Maintaining a healthy outlook on business

What distinguishes your business from competitors?
We are in a very competitive marketplace, so we've had to make ourselves stand out over the last couple of years. We developed our own branded product. That made us take ownership of what we're doing. We developed MediQuilt, which we've patented. It's a reusable quilt with a disposable cover for ambulance and hospital use. Duramedic is our own-brand range of medical equipment and first aid items.

What's been the biggest challenge you have had to face?
My husband and business partner had a horseriding accident several years ago and suffered a spinal injury. It made us sit back and think about where we were going with the business. We were trying to juggle an awful lot of things and had to put our time to better use and refocus the company. That led to us developing Medlogistix. It's an innovative web-based management system that we developed in-house.

And your major success to date?
Medlogistix has been an immense achievement. It offers a fully-managed solution for the procurement, stock management and delivery of medical products across multiple locations. It also gives significant cost and time savings. A pilot programme run within the North Leinster Ambulance Service demonstrated cost efficiencies in excess of 30 per cent of their annual spend over a 12-month period. We competed with companies much bigger than ourselves in a tender process and won the nationwide contract for the National Ambulance Service. The contract is worth in the region of €5 million over a 36-month period, and we will utilise Medlogistix to fulfil it.

What's the biggest mistake you've made in business?
Not having the confidence in myself to take on as much as I now know I can. If I'd had more faith in myself, I could have grown the business more quickly. Only in the last three years did I become confident enough to take on more and we've had 20 per cent year-on-year growth since.

The Going for Growth programme for women entrepreneurs has helped me. It facilitates women to support each other and grow their businesses.

What was the best piece of business advice you've ever received?
Always focus on how the customer perceives the impact of innovation rather than how the innovators perceive the impact. We let the customer drive how Medlogistix was going to be developed.

Someone once said to me – “Think big, act big and it will happen”. I think that’s a good motto too.

Who do you most admire in business and why?
Tour America founder and managing director Mary McKenna. She has 50 employees and a turnover of €20 million despite being in a difficult market. The internet has meant fewer people go to travel agents now and many people think it's not a growing market, but that's not the case for Tour America.

I also admire Olas founder Monica Flood, who I met through the Going for Growth programme. She started her business from home and grew it big, before selling it to a French public company.

What piece of advice would you give to the Government to stimulate the economy?
They need to take on a panel of business people and entrepreneurs to give them business advice. The best people to advise on helping Irish businesses and the economy are Irish business people.

I find the JobBridge programme very beneficial. We have already employed several people from it. We have also employed some people through the JobsPlus programme, which is an employer incentive scheme to recruit people who are long-term unemployed. It gives employers a financial subsidy for taking someone off the dole/live register. The Government should have more programmes like that. It helps SMEs employ people as it can be quite costly to put someone on the books.

Do you think the banks are open for business at the moment?
Our bank is extremely supportive. We are continually growing which I think helps. We've never looked for much money. We self-funded through all our growth plans.

How do you see the short-term future for your business?
The implementation of Medlogistix is opening new doors for us. We are already in talks with potential new customers in Britain and Ireland. Exporting is on the horizon for our MediQuilt product. We want to export it to Finland and Austria.

How much is your business worth and would you sell it?
The business is probably just realising its value now. It's difficult to put a price on its value considering the growth phase it's going through. We have forecast growth of 30 per cent this year, and are on track to achieve a turnover of €3.5 million. We don't want to sell, we want to buy. We are on an acquisition trail, and have been looking at other businesses.

In conversation with Pamela Newenham