Eureko gets region's businesses into Berlin
This article featured in October 2015 in In The Bay.
A Morecambe-based research company is helping the region’s small and medium sized enterprises branch out and reach international markets.
Eureko, which is celebrating its twelfth anniversary today, has helped SMEs discover potential customers in German-speaking markets across Europe.
The company handles all incoming German-language mail, calls and documentation, and utilises business channels and contacts across Germany to raise awareness of products.
Eureko also develop new slogans, write features magazines and oversees search engine optimisation on websites - all targeted at German-language markets.
The company’s managing director, Vivien Hacker is originally from Germany and came to the UK as part of a programme to help improve links between Britain and his home country.
Mrs Hacker created the company after working at Lancaster University for five years, teaching German language and culture and helping students to understand the country better and it was here that the idea for Eureko was formed.
Describing how she landed on the idea for Eureko, Mrs Hacker explained how working in the UK lead to the development of the business.
She said: “I knew the German mentality, I had got to know and really like the British mentality – tolerant, quirky and pragmatic – and so I founded a company that would link up business communities in my native country with business communities in the north of England. “I knew from working here for 5 years before founding the company that the British are really inventive and creative, both in their services sector as well as manufacturing things.
“What was often missing though from the equation was a knowledge of foreign languages and of a feeling for foreign ‘ways’, i.e. different customs and traditions. My company would provide exactly those kinds of services.”
Mrs Hacker has also joined the board of directors at Lancaster District Chamber of Commerce and will help the Chamber’s members reach out into new markets.
The managing director said: “My brief is to not only support the Chamber’s work on behalf of the region, but to encourage us here in the Lancaster and Morecambe District to think internationally, to think exports.
“So to kick start this internationalisation process, we’re establishing contacts in the EU with our opposite numbers, the Chambers of Commerce in countries like Germany and Poland, starting with our twinned towns there.”
After 12 years in business, Eureko has been developing relationships across The Bay and for the past decade it has worked with Carnforth-based manufacturing company, Checkpoint, which is responsible for millions of international exports each year.
“A few years ago I helped Checkpoint win an order from MAN for two million pieces. With 20 per cent of all the lorries on British roads made by this German giant, it’s an amazing achievement to supply them directly in Munich.
“Lancashire knows how to do it - its businesses have the products, and it just requires a bit more self-belief to go out into Europe’s premier market and to sell to them on their own ground and crucially in their own language.”
Posted: 18th November 2015
Are you looking to maintain access to markets in Germany?
Before, during and after Brexit, the largest, nearest, most important single market for your products or services could well be Germany.
Trade fairs are being held every year in cities across Europe. They are ideal events for anyone involved in international trade.
That view is certainly shared by Daniela Flint, Senior Lecturer in Sociology, Human Growth and Development at Lancaster and Morecambe College. She has also taught German for over 25 years in the region. She is convinced that knowing and using other languages “helps prevent our segregation and isolation from other people, as well as widening our horizons and helping us connect with people on a different level.” She’s also seen how “communicating with others, playing with new and unfamiliar words (and making mistakes!)” provides fun and enjoyment for people well into their eighties.
