Seabrook Technology provides manufacturing execution systems to companies to regulate their manufacturing processes. They specialise in providing services to medical and pharmaceutical device manufacturers. These are heavily-regulated industries that demand that the manufacturing process is carefully controlled, ensuring high-quality products that protect patients' safety.
What sets your business apart from the competition? We have carved out a specialised niche for our company through our staff, who are all certified and specially trained. As a small business, we have invested a significant amount of funds in training our staff so that they offer the highest level of service to clients.
What is the biggest mistake you have made? My biggest mistake was being too afraid of the US market. We had the opportunity to enter the US market much earlier, around the 1990s, and if those steps had been taken, I wouldn't be talking to you now – I'd be living in Barbados. It wasn't so much a mistake as being overly cautious.
What's the biggest challenge you have had to face? The company has lived through three recessions, and the 2008-2011 recession was the worst, as multinationals were afraid to spend because they didn't know what way the world was going. We only survived by relocating two people to Malaysia and Singapore and hiring locals there, as well as cutting costs at home.
During that time I also joined the board of RTÉ, and they and Seabrook had a common set of problems to solve. For example, both were trying to retain commercial revenue in a competitive market that was afraid to spend money.
What has been your greatest success to date? Staying open. There were a lot of serendipity-type moments that lead us to survive the way we did. I remember at a conference about start-ups that was hosted by one of the banks, a woman mentioned the stress that comes with starting a business and asked how do I sleep. And I answered "I sleep like a baby: I wake up every hour," which was true.
The best thing to do when you’re worrying about how the business is going is to meet face-to-face with clients, in the early days particularly. Now I meet my clients every three months. To anyone who’s starting a business, get out there and make the calls!
What's the best piece of advice you have received? It was from a very good friend of mine who was a senior executive in Apple, who advised me to set up a board of directors to oversee the business. That was invaluable, as it gave independent analysis of our operations. Not enough entrepreneurs ask themselves "why are you doing that?".
Who do you admire in business and why? I admire any individual who starts their own business. If you're a highly-qualified worker, you can achieve a comfortable existence at Google or Facebook quite easily, but it takes much more effort to start your own company. I call them the 'socialist capitalists', because they create wealth, but also jobs for other people. Are the banks open for business? The banks were very supportive of me all the way through. I'm not sure if the banks' function is to support the long-term development of SMEs. They provide working capital, but I don't think they should be involved in investment capital – people with good ideas get independent backing. What advice would you give the Government to help stimulate the economy? One thing the Government should do urgently is to evaluate the future education of our industrial workforce. Industries are changing rapidly to integrate technology into their operations, and that means the role of the worker is also changing.
We are four or five years from machines performing surgeries and machines giving orders directly to other machines on the production lines, which means we need to invest in manufacturing education for the Irish workforce at second- and third-level.
What does the future hold for your business? If there is a problem with a product, accountability is key, as we've seen in the recent car manufacturing scandals, and this is what makes our services vital.
As time goes on, regulatory requirements will continue to tighten. In the 26 years we’ve been operating, we’ve never been this busy. We’re looking to open offices in Boston by March 2016 and, with the recent partnership with Siemens, soon we’ll also open an office around the Birmingham area.
How much is your business worth and would you sell it? The valuation is about €7 million. I enjoy the business so much, and love seeing the convergence of electronics and medical devices. There are so many exciting things coming along that I don't want to miss out on, but if the price is right, you never know.
In conversation with Gráinne Ní Aodha
