Announcing Our First International Distribution Facility!

Today we announced the grand opening of our first distribution facility located outside of the United States!

Beginning in early October 2018, Room Alert orders for many of our customers outside of North America will be shipped from our new distribution facility located in Shannon, County Clare, Ireland.

This next step in our growth is a testament to the hard work of all our AVTECH team members, along with the strong sales shown by many of our valued international reseller partners.

From left to right: Erin Perkins, Marketing Manager, Titan Solutions – Richard Phelan, Financial Accountant, Titan Solutions – Padraic McElwee, Head of Enterprise, Local Enterprise Office Clare – Richard Grundy, President, AVTECH – Anne Sigourney, CFO, AVTECH  – Paul Collins, Managing Director, Titan Solutions – Kathy Therieau, Director for International Trade Programs, CommerceRI – Michael Sigourney, CEO, AVTECH – Helen Downes, Chief Executive, Shannon Chamber of Commerce – Liam Conneally, Director of Services, Clare County Council

Faster shipping, lower costs

We have seen Room Alert’s popularity and use expand quickly over the past few years. As organizations look at their business continuity plans and cyber security initiatives, they’ve realized that they neglected to account for the environment causes that result in nearly 30% of all downtime episodes. High temperature, humidity, water leaks, power outages/fluctuations and more all lead to data loss, downtime, and lost revenue. Room Alert helps to proactively monitor those conditions, and many more, to help protect organizations against downtime.

Our international sales have been growing rapidly as well, with Room Alert now in use in 186 of 196 countries around the world. We were honored to be named Rhode Island’s “Exporter of the Year” by the US Small Business Administration because of those international sales. As technology continues to develop and grow, so many more organizations have come to view their data centers, IT facilities, server closets, networks, and more as mission-critical. Without their networks and data, they simply can’t conduct business.

While our international growth has been occurring rapidly, one thing that’s not so fast is the delivery of Room Alert to some locations. Up until recently, Room Alert has shipped from our Warren, RI facility, regardless of their destination. Some larger shipments can take over a week to arrive, which isn’t the best situation if a user is desperately trying to protect against downtime. For instance, a new user will contact us after an HVAC failure and they’re hoping it won’t happen again before they receive their Room Alert monitors and sensors. The only solution previously was to pay a premium for expedited shipping services.

One major advantage to opening a distribution facility in the European Union (EU) is the ability to reach many countries in just 2-3 days through ground shipping. Users will now be able to save money and receive Room Alert faster, or if they need them even sooner, have lower cost options for faster shipping.

Another major advantage to having distribution in Ireland is related to import taxes and fees. When we ship to many countries outside of North America, our users are subject to local fees that they are required to pay for importing our products. With Ireland being the new country of origin, many of those fees will be drastically reduced, which in turn reduces the cost barrier for many potential and existing Room Alert users. Lower costs and shorter transit times mean customers can protect their facilities more easily and faster than ever before.

We get by with a little help from our friends…

Our international expansion has been in the works for a number of years now, and it is based on many successful trade missions and expos that we have participated in. The time AVTECH representatives have spent developing relationships has certainly paid off with increased sales, more authorized AVTECH resellers, and a stronger presence worldwide.

As we noted at the top of the article, our resellers around the world have been instrumental in helping us achieve our recent growth. Their dedication to Room Alert, and passion for helping protect their customers against downtime, has encouraged us to look for more ways that we can help them achieve their own goals. Faster shipping and reduced costs will certainly help our resellers provide even more valuable Room Alert monitors, sensors, and accessories to their local users; it will also help them carry more local stock for emergency situations as well.

Many of our international trips have been carried out in conjunction with some Rhode Island agencies, including CommerceRI and the Chafee Center for International Business at Bryant University. Their help in finding new ways for AVTECH to promote Room Alert outside of North America has been instrumental in our growth. In fact, here’s what Kathy Therieau, the Director for International Trade Programs at CommerceRI, had to say about our new distribution facility:

I am so pleased that AVTECH Software, Inc., U.S. Small Business Administration’s Rhode Island “Exporter of the Year”, will open an office in Shannon, Ireland. AVTECH’s new Irish office allows the Warren, Rhode Island company to streamline its EU logistics and sales operations. AVTECH anticipates business growth in Europe and beyond.

AVTECH’s success demonstrates the collaboration now taking place between Country Clare and Rhode Island.  We hope to see many other partnerships come to fruition in the near future. 

By working with local agencies as well as our reseller partners around the world, we’ve been able to take our first major step into international expansion and growth.

Spreading the AVTECH Advantage in our 30^th year in business

As our 30^th anniversary year comes to an end, we’re continually reminded of how important all our customers and resellers have been to our success. Opening a distribution facility isn’t the end of our announcements, either – we have more big news to share later this year, which we’re all excited for. We think you’ll be very excited as well.

Offering the leading proactive environment monitoring platform is even more important as we start thinking about 2019. Hurricanes, storms, heat waves, drier climates, and an increase in power outages over the past few years have all proven how crucial Room Alert is to protecting organizations around the world. We will continue to innovate when it comes to our Room Alert monitors, sensors, accessories and software, with one goal in mind – to help you improve your organization’s uptime and keep you protected.