Aviation exporter speaks of success
If in doubt, travel. It’s a great mantra for a company that has built an export business putting LCD display systems into planes. For Will Hutchinson, managing director of Thomas Electronics of Australia, it’s the best advice he has to offer potential exporters. “If a customer either wants or needs to see you, just hop on a plane. You haven’t a choice. You have to be there. Don’t think about not travelling.” Wise words from a man who has spent 20 years putting Australian avionics products on the instrument panels of German, American and British planes.
Thomas Electronics has been in the display business in Australia for more than half a century, doing everything from repairing old CRT televisions to developing complex display systems for defence vessels on land, in the sky and underwater. Now working principally in aerospace and defence electronics, the Australian company is punching well above its weight as an SME in a global market dominated by multinationals.
Hutchinson has led Thomas Electronics from an annual turnover of $2.5 million in 2000 to well over $25 million in 2009, and in recognition of his export success, was named an Export Hero by the Australian Institute of Export this year. The affable director shrugs off the justifiers for this accolade. “Perhaps it was because I’ve got a nice smile?” he laughs. Scratch the surface, though, and you reveal a man who is terribly proud of his business. “People look at us and say ‘How dare a little Australian SME in Bankstown be successful in such a big industry?’ It’s unusual for an Australian SME to achieve export success in such a high tech area, but over ten years we’ve proven that we can.”
The journey from respected Australian avionics developer to Export Hero, however, has been long and not always financially fruitful. Hutchinson, along with his “great team” has combined business savvy with shrewd investment in new technologies and a fair helping of persistence to succeed. When, in the 1990s, it became obvious that the days of CRT were numbered, Thomas Electronics invested significant money into building up knowledge and capability in the LCD space.
Right now, Thomas Electronics still does 75 percent of its work with CRTs, but over time Hutchinson expects the LCD part of the business will grow. “The investment we made early on was a leap of faith and certainly we haven’t made much money out of it so far. Just this year we won a good contract with Sony, our volumes have increased significantly and there’s a very good chance that we’ll be making a reasonable profit out of that business.”
The business of jetsetting
Having saturated the local Australian market, the decision to export came naturally. “We’d been doing pretty good business with Ansett and with Qantas and we recognised that because they operate the same type of aircraft as overseas operators, we could offer the same services to overseas carriers. It was the only way we could expand our market.”
The first major challenge was gaining international certifications, as the Australian Civil Aviation Safety Authority certification is not recognised outside of Australia and New Zealand. Hutchinson began by approaching the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 1995. “It took a lot of persistence. If we’d been situated in the US it would have been a much more straightforward exercise. But I guess as a foreign company they don’t make it easy for you,” he says. It took over four years to achieve the FAA certification, but after a lot of trips to San Francisco, Thomas Electronics had its certification and a contract to export for Delta Airlines.
Now, Thomas Electronics has five international certifications and three more pending. Overcoming regulatory requirements has been a major barrier to export for Hutchinson, but patience has served Thomas Electronics well. More than two-thirds of its business is now export oriented, and with five representatives on the ground in North America, Central America, the UK, Singapore and Tokyo, the business will only expand its share of the export market.
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