SST Sensing Ltd attended the HSBC Scottish Export Awards held at the Glasgow Hilton on Wednesday 23 March. Exporting and International Trade remain high on the Scottish Government’s economic growth agenda and these awards were about recognising the excellence in those emerging, wealth creating companies that are selling their products, services and expertise on a global scale.
SST Sensing Ltd were shortlisted for 2 categories, Ecommerce Exporter of the Year and Most Entrepreneurial Exporter of the Year because we have demonstrated entrepreneurial flair within our export strategy and have increased our brand awareness and recognition, expanded into new markets, increased sales and efficiency and improved customer service through ecommerce.
Winning the Ecommerce Exporter of the Year Award gave us the credit and recognition we worked extremely hard for in building our brand and sales through various digital marketing channels such as SEO, PPC; web design and giving customers the opportunity to purchase some of our products online. By doing this, we demonstrated how we have used e-commerce and trading online to significantly enhance our export growth.
When SST Sensing Ltd formed in 2002, we saw exporting as a challenge due to the limited financial resources available to us at the time. With the support from Scottish Enterprise and putting a marketing strategy in place to find new routes to market on an international scale it was then possible for SST to reach our exporting goals.
Today, SST export to Europe, Asia and India with our sales now reflecting 90% export where it used to be 80% domestic. Only 18 months after launching an export drive, SST has doubled our sales to just under £4m. SST’s oxygen sensors are now selling beyond the traditional gas industries into the agriculture, medical, food, transport and marine sectors and huge industrial corporations are now purchasing standard products and embarking on large bespoke design projects with SST.
Keith Wight, Managing Director at SST says “We were wasting a lot of effort with sales team visits before…now customers are coming to us through our website and our innovative approach to dealing with enquiries, which means relationships build quicker and time to market drops.”