Icon Polymer Ltd, based in Retford, Nottinghamshire, UK, is a leading supplier of fabricated polymer components and is a rare company in that it manufacturers in the UK and sells into China. With over 15% of it’s sales exported to the Far East, this is a company that has truly embraced Asia.
Icon has a history spanning more than 150 yrs of manufacturing experience and today serves a diverse range of markets, including aerospace and defence, transportation, construction and energy and specialised industrial applications. However, the products share common characteristics in that they are highly engineered, designed to maximise value for the customer, used in mission critical applications and are polymer-based.
Icon’s ability to design, produce and service a custom solution combined with a tailored commercial arrangement has enabled it to gain sales of product to China with full manufacturing in the UK. “This has not been easy”, said Director of Sales John Greaves, “but after visiting China we felt we could compete. Our success stems from listening, understanding and reacting to the needs of our customers”
Today the Group regularly ships highly-engineered products into China and expects its total exports to continue to grow over the next five years.
As well as selling to Asia, the Group has also invested to develop and implement a robust supply chain using Asian-based sources. “Our traditional suppliers are very important to us and in 2007 we spent a lot of time working with our key suppliers so they understand what we do, what is important to us and ‘execute’ on actions defined to add value,” said Group Operations Director Mick Tolliday. “However, if we did not harness the benefits of Asian sources we would be failing to meet our objective of maximising the value we create for our customers.”
“For most engineering companies an Asian strategy means ‘who are we going to buy from next’ with Icon Polymer it is the reverse as we continue to see new enquiries arriving from our Far East customers” said Managing Director Tim Pryce.