ContiTech Beattie wins Queen's award for outstanding performance"

ContiTech Beattie Ltd., Ashington, UK, has been honoured with the prestigious Queen's Award for Enterprise in the International Trade category for its outstanding export business performance.

The award-winning business is the ContiTech Group's huge business success: the market leader in hose technology for the oil and gas industry has more than doubled its volume of exports to £23 million within just three years.

Each year, the Queen's Award is presented by the UK Department for Business, Innovation and Skills to enterprises and organizations in recognition of outstanding achievement in the categories of International Trade, Innovation, and Sustainable Development. The Queen personally approves the recommendations of the Prime Minister. “So, the award is a sign that our business performance is being given the highest possible seal of approval”, says Andrew Esson, managing director of ContiTech Beattie.

In the past four years, ContiTech Beattie – which joined the ContiTech Group in 2005 – has been transformed from a traditional family business into a modern, customer-oriented and forward-looking company. This was achieved by consistently investing in the employees, and in the equipment and processes. Thanks to the company's sustained success in business improvement, ContiTech Beattie already earned itself the title of “Investors in People Champion” this year. This is the highest level within the international standard for human resources management.

“We have improved our management culture, enhanced our operational capabilities and introduced planning systems, thus enabling our production teams to provide a first-class service to customers”, emphasizes Esson. The average eight days of training completed by every employee in 2009 is another clear reflection of the company's commitment to its people. That commitment is also evident in countries outside the UK where ContiTech Beattie offers training programmes and service to its agents and customers.

Recently, ContiTech Beattie expanded its trade connections, which are based on a closely meshed network of agents in markets like Scandinavia, South America, Africa, the Asia-Pacific region and Australia, by adding further distribution agreements with companies in Singapore and Western Australia. Fourteen sales managers provide local support to these agents on a regular basis.

ContiTech Beattie manufactures and supplies a comprehensive spectrum of products and services ranging from flexible hose lines through to complete systems. This broad array of products and services enables the company to fulfill all customer requirements for flexible hoses, hose handling and lifelong hose management in the field of offshore drilling and production equipment from production sites in Ashington, England, and Aberdeen, Scotland.

With sales of approximately €20 billion in 2009, Continental is among the leading automotive suppliers worldwide. As a supplier of brake systems, systems and components for powertrains and chassis, instrumentation, infotainment solutions, vehicle electronics, tires and technical elastomers, Continental contributes to enhanced driving safety and global climate protection. The company is also a competent partner in networked automobile communication. Continental currently employs approximately 134,500 people in 46 countries.

The ContiTech division holds a global market leadership position for many non-tyre rubber products and is a specialist in plastics technology in the non-tire rubber sector. The division develops and produces functional parts, components and systems for the automotive industry and other important industries. The division has a workforce of approximately 22,000 employees. In 2009, it achieved sales of approximately €2.4 billion