EI chief has laser-guided eye for growing business

Deputy Business Editor

Saturday 11 August 2012

THERE are not too many Scottish companies with a room that requires visitors and staff to don safety goggles as one of the lasers inside could take an eye out at 100 yards.

LIGHTING THE WAY: EI chief executive Alan Faichney said the group has started to do good business in the Middle East and things are also looking up in Brazil, Russia and China.

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Prior to seeing the glowing purple beam, which would be much coveted by James Bond villains of a certain vintage, the Edinburgh Instruments chief executive Alan Faichney points out a small detail which shows the ways in which the business has changed since he came in two years ago.

In the past EI, a spin out from Heriot Watt University in the 1970s and now with its headquarters in Livingston, West Lothian, did not use its branding on products like safety glasses or mouse mats.That led to instances where its high-end technology, which can cost upwards of six-figures for one system, would have branding from a competitor resting next to it.As Mr Faichney puts it: "We put out lots of mouse mats now."The bulk of the revenue at the company comes from selling spectrometers, an instrument used to measure properties of light, to academic and industrial research laboratories although it also has the aforementioned lasers and a gas sensor arm.Mr Faichney, originally a mathematician, said: "We will customise and build bespoke systems here in Livingston. "That is quite a big differentiator for us and keeps us right at the top of the quality pile. "If you are a high-end researcher in China who has just got a big grant you don't want the same thing as the guy from the lab down the road. "You want something very specific for your area." Mr Faichney was tempted out of semi-retirement – he had taken some non-executive appointments having previously sold a seismic software company – after seeing the job notice for the chief executive role in a newspaper.He said: "The more I saw the more I realised the potential here. "It had fantastic technologies and people but without putting the business down it had been run more like a university workshop than a factory. "There were lots of good business practices which could be brought in and I felt I could inject some acceleration into what was happening."That acceleration has included overhauling the production side of the company which Mr Faichney, 56, was originally advised was operating at full capacity.He said: "The space was not optimised and there was no notion of it being a factory."Once we re-organised and rationalised the space we quadrupled the capacity."Alongside that there has been investment in more sales and marketing resource to target a larger customer base.Although exports already make up a huge percentage of sales there is a realisation EI could do more and the changes are starting to bear fruit.Mr Faichney said: "We have started to do good business in the Middle East, our Brazilian distributor is doing good business for us and we are starting to do business in Russia and Turkey. "There are still areas for us to look at like North Africa. "We also do much less in the United States than we really should because we just don't have the facilities and sales channels in place. "We only do 5% of our business in the US but 35% now in China and 30% in Europe. The US is a bigger market than either of those."Effecting cultural change at a place where many employees have only ever worked for one company had to be undertaken sensitively.Mr Faichney said: "I had to be careful and not come in with tackety boots. "There was a lot of unrealised potential in EI and most of the cultural change was just about unlocking that."It is important to know where you want to go, explain the vision to people and let them know what upside there is for them from that."I'm still having a lot of fun as the strategy is working and the staff, I believe, are loving it. "I have meetings every month in the canteen where I let people know what we are doing and how we are getting on. "It is great news for people to hear we have another best ever quarter when in the environment around here there is a lot of bad news. But there is still a lot to do."That sense of tasks still needing to be completed was what initially tempted him back into full-time executive life.He said: "I realised half a dozen non-exec posts wasn't doing it for me. "You can turn up at a board meeting as a non-exec and say 'well in my experience you should be doing this and that'."Then a month later maybe they had done something and maybe they hadn't. You couldn't push change through."With his own travel calendar taking in three trips to China a year plus time in Japan, Europe and the US Mr Faichney is getting the opportunity to push things forward all around the world.He said: "We have hired engineering, production and marketing staff and are continuing to do that. It was 58 people when I started and it is now just under 70. Our plans for the coming year is to take it to about 80."We are also setting up some modern apprenticeships as we are very keen to get more young people into the organisation. "I see considerable and consistent growth over the next years from places we haven't looked or done properly such as South Africa or America or those which are naturally growing like China, India, Turkey and Brazil."

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EI chief has laser-guided eye for growing business

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