IN COMPETITION
Sydney company Protocase Inc. gets broad exposure whether it wins national award or not
Protocase up for a national award.
Win or lose at tonight’s Private Business Growth Award ceremony in Toronto, Protocase Inc. is excited with the amount of attention a national award could bring to the Sydney-based company.
“It’s phenomenal exposure, for sure,” Doug Milburn, Protocase co-founder and vicepresident of sales and marketing, said in an interview on Friday.
“We’re a niche business and we’ve become No. 1 in our field … but that’s in our niche and so what (the award nomination) does is it gives us some visibility in the general business community. It’s a much broader audience.”
Protocase was chosen as one of 10 finalists for the award developed by Grant Thornton LLP and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce. The award is now in its fifth year.
Selected by an eight-person jury, the finalists were chosen based on five categories — innovation, market development, people and culture, strategic leadership and improvement in financial measures.
Protocase manufactures customized sheet metal electronic enclosures, mounting hardware, and other components.
It announced in September that it had become AS9100D certified, a standardized quality-management system required among tech companies looking to expand operations internationally.
Among the companies in the aerospace sector that are already Protocase customers are Boeing and Lockheed Martin. Not having the certification resulted in additional time-consuming paperwork and closed doors to some potential deals with customers.
In a move to protect Boeing’s interests, earlier this fall the U.S. Department of Commerce imposed duties of 219 per cent on Bombardier’s CSeries jets, citing improper government subsidies for the Montrealbased aerospace and transportation manufacturer.
Milburn said he’s not overly concerned about the ongoing dispute between Bombardier and Boeing.
Despite the current friction between the two titans of the aerospace industry, Milburn said he’s confident the dispute won’t filter down to his company.
“We sell to almost all of the aerospace giants. We sell to Bombardier, we sell to Boeing … and we just quietly plug away in the background,” he said.
“We do a large number of relatively small jobs for engineers and scientists. They need to get their work done so they come to us because we’re the fastest, most cost-effective way by far for them to get their work done.”
And it’s that service to the customer, to provide the manufactured parts in a timely manner, that’s leading to the company’s strong growth in revenues of 30 per cent over the past year, he said.
Protocase launched in 2001 and now employs approximately 140 people.