Roger and Michelle Bourke of Abbeycrest Traders
By Martha Kearns
Roger Bourke believes that businesses should keep changing with the times, and his company, Abbeycrest Traders, is proof of that.
It not only moves with the times as a business, but it also helps its customers keep on top of changing technology and social networking.
Set up by Bourke and his wife Michelle in 1993, the company started with a franchise for a hand-held ticketing machine for nightclubs. It now has a number of products, including a new texting system device that is being launched at Catex, a hospitality and catering event at the RDS in Dublin from this Tuesday to Thursday.
Bourke was working in stock control systems for the licensed trade when one of his customers bought a ticketing machine from an ad he saw in a British magazine.
"It came with a manual, but he had no idea how to set it up, so I took away the machine and the manual and figured out how it worked. It was doing something that wasn't being done before - cash control at the front door of a nightclub. Before that they were just using a roll of tickets and trusting people," said Bourke.
"We showed the idea to a few people who worked in the nightclub industry and they thought it was a great idea, so we went away and got the franchise."
The portable ticket machine can print eight tickets a minute and its basic idea is to control cash at the door.
"It gives a massive amount of control to the financial department to show what happened on any given night - how many people were in and how much they made. Basically it stops fraud."
The company is now the market leader, with around 90 per cent of the industry in Ireland, which Bourke puts down to "a lot of perseverance".
"There was a lot of getting out early and driving to Donegal or other places and knocking on doors. We never waited on the phone to ring. We went and battered down doors."
The company also does business in the North, and recently sold a machine to an Irish pub in Switzerland.
It has also expanded into other machines, including one for the cloakroom in nightclubs.
"It gives a code which the operator can scan and see if it was a leather jacket, a bag or whatever was left in. The customer can't see it and there can be no confusion over what the customer put in the cloakroom," said Bourke.
In 2007, the company moved into a texting system for nightclubs and restaurants.
"Texting was being done, but it was very expensive and was anywhere between seven and 10 cent a text. We started doing it for 3.5 cent a text," said Bourke.
This year, it expanded into the customer relationship management (CRM) market, and this week it is launching the SMSTexter Plus CRM system, which will allow booking confirmations and other information to be sent to customers by text, e-mail or by mail.
"Most companies have three databases - one for text, one for e-mail and another for a mail shot. This will bring all those databases into one with all the details, and the company can decide whether it wants to send an e-mail, text or letter using the one database."
Source: The Sunday Business Post