A successful design and
branding agency is already making its mark in Wales after relocating from West
Sussex.
Brecon-based Tangent Partnership Ltd. is a design and
branding agency, owned and managed by Mary and David Kerfoot. The Welsh
Government’s Business Wales service helped the pair with their successful
relocation to Wales, and thanks to further tendering support, has enabled them
to win a number of significant contracts in the local market.
-
Relationship
Management support to relocate to Wales
-
tendering
advice on Sell2Wales and submitting tenders
-
a
£70,000 contract won with Swansea Council and the Welsh Government’s Targeted
Regeneration Investment programme
Introduction
to business
With over 40 years’ industry experience, designers Mary and
David Kerfoot launched Tangent Partnership Ltd in 2000. Tangent is a design and
branding agency, providing excellent, reasonably priced design consultancy to
private and public sector organisations across Wales, the UK and Europe.
The business specialises in brand and interior design for
the hospitality industry, ranging from start-ups to large, international
companies.
Why
did you decide to relocate your business to Wales?
Our company director and lead interior designer Mary
Kerfoot was born and grew up in Swansea. She has very fond memories of Swansea
Market, particularly from when she attended the nearby former Oxford Street
School, lunching on cockles and Welsh cakes. There is a Welsh word ‘hiraeth’
meaning a longing for one’s homeland, but it is not mere homesickness. It is an
expression of the bond one feels when they are away from it.
In 1989 and 1990, we took a year out to travel the world,
partially to check that we were living in the country best suited to us. We
found places that we loved, but could not work in, and we also found the
opposite, but nothing was perfect, so we returned to the UK. Then, in 2016,
Mary’s ‘hiraeth’ kicked in hard and as I was happy to agree, here we are. We
now run the design studio from Defynnog near Brecon and have a sales office in
London.
Business
Wales support
In 2018, Mary and David got in touch with Business Wales
Relationship Manager, Steve Maggs, via the Federation of Small Businesses, as
they were looking to relocate their home and office base from England to Powys.
In the months before their move, Business Wales ensured Mary and David were
familiar with the business support scene in Wales. Once they’d relocated, Steve
undertook a general review of the business and established their aspirations
and aims, explaining initiatives such as the Welsh Government’s Economic Action
Plan, the Economic Contract, the various Growth Deals across Wales, as well as
specific Mid Wales programmes such as Targeted Regeneration Investment. A
specialist Business Wales Tendering Adviser, Guto Carrod, provided assistance
on using the Sell2Wales platform and helped with Tangent’s tenders for local
contracts.
As a result, The Tangent Partnership engaged with a Business
Wales client, RW Evans & Son, to work on a multidisciplinary project
including design, branding and consultancy ahead of opening a new retail outlet
in Brecon. Additionally, following a Sell2Wales opportunity, David and Mary
were able to win a £70,000 contract via Swansea Council and the Welsh
Government’s TRI programme to work with the Council, traders and the public to
transform and remodel the casual trading area of Swansea Market.
Outcomes
-
Relationship
Management support to relocate to Wales
-
tendering
advice with Sell2Wales and submitting tenders
-
a
£70,000 contract won with Swansea Council and the Welsh Government’s Targeted
Regeneration Investment programme
We were introduced to Steve Maggs by the FSB and Powys
County Council. Steve came to meet us in April 2019 to get an overview and
feeling for the business. He put us in touch with our Tendering Adviser Guto
Carrod, as well as Superfast Business Wales for a website review.
Guto has been instrumental in helping us get ‘tender
ready’. He introduced us to Sell2Wales and helped us with advice and paperwork
when we had identified projects that we felt were right for us. We already had
the skills and experience to handle the work itself, but getting to that point
was Guto’s contribution. We passed the Superfast Business Wales website review
with flying colours, although we got a few helpful hints and the experience was
both useful and fun. We also attended workshops on social media and cyber
security. Along with the training, these events are always good to make local
contacts, with both clients and suppliers.
We recently won a tender with Swansea Council to re-imagine
the Central Casual Area of Swansea Market. The upgrade is mainly about creating
a multi-use, communal area for seating, meeting, greeting, eating and events.
Without Business Wales, we would not have been aware of the project.
Future
plans and ambitions
This year has been quite a year. We won a number of
prestigious awards including “Design Agency of the Year for Cardiff & South
Wales” at the Corporate LiveWire Prestige Awards 2020 and “Best
Multidisciplinary Hospitality & Retail Design Agency – Europe” at the SME
News 2020 UK Enterprise Awards.
What we are hoping to achieve in the future is to retain
our existing clients (we have so far retained about 90%) and to expand our
client roster to include larger private and public sector organisations.
We want to continue to develop our digital offer including
our website, social media, SEO and mobile apps, as well as update our hardware
and networks. We want to create networking relationships with organisations
further afield but due to the pandemic, we have only been able to manage this
locally here in South Wales.
To find out more about Tangent Partnership Ltd, click here:
www.thetangent.co.uk
To find out more about Business Wales support, click here: www.businesswales.gov.wales