Solid growth achieved even through recession

Established in 2007 by Sean and co-founders Brendan Reilly and Bryan Fox, Electric Skyline is a Co Mayo-based firm that provides public and sports lighting for local authorities and sporting organisations. It employs 24 staff.

What has been the biggest challenge you have had to face in business? The biggest challenge we have to deal with is the tendering process. I'd like to see it made easier because it's so time-consuming. A tender proposal we submitted recently took us two weeks of work to put together and that is obviously something that costs us a lot. In fact, it's so expensive in terms of time and resources that it has made us establish a new side to our business so that we're less reliant on winning tenders for income.

What distinguishes your business from its competitors? There are at least five other companies that specialise in our area of work and they all tend to offer the same kind of services. Electric Skyline is the second largest firm of its type in the country and we look after the public lighting needs for most of the local authorities in the Connacht region.

I think the level of customer service we offer is what sets us apart from our rivals. I believe we brought more competitiveness to the market and are more efficient than other companies operating in this space. What was the best piece of business advice you've ever received? Knowing your customers and recognising their needs is the key to success.

What is the biggest mistake you've made in business? We appointed the wrong person to a job in the company and that proved to be a mistake. We should have done more research to ensure that we had a person who was properly qualified for the role but didn't.

Also, for two years we grew strongly and then took our eyes off the ball a little and didn’t monitor cashflow as well as we could. It meant that we had to do a major review to get ourselves back on track. This taught us the importance of monitoring the business on a daily, weekly and monthly basis.

And your major success to date? There are a number of tenders we have won that we're particularly proud of.

Winning contracts with five local authorities in Connacht is a particular success in our eyes and a major achievement for the company, particularly given the expense and time taken to do them.

I’m also proud of the fact that we’ve achieved consistent growth of between 10 and 12 per cent every year, even throughout the recession.

Who do you most admire in business and why? Donagh Kelly from the infrastructure and utilities services provider KN Networks is someone I've long admired for his ability to get the job done well.

What piece of advice would you give to the Government to stimulate the economy? I want to see the Government investing more outside Dublin because everything is centred around the capital while there are little or no stimulus packages available for the western regions.

I’d also like to see legislation in place to ensure prompt payment from buyers. Cash flow is key for small firms but, when you have to wait 90-plus days . . . to get paid, businesses can end up on their knees. If a customer decides not to pay, there is nowhere to go so many companies have gone out of business simply because they cannot get paid on time.

Do you think the banks are open for business at the moment? We've had a great experience with our bank and have always found them approachable. We supply them with regular updates on how the business is doing and haven't had an issue in terms of accessing finance.

How do you see the short-term future for your business? We've shown expertise in the external lighting business and now we're moving inside buildings and providing energy analysis services to show companies how they can cut the cost of lighting.

Not only will this enable us to grow our client base but it also makes us less dependent on winning tenders so we’re now going to be in a position to create our own stream of revenue.

What is your business worth and would you consider selling it? It's hard to put in figures how much it would be worth. If a potential buyer came along, we'd always look upon it as an option but we've invested a huge amount in time and resources so if we sold it, it wouldn't be at a cheap price, that's for sure. In conversation with Charlie Taylor