Environment Company Gets The Language Treatment
Brightwater Engineering specialises in high-efficiency small footprint biological processes for the treatment of sewage. Based in Letchworth, the company employs 45 people, and is already active in the French and Spanish markets, and is looking to expand into Eastern Europe, initially in Poland.
John Tingle, Business Development Manager for Brightwater, stresses that for the French market, the company take full advantage of the advanced French skills of one of their English staff, whilst John himself speaks fluent German, which he states can be useful when in some East European countries.
Languages are used in business primarily in discussions with agents and direct contact with customers. Their experience of trading with the French is that if French is spoken it effectively demonstrates our commitment to the market. From previous experience in exporting to Germany, speaking German made a material difference in their attitude to us. Although in meetings they speak English, and meetings are often conducted in English, they don't really want to, so when you start to speak German you can see the atmosphere change and the mood of the meeting turns in your favour, so are much more likely to buy from you than otherwise.
Brightwater have enrolled a number of staff in the French and Spanish courses under the Languages and Culture for Business organisation run by the University of Luton and sponsored under the EU Social Fund. These have been extremely well received by the staff involved.
The company also attended a four-hour Polish workshop, aimed at providing participants with icebreaker phrases used when first meeting with contacts in Poland. The company has identified Poland as worthy of investigation, and was keen to at least have some of the language under its belt. Says John, who had previously tried to learn from tapes, it was extremely useful, much more so than the tapes, as a grounding in the language and pronunciation of some things that the tape didn't tell me was wrong the tutor was able to put me on the right lines and show me how the sounds fitted together.
Brightwater's French promotional materials were first translated in-house, then sent to the agent in the target market for modification and correction. The Spanish materials were translated by a UK-based translation firm. In countries in which we are active, we are also actively training people or introducing languages to people involved in those markets. Much of the work undertaken so far has been funded through Europe.
www.brightwater.uk.com