Client: Bang & Olufsen

Donnybrook, 6 Main Street, IE-4 Dublin, Ireland Tel: 00353 1 2602404 Fax: 00353 1 2602405

The B&O range is one the best-known premium audiovisual brands in the market place and is probably considered the Rolls Royce of its industry.

The driving force behind it in Ireland are Billy and Colette Peat. Billy is one of the Peat Family, famous for the well known business Peat’s Electronics in Dublin. About 4 years ago, Billy approached Bang & Olufsen with a view to securing an agency for the product in Ireland.

Successful in his goal, he opened on Bachelors Walk, beside O’Connell’s bridge in Dublin, and has not looked back. Two years ago the second branch was opened in Donnybrook and in 2003 they opened a third store in Belfast.

Billy and Colette’s company has grown effectively from nothing to a turnover somewhere in the order of €4 million in the space of 4 years. They see their business as providing the best in Audio & Video Solutions through a brand that is internationally respected and recognised.

Their customers, as you would imagine, are at the top end of the market and as a measure of their success, they are in the top 10 B&O retailers in Ireland and UK, which is a phenomenal achievement given the size of the market place in the UK.

The continued growth cycle in their business given the economic turndown in the last three years in quite staggering.

Delmar Innovation’s role:

We helped Billy and Colette in the formative process of negotiating their agency agreement and were instrumental in the drafting of a business plan.

We assisted in looking at the feasibility of the new branches as the opportunities arose and have completed a five-year strategic plan with them. We have dealt directly with B&O in terms of working with foreign exchange issues and contract negotiations on a year-by-year basis and have also completed ‘Wealth Management’ with the client as well.

Recently, we helped in securing their company headquarter premises.

There’s no business like show business…

Client: Audience Professional Event Managers Ltd

Audience are one of Ireland’s leading exhibition and event organisers.

Some of their events include well known shows such as ‘Our House Exhibition’, ‘Behind The Hall Door’, ‘Off The Rails’ and ‘Santa’s Kingdom’.

Many of these are associated with popular television programmes and are well run large scale events in venues such as the Point Depot and the Royal Dublin Society (RDS).

Padraig and Shirley O’Hara are the owners of the company. Padraig has been in the exhibition business for about 20 years, having started with SDL Exhibitions and branching out on his own in 1993 to set up Audience Professional Event Managers Ltd.

Audience started by running very small local provincial shows and quickly progessed to managing a number of high quality nationally recognised branded events.

They have broken ground with many shows including ‘Santa’s Kingdom’, in association MCD Promotions, which has now gone international. This particular exhibition was first held in Kildare in December 2001 and was then extended to three different locations in the UK in 2002. Further expansion is expected in Austria, Asia and America up to 2005.

Delmar Innovation’s Role:

Delmar Innovation started working with Audience when Padraig began his business. We assisted in developing structures for the company to aid sustainable growth and we also helped create an efficient model for the company to operate from.

This resulted in a change in strategic direction to running primarily large events rather than many small ones, as the return on time and investment was significantly different. Plus with the larger events, the profile and exposure was greater.

Our involvement has also included assistance in the negotiation of key contracts including ‘Our House’ and ‘Behind the Hall Door’ and we were also involved in developing the structure role out with ‘Santa’s Kingdom’ also.

Our strategic links with Audience are very close and they have gone through our Strategic Planning process to develop a five year rolling strategic plan for the business. We consult with them on a monthly basis as we attend board meetings with the client.