SO impressed was Victor Kiam with the Remington razor, that he bought the company. Not dissimilar is the story of Paul Stewart for, having used the translation service in his local village, he too decided to buy the business.

Eighteen years later, Wessex Translations has expanded into larger offices on the Abbey Park Industrial Estate, Romsey, and is well established in the UK with a network of freelance translators and corporate clients around the world. Dealing mainly in the corporate sector, plus some major institutional clients at home and overseas, Wessex Translations has built up considerable expertise in language services and developed a substantial customer database.

Turnover has increased year on year, jumping from £750,000 three years ago to not far off the £1 million mark this year. Yet, as a service business, that is demand driven, Paul Stewart and his partner Jonathan Nater, recognised its management shortcomings.

"If the telephone is ringing as you lock up the office, you reopen and answer the phone. Whatever the customer needs, you make it happen," they say. Paul knew that the philosophy of looking after the client was sound, but found that, as the partner responsible for marketing, he did not have the time to undertake the task until he chanced upon Business Link Hampshire Advisory Service.

His business adviser, Bill Van-Orden, has worked alongside the business to give guidance and drive to a new marketing initiative which is being undertaken as a one off consultancy project, subsidised by Business Link Hampshire but delivered by a selected marketing consultancy.

"The main advantage is that we have two professionals supporting us," says Paul and Jonathan, "with Bill to guide us through the issues and the consultancy to provide the professional marketing help. It is the ideal scenario."

Using telesales services, the existing customer database has been contacted to sort the current customers from the dormant and the dead. Wessex Translations now has a clean database and a system from which to launch small scale direct marketing campaigns.

The corporate identity has been changed, taking the company from Wessex Translations to WT Language Management. This change reflects the much wider range of services offered, from translations, interpretation and secretarial services to transcription of audio and videos, voice-overs and language training.

A useful set of company literature has now been produced, providing Wessex with the material to use in selective mailshots.

"To have achieved this without the help of Business Link Hampshire would have been almost impossible. We would just have gone along knowing that we needed to do it, but not having the time," says Paul.

"Now we have the foundation on which to move forward and it has definitely consolidated our existing business as well as brought in new business."

Subsidised consultancy projects may be available to small and medium-sized companies with up to 250 employees to help improve business competitiveness. Costs depend on the size and type of project.

To find out more, call Business Link Hampshire on 08457 35 45 55 and ask for the Business Advisory Service.

Converted for the new archive on 25 January 2001. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.