Daniamant

A Message from Lord Pickles and Lord Blunkett, followed by Daniamant's best practice article

The ability to listen and learn from one another has always been vital in parliament, in business and in most aspects of daily life. But at this particular moment in time, as national and global events continue to reiterate, it is uncommonly crucial that we forge new channels of communication and reinforce existing ones. The following article from Daniamant is an attempt to do just that. We would welcome your thoughts on this or any other Parliamentary Review article.

Rt Hon The Lord David Blunkett

Rt Hon The Lord Eric Pickles

www.echopilot.com

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

36 | DANIAMANT LTD

Kevin Rough, CEO

L160 lifebuoy light, winner of The

Queen’s Award for Innovation

Daniamant Ltd is a manufacturing company, based in

Portsmouth, that produces survivor location lights for the

marine, military, civil and aviation markets. Kevin Rough,

CEO, has worked with Daniamant Ltd since they acquired

his previous employer McMurdo in 2006. He explains that all

products must meet strict quality standards set out under the

Marine Equipment Directive (MED) and Safety of Life at Sea

(SOLAS) regulations. Daniamant Ltd’s clients include original

equipment manufacturers (OEMs), the UK Ministry of Defence

and distributors all over the world.

Despite a drop in UK defence sales and significant price pressure from the Far East,

Daniamant Ltd continue to innovate and bring new products to market ensuring

they grow their export business and remain competitive and profitable. Their head

office is in Denmark where they have a second manufacturing facility aiming to

diversify into different market segments within the marine sector.

Founded in 2006 Daniamant Ltd has had to continue to improve its existing

product range, while developing new products and improving productivity and

its cost base to ensure it remains competitive in a very tough commercial marine

market. Daniamant Ltd has won numerous manufacturing and innovation

awards over the last few years, but its highlight during this period was being the

recipient of a Queen’s Award for Innovation in 2014 for a lifebuoy light range

designed to penetrate the European and US markets and open up a niche in the

offshoresector.

FACTS ABOUT

DANIAMANT LTD

»CEO: Kevin Rough

»Established in 2006

»Based in Portsmouth

»Services: Manufacture of

survivor location lights

»No. of employees: 37

»www.daniamant.com

»www.odeoflare.com

»www.echopilot.com

Daniamant Ltd

37DANIAMANT LTD |

BEST PRACTICE REPRESENTATIVE 2018

With falling UK and military business

Daniamant Ltd has had to actively

target export markets through

distribution and partners to survive. In

2006, Daniamant Ltd’s export business

represented 32 per cent of its £3.6

million turnover; in 2017, Daniamant

Ltd’s export business represented 73

per cent of its £5 million turnover. This

growth was achieved while prices fell

by over 50 per cent in the same period.

Forging strong long-term relationships

and partnerships is key to this success,

at the same time as remaining

competitive and having a quality

product that your partners can trust,

especially with products that are used

to save people’s lives when all else

hasfailed.

Remaining competitive has been tough;

Brexit has had an impact on increasing

raw material costs, and revenue at a

group level has been reduced due to

the approx. 20 per cent reduction in the

Danish krona from all sales in the UK.

The National Living Wage has further

increased production costs, augmented

by pension auto enrolment costs. All

of this has meant that you need to

find more efficient ways to produce

your products, automate or design out

older techniques and design in new

innovative methods to keep production

costs low and waste to a minimum.

Recently, Daniamant Ltd has diversified

and started to cross over from its main

commercial market into the leisure

segment to increase sales further;

however, caution is required. Although

there are similarities in products

required, a different approach is

needed, as there is no legislation in

the leisure market, so buyer behaviour

is different. The new ODEO FlareTM is

a recent example. It is an innovative

product that can potentially replace

pyrotechnics reducing hazards,

transport and disposal costs, but with

no legislation sales growth is slower.

Lobbying the appropriate authorities,

working with partners worldwide to

justify the benefits is a slow process;

however, hard work pays off and sales

of this product have grown 100 per

cent over the past three years.

The team in Portsmouth

Forging strong

long-term

relationships

and

partnerships is

key to this

success

“

Daniamant’s timeline

THE PARLIAMENTARY REVIEW

Highlighting best practice

38 | DANIAMANT LTD

Despite Daniamant Ltd’s size and lean

resource they demonstrate that small

companies in the UK are still focused

on and committed to developing

innovative products and continually

expanding into new markets. CEO

Kevin Rough states, “UK companies

can be and still are competitive when

it comes to manufacturing; it is so

important that we showcase the talent

that we have here in the UK.”

