Outward approach

Identifying good ideas abroad and bringing them home can inspire successful businesses.

Security issues

NETWATCH:When a friend of David Walsh and Niall Kelly was attacked after he responded to an alarm on his business premises, the two men decided to put their heads together to come up an alarm system that provided security for key holders against intruders that may already be on a premises.

"We researched it and found there was a company in Australia that specialised in the whole area of video transmission technology, predominantly for military installations," says Kelly.

The two men saw that potential for adapting the technology for the private sector. The result was Netwatch. Founded by Walsh and Kelly in 2003 in Carlow, Netwatch is the first company in Ireland to use satellite and internet-based technologies to provide remote visual security monitoring to businesses throughout the country and abroad.

Its video transmission technology allows highly trained specialists to monitor client properties and critical infrastructures in real time and speak directly to criminals before a crime is committed.

"If we have an incidence on a customer's site, before 8am the following morning we will have sent an e-mail report to the client that will report the observations that somebody entered at a certain time, that person got an audio warning, plus a photograph encrypted of him going in and going out.

"We've never had a situation where somebody got a warning and didn't leave the site," he says.

Netwatch has enjoyed significant growth since its launch; the company's turnover has grown by 1,000 per cent from 2003 to 2006. From employing just three people and monitoring one premises four years ago, the company currently has 60 full-time and 10 part-time employees protecting more than 700 sites across Ireland, UK, Europe and USA.

Netwatch is on target to turnover in excess of €7.5 million in 2007 and have developed growth strategies to see that figure reach €15 million by 2009.

Much of the future growth will come from its overseas operations particularly Europe and USA, where subsidiaries have been established.

The system has had outstanding success with more than 7,000 attempted break-ins foiled by Netwatch since its inception.

Global health services

REVAHEALTH.COM:When Caelen King was receiving treatment for a minor ailment while travelling in Singapore, he was astounded by the quality of service in the hospital. It also gave him the seeds of a business idea.

In April of this year, he launched RevaHealth.com, an internet-based searchable database of healthcare providers for the medical tourism sector.

The site allows consumers to easily compare and be put directly in contact with their chosen hospital or clinic in any location worldwide.

"Basically we are an online lead generation site," explains Philip Boyle, marketing director of Revahealth.com.

"We sign up the clinics to our site. They get their listings put up with all the treatments they offer and information about their staff and qualifications and so on. That is completely free.

"Consumers, visitors and patients come to our site and look around the different clinics that are available and decide to contact them.

"Whenever those contact details come through to us with information about the treatment they want, we pass that on to the clinic and the clinic pays us for those details," he explains.

With an increasing number of patients choosing to escape long waiting lists and expensive doctors' and dentists' fees in their home countries, the medical tourism market is currently valued at over $20 billion (€20.6 billion) annually and is experiencing double digit annual growth.

"There are all sorts of reasons why people might want to travel in terms of reduced costs, long waiting lists in their own country or procedures that aren't available locally," says Boyle.

"Although we are based in Ireland, we are globally faced. We sign up clinics from all over the world and then allow people searching from anywhere in the world to find them."

With a choice of over 200 Healthcare Providers in 30 different countries, Revahealth.com says it now generates in excess of $1 million (€686,111) worth of business for hospitals and clinics worldwide every week.

"We currently employ 12 people here in Dublin and expect to triple in size in the next year. Right now we handle 100 enquiries a day from visitors from all over the world looking for dental and medical treatment abroad," says Boyle.

Dedicated to accuracy

CALIBRATION TECHNOLOGY LTD:Limerick-based Calibration Technology Ltd (CTL) last month became the first dedicated pipette calibration laboratory in Ireland to achieve ISO 17025 accreditation.

Pipettes are laboratory instruments used to transport a measured volume of liquid and are commonly used in chemistry and molecular biology research as well as medical tests.

This makes CTL, which was set up by Brian Kelly just two years ago, the first and only dedicated pipette calibration laboratory in Ireland to achieve the international standard, which was awarded by the Irish National Accreditation Board (INAB).

CTL works with laboratories to help them optimise the accuracy of their test results by ensuring their pipettes are precise. This has far-reaching consequences, for example in terms of the safety of the clients these laboratories serve, the credibility of the laboratories' results and ultimately their reputation.

"Pipettes are hand-held, spring-loaded devices, which are used extensively in laboratories to measure micro-quantities of liquids," says Kelly.

"We provide these laboratories with a dedicated, accredited pipette calibration service, which ensures that these instruments will measure accurately to internationally-recognised standards," explains Kelly.

It is one of very few pipette calibration labs in Ireland to have a completely electronic system.

"We did this by pulling together and tweaking 11 software packages and so created an electronic system," says Dr Shirley Gallagher, quality manager at CTL.

"Creating a portable electronic system has the benefit of human error being minimised as much as possible.

"After initial input of data, it remains forever on the system and the rest of the process allows the data to be transferred electronically," she explains.

The company which currently employs five people, is expected to employ 20 staff by 2012 as part of expansion plans.

Outlining the importance of ISO 17025 to achieving this growth, Kelly explained: "We estimate that the pipette calibration business in Ireland is worth in excess of €2 million annually.

"ISO 17025 accreditation puts us in the running for this business, and allows us to provide laboratories in Ireland initially and then internationally - with a faster and more flexible service.

"It also opens the door for us to partner with global pipette manufacturers as their preferred provider of pipette calibration services, and to expand into other related areas, such as balance, temperature and humidity calibration."

Kelly was a founding director of Reagecon Diagnostics in 1986 and was its sales and marketing director until 2004 before he went to set up CTL.