate 7 worldwide.’

Asked if being the awarded the MBE would to be good for business, Ms Wickham said: ‘This award is going to be great for business. It shows that we are a professional company and very successful in what we do, how we do it and how we conduct ourselves. It adds a real level of credibility to what we do.

‘We hope we are an inspiration to other companies and encourage them to pursue exporting. I have always been very pro-export – when you look at our commodity and what we do, people think it’s only a decal and surely that can be sourced locally. But it’s so much more than that – it’s not just a decal, it’s the level of quality, performance and service. It’s all those extras that we provide our customers which makes us invaluable and not something you can source locally.’

When the company began trading 17 years ago it had three clients – Caterpillar, Komatsu and Manitowoc (formerly Grove Cranes) – and all of its business was UK based.

Today, Gate 7’s business continues to grow worldwide and, having weathered the recession, where the company witnessed a downturn, their customer base has grown from three to its current 20, which includes JCB, Hitachi, Volvo, Bobcat, Doosan and Manitou, to name just a few. Moreover, when you learn that a single construction vehicle might have up to 200 decals, from branding to safety information to operating instructions, which Gate 7 can produce in 34 different languages, it is not difficult to understand how the worldwide market is worth almost £50 million to the Gateshead-based business.

Ms Wickham said: ‘The way our customer base works is that we have around 20 core customers, but of those 20 customers we supply numerous divisions. For example, for JCB we supply 13 manufacturing plants worldwide, for attachment manufacturers Kuhn we supply seven of their facilities in Europe, and for Volvo we supply six facilities worldwide. So, it’s top-level, blue-chip companies and we supply to all of their facilities.

‘Supplying all of the UK JCB divisions has increased our domestic market,’ continued Ms Wickham, ‘but we have also increased our exports by 40% since 2012. India is a big market for us through JCB, plus a few other customers we are working with over there, and has increased dramatically, but we have also increased our exports to Sweden, the Czech Republic and Germany.’

It was Gate 7’s success in securing foreign business that led to them being presented with a Queen’s Award for International Trade back in 2005. ‘It was winning this award that led to us winning a large contract with JCB,’ continued Ms Wickham. ‘JCB were looking for a global rebranding – it was a big decision for such a huge multinational company to use such a small company, but we were successful.’

Gate 7 also have two manufacturing divisions in Pennsylvania and South Carolina in the US. These opened in 2008 following an increase in business in America and are run by vice-president John Reay. He has been with Gate 7 since the company started and used to manage the US divisions from the UK before moving to the States in 2008. Both divisions are a carbon copy of the Gateshead-based facility – everything that Gate 7 do on a global scale is exactly the same, including machinery, ink systems and raw materials, and, where possible, their supplier base. This means that Gate 7’s customers benefit from a global quality standard product.

So, what does the future hold for Gate 7? ‘We are looking to continue in the markets where we are having real success, which are construction equipment and agriculture,’ said Ms Wickham. ‘We are a niche business and these are two areas where our expertise lies and where we excel. We are also going to continue to focus on exporting – the Indian market has great potential for us. In fact, I have a trip to India coming up soon where I will be meeting with other manufacturers who are interested in us, having seen what we have done with JCB.’