The next few years will be important

and Rough states that “tariff-free

movement of goods to the EU is

critical for UK companies to remain

competitive; our business has grown

in this area significantly and that hard

work needs to be protected. Any

imposition of tariffs would increase

costs, make processes more complex

and bureaucratic increasing our

customers’ costs. Operating under

the Marine Equipment Directive (and

a myriad of other regulations and

legislation) is hard for small businesses

and how EU legislation is dealt

with will be key. The current MED

legislation puts responsibilities on

manufacturers who are not located in

the territory of at least one member

state; Brexit has had a real impact

here, but with offices in Denmark we

can be compliant.”

Daniamant Ltd, in conjunction with

its Danish facility, continues to look

for new ways to apply its expertise in

design and manufacturing in other

products or identify gaps in the

market for further growth. Despite

the commercial marine market being

in decline for the past three to four

years there are now signs of growth,

especially in the cruise segment, and

Daniamant Ltd will work hard with its

partners to exploit this potential. They

have recently acquired another UK

company manufacturing 3D forward-

looking sonar, and this product will

help reduce accidents and collisions

with underwater objects. This is

another step into a different marine

segment to spread the risk of only

having one target market.

Daniamant Ltd continue to invest

in new product development every

year; a technical improvement, a cost

reduction, a new product – without

this continued investment Rough

feels that Daniamant Ltd would be

going backwards very quickly. You

have to keep moving forward, even

if sometimes it feels you are working

hard to stand still. We have to help

our customers and supply chain

be more successful by being at the

leading edge of our technology,

ensuring high quality and offering

them a product portfolio they can be

competitive with.

Rough states “I have been in

manufacturing for 30 years; I believe

passionately in UK manufacturing,

the fact that we can still compete

with anyone in the world. Daniamant

Ltd’s continued success demonstrates

just that; a small company from

Portsmouth can innovate and export

and be recognised alongside the BAE

and Jaguars of the world. It shows

what talent we have here in the

south and in the UK, and is the key to

growing this country’s exports.”

I believe

passionately in

manufacturing,

the fact that

we can still

compete with

anyone in the

world

“

The innovative ODEO

Flare™

www.echopilot.com

This article was sponsored by Daniamant. The Parliamentary Review is wholly funded by the representatives who write for it. The publication in which this article originally appeared contained the following foreword from Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng.

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng's Foreword For The Parliamentary Review

By Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng

This year’s Parliamentary Review reflects on a tumultuous and extraordinary year, globally and nationally. As well as being an MP, I am a keen student of history, and I am conscious that 2020 would mark the end of an era. It will be remembered as the year in which we concluded Brexit negotiations and finally left the European Union. Above all, it will be remembered as the year of Covid-19.

In our fight against the pandemic, I am delighted that our vaccination programme is beginning to turn the tide – and I pay tribute to the British businesses, scientists and all those who have helped us to achieve this. But the virus has dealt enormous damage, and we now have a duty to rebuild our economy.

We must ensure that businesses are protected. We have made more than £350 billion available to that end, with grants, business rates relief and our furlough scheme supporting more than 11 million people and jobs in every corner of the country, maintaining livelihoods while easing the pressure on employers. The next step is to work with business to build back better and greener, putting the net zero carbon challenge at the heart of our recovery. This is a complex undertaking, but one which I hope will be recognised as a once in a lifetime opportunity.

Through the prime minister’s ten point plan for a green industrial revolution, we can level up every region of the UK, supporting 250,000 green jobs while we accelerate our progress towards net zero carbon emissions.

With our commitment to raise R&D spending to 2.4% of GDP and the creation of the Advanced Research & Invention Agency, we are empowering our fantastic researchers to take on groundbreaking research, delivering funding with flexibility and speed. With this approach, innovators will be able to work with our traditional industrial heartlands to explore new technologies, and design and manufacture the products on which the future will be built – ready for export around the globe.

And I believe trade will flourish. We are a leading nation in the fight against climate change. As the host of COP26 this year, we have an incredible opportunity to market our low-carbon products and expertise. Our departure from the EU gives us the chance to be a champion of truly global free trade; we have already signed trade deals with more than 60 countries around the world.

As we turn the page and leave 2020 behind, I am excited about the new chapter which Britain is now writing for itself, and for the opportunities which lie ahead of us.

Rt Hon Kwasi Kwarteng
Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy