N.I. Minister for Enterprise Arlene Foster congratulates Cookstown Company on multi-million pound contracts
Enterprise Minister Arlene Foster has congratulated Cookstown Company BA Components Ltd on securing contracts worth £7.5 million.
BA Components manufactures high quality MDF-wrapped doors and accessories for the kitchen, bedroom and bathroom sectors. The contracts will see the company supply a range of products to these trade only suppliers over the next three years.
The deal will create 15 new jobs and help ensure that BA Components continues to generate over 95 per cent of its turnover from outside Northern Ireland.
The success comes after investments totalling over £3 million in marketing, staff development and other capability building by the company since 2007. The expansion program and investment has been backed by Invest Northern Ireland and the European Regional Development Fund,
Congratulating BA Components during a visit to the company, the Minister said: “BA Components operates in a highly challenging and competitive sector and, despite the overall economic downturn, has consistently grown its turnover in recent years. This latest growth will help continue this trend and is testament to the company’s ethos of efficiency and innovation in both product development and processes.
“The company also maintains a focus on marketing and customer care which has helped it secure this significant business ahead of a number of major international suppliers. I wish BA Components every success as it fulfils the orders from this contract, and hope that the deal helps attract further business from external markets in future.”
Brian McCracken, Managing Director of BA Components, said: “The recession has impacted severely on some retail markets, including the home improvement sector that we target. However, we have remained adaptable and are now beginning to see signs of consumer confidence returning. This is being reflected in the orders we are receiving from retailers.
“Our success in securing this important contract is thanks in large part to the range of improvements we have implemented in recent years with the financial and advisory support of Invest NI. We hope to continue this useful relationship going forward as we work to build on the success of this deal.”
Coloured Doors are Here to Stay
No matter what industry you are in, today image is everything.
Designers rely on colour to add life and personality to a room, and to set the mood for the spaces we’re working in. There are the basic principals of colour and design – for instance, horizontal lines to widen a space or bring the ceiling down, or a dark or intense wall of colour at one end to make a long narrow space less so.
Colour trends are almost always related to current lifestyle perceptions and general concerns and values. Amid the gloom and despondency that has surrounded us recently the trends for the rest of 2009 and into 2010 is to look for brightness and light to help us accentuate the positive.
Bright coloured high gloss doors used as accent colours with traditional whites and creams will lead the trends going forward, and whatever the colour, we will also be using lots of texture, creating a sort of less processed look that once again takes us back to nature and comfort.
Certainly