SMART COMPANY OF THE MONTH: MEASURIT TECHNOLOGIES ag in Worttern Ireland Almost half of its work is for water and ‘wastewater treatment plants around the country. All Northern Ireland's reservoirs are protected by MeasurlT's pollution sensors, while Dublin County Council is now wialling is oil spillage monitoring equipment to help it pursue polluters and make prosecutions. Another of its specialisations is in supplying, installing and servicing. monitoring systems that check temperature and humidity, as well as ultraviolet light levels in muscums, art zalleries, paper archives and document stores. For instance, you will find MeasurIT systems installed in all branches of the National Museum of Ireland. In older buildings especially sensors are often linked wirelessly to 8 local PC, which can in turn be queried over an Internet connection by jounded in Co Wicklow in 1995, With just sx staf, including founder F jens Technologies and manging decor Ma: Radio (wwww.measuritcom) began by MeasurlT has been a tech-savvy operation importing, supplying and supporting _from its inception. “There are two valves and sensors used for erucial technical staff and myself” says Radford measurements in provess industries “We are all engineers, and many of our throughout Ireland. products are electronic or have electronic Over the last 12 years the Bray controls or involve radio telemetry company’s product range has been solutions. So we have invested in IT from ‘extended to include monitors and portable the earliest days and have also tailored our instruments, PC interface modules, core software applications to suit our calibrators, humidity and gas detectors needs ~ though we have had help from ‘and other measurement products. The IT professionals from time to time.” firm now sells to customers in the “The business today is solidly based on | pharmaceutical, biotechnology and food smart IT infrastructure, while its Sectors, 38 well as to construction firms. _telecommunications services have been 4 Smart Company September 2007SMART COMPANY OF THE MONTH: MEASURIT TECHNOLOGIES fully outsourced to BT Ireland since 2002. MeasurlT has dual ISDN lines with 10 numbers and direct dial inwards capability, plus two analogue lines for DSL and fax. Like many SME owners, Mark Radford has struggled with high communications costs. “Our telecommunications costs used to be really high and there was really very litte competition,” he recalls. “Most of our products come from the USA, s0 the international phone bills were particularly high," he remembers. MeasurI is now on BT's Business One plan, which Radford reckons has saved the company thousands on telecoms costs over the last five years. “The other main benefit is having a single bill and an account manager we know” he says. wanted 2 clean and simple solution with one supplier to integrate all of our communications needs. “BT now supplies us with DSL high-speed broadband, ISDN landlines and mobile phones,” he explains. “When that beeame possible we took it and have been very happy since. Any sign of problem, one phone call. That’s what we want.” VPN From Home ‘The IT network is based on twin HP servers with a set of six PCs, largely Dell, some of which are workstation clas for use by the engineers. The network and the management ofthe company’s essential Mierosofi Exchange Server, as well sits website are looked afer by Lancast,a neighbouring specialist frm. Mark Radiond and his financial diector partner have home broadband with VPN connestions back tothe office. “T'm a sli confessed Blackberry addict. I's great sadget and I find that tend to read my ‘e-mails and then respond by phone if there is any urgency. [also use a laptop, ‘of course, but F find that with the Blackberry it actually euts down greatly ‘on the need for the laptop when I'm away from the office.” Digging in the GoldMine ‘The nature of MeasurIT ‘Technologies? Jongest standing customers only order products occasionally, since a high proportion of the products it supplies are installed ona project by project basis. So, although the firm has over 900 customers on its books, it raises only 30 to 40 invoices a month. On the other hand, the company has over 9,000 contacts categorised on its Customer Relationship Management system. Based on GoldMine, which it has adjusted and tweaked over the last few years for its own specific need: CRM system is at the heart of the company’s business development plans. Mark Radford ouside Measurts offices in Bray “Wie write SOL queries into Goldmine, so Pd say we are faiely advanced users,” says Radford “Tt contains data on companies we do business with, oF might do business with, customers and suppliers or principals; often many different contacts in the same organisation, There is one major project management firm where T think we have worked with neatly 80 different people with several diferent industry oF technology speci ‘There are also many different types of technology and product information The Stent Vale reservoir is minted by Nort -— Smart Company related to those different areas, while the individual contacts range from consulting process and design engincers to museum curators!” MeasurlT’s GaldMine CRM system is now a vast repository of valuable information which has been integrated with the company’s product informat catalogue, as well as with orthodox CRM functions such as group e-mailing of \d new product information. "We now have the system pretty much as we want it for new business development and for day-to-day CRM. We use MasterMine as an analysis and reporting add-on to GoldMine. Our ‘main quotation software package, QuoteWorks, also works with the customer and other information from GoldMine. This has proved particularly useful in a smaller business like ours, as, it saves us perhaps 50% of the time it previously would have taken us 10 prepare detailed quotations.” Even when on the road, Mark Radford ‘explains, when he does use his laptop itis ‘most often to get more information from the company’s CRM system. “This database is so important to us that we hhave set up automatic synchronisation ‘with the server for my laptop and all che PCs that connect to it,” he said. ‘The finance system, by contrast, is smart but not particularly complex. MeasurIT uses TAS Books, which copes with multi-curreney (US imports, exports to Northern Ireland) and the legal reporting requirements of VIES. and Intrastat for international traders within the EU. “I think our business systems are much as we want them to be. However, we do see the technology used in our sensors changing quite radically. Itis moving on from being electronic to being biologically based. Ie is related to nanotechnology and I think it will be very important for the third world because, iFyou can grow a sensor like you ‘grow a plant, itis much cheaper than, manufacturing it. Ifyou had a plant that ‘you could dip in water to test its quality, it would be much cheaper to produce analysis equipment. It's also good that Ireland is at the forefront of that research Radford said. He says there is research in progress at University College Cork’s National Micro Electronic Resource Centre that could have a significant impact on water treatment around the world. No doubt Radford will, bbe keeping a close eye on it. ML worldwid September 2007 5