Membership Case Study - Roband

Andrew Gold MD of Roband:

“Roband have been in Charlwood, on the end of Gatwick Airport runway since 1963. We have tended to be insular, just getting on with our jobs, specialising in the design, development and manufacture of electronic power supplies for the defence market.

“Our products cover the full range of power supply disciplines; ac and/or dc inputs: single and multi output, low and high voltage units as well as ac inverters.

“More recently we have felt we should raise our heads and engage more with the local community. A whole raft of issues of common interest to us and our local ‘neighbours’ such as the airport, local services, our interaction with local planning authorities, poor broadband service and all the other usual day to day stuff, seemed  good reason to want to be more involved.

“We were introduced to Jeremy Taylor from Cadia and were persuaded that this was the correct forum. Our experience has been generally good; the focus on the Gatwick Diamond has allowed us to join with many local companies from very diverse backgrounds and compare experiences and aspirations. As the Gatwick Diamond Business Association, Cadia has done well in trying to promote the area and its members interests. I genuinely feel that most members are pleased to have an opportunity to be able to help and to support each other.

“Of less significance to us is the opportunity to expand our business locally. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s rather that we are so specialised in our field that our potential clients come from a much more geographically dispersed community.

“However I notice others have done rather well from intelligent use of networking. As a rule of thumb, I would always prefer to deal with local organisations as my suppliers, and in this respect we have been pleased to engage a number of members to do work for us. Without membership, we probably would never have known of these companies existence.

“We look forward to remaining members of the Gatwick Diamond Business Association for mutually successful years to come.”