Member Article

£1m sales target for Blum’s new Technical Sales Manager

A leading metrology expert has joined Blum-Novotest as its new Technical Sales Manager, with the aim of doubling sales to £1m over the next twelve months.

Gary Bates, who started his career as one of the last indentured apprentices at Rolls-Royce, will be responsible for growing the East Midlands firm’s market share in aerospace, automotive and CNC machine tools.

The mechanical engineer’s arrival is at a perfect time for the company, with it recently boosting its DIGILOG touch probe system range by officially launching LC50 at the MACH 2018.

This state-of-the-art laser control technology is looking to explore the growing demand for in machine measuring, with bosses at the company predicting a 60% reduction in the time taken to measure cutting tools.

“My previous roles have seen me work across the globe and in numerous different sectors, with the most recent position as a metrology consultant for some of the biggest names in the aerospace world,” explained Gary.

“Blum-Novotest’s reputation was a major attraction for joining the company and I’m very excited about leading the sales team in pushing the DIGILOG range and LC50, not to mention traditional products including workpiece probes, roughness and bore gauges.”

He continued: “There’s never been a better time to be driving these innovations with manufacturing now going away from Co-ordinate Measuring Machines towards what we can offer. Speed, accuracy and ease of installation are all major selling points.”

Blum-Novotest is one of the global leaders in production metrology, employing 534 people and turning over £77m across its 16 subsidiaries.

Its UK operation was founded in 2000 by David and originally started life in a small office in Lichfield. As the firm’s reputation grew in aerospace and automotive, sales started to increase rapidly and a move to bespoke offices and a state-of-the-art demonstration room in Burton-upon-Trent followed in 2015.

Today, the company delivers its solutions to some of the world’s largest aerospace primes, car manufacturers and a host of CNC machine tool suppliers, including the Engineering Technology Group, Whitehouse Machine Tools and Yeovil Machine Tools.

Gary continued: “Blum-Novotest had its best ever year in the UK in 2017 and it’s my job to build on this significantly, almost doubling sales to £1m per annum. This is just the tip of the iceberg…we’ve got the technology, we’ve got the service and we’ve got the phenomenal backing of our German parent.

“In five years, I’d love nothing better than for us to have an extensive networks of engineers throughout the UK and Ireland.”

Outside of work, Gary enjoys playing golf and has a flair for cooking, especially French and Italian cuisine.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Russ Cockburn .