A west of Scotland-based business which offers a range of innovative web handling solutions and niche products to the converting industry is on course to double turnover in the next financial year.
Braden Technologies Ltd. was founded three years ago by Roy Cannon, who decided to take the plunge and set up his own company following a long career working globally in the electronics and converting sector in technical roles within design and product management.
Despite launching the business shortly before the dual challenges of Brexit and the pandemic, the firm has steadily grown and has established partnerships with a number of pioneering firms including Germany-headquartered spreader and technical roller specialist Dreckshage GmbH, Swedish airshaft provider Hofpartner AB, Japanese anti-dust/static solutions expert TRINC, Austria’s FWT Composites & Rolls GmbH, and another Swedish firm called Nip Control AB, which supplies high-precision nip measuring instruments.
“I’m in my early 60s now,” Roy told Packaging Scotland. “I’d always had an itch to scratch and so I left (my previous job) three years ago to set up a little trading business using the contacts that I had made over the years. I knew a lot of niche products in different countries and thought I’d like to bring them back into Scotland and the north of England.
“That was probably not the best thing to do just before Brexit, and then Covid hit. But what I’ve found is the European manufacturing companies are keen to have local experts (rather than direct employees in the UK), so it fitted in quite well with myself as I come from a technical background. I know the processes; I know the products. I go to exhibitions and have a chat with some of these OEMs and they’re more than delighted to have me help them. I wanted to bring some of the expertise back into Scotland so we can use some of these niche solutions.”
Roy described the first two years as ‘pretty stable’, but he’s now projecting to double turnover after a number of projects that were shelved during the pandemic started to come to fruition.
Covid-19 restrictions also prevented Roy from getting out on the road to visit shopfloors and see processes in action, which is the best method for him to analyse where improvements can be made and suggest different solutions.
One aspect he’s benefited from is the fact some exporting companies in Europe started to re-evaluate how they supply the UK market. With Roy importing the products, customers are billed in sterling, and he described the process as ‘seamless’.
“The products that I’m working with are quite unique,” he added. “They work.
“Some of these are quite new products. The sector in Scotland is not well serviced so the solutions I’m giving – actually sitting in front of someone and talking about their own process and how they can fix it – is still a very powerful thing. It’s all well and good finding something on the Internet but where’s it from? How do you install it? How do you service it? How much does it cost? Do you need to import it? The customers are busy people, they don’t have the time to do all this.”
Roy revealed the spreader roller technology has been ‘by far’ the most popular product, with excellent customer feedback and repeat business.
Looking to the future, he envisages introducing more products to the portfolio and, in time, having dedicated premises and employees too.
Right now, though, he’s on a mission to ‘build the brand’ and introduce as many companies as possible to some of these innovations to help machine builders and convertors improve productivity and process control.
“At the moment I’m working from home,” he explained. “I don’t stock anything. The rollers are built to order. Everything else is shipped in. At this time I don’t have a requirement for a facility. As the business grows, I’ll need to set up something for servicing. The aim is to build a niche market for these products.”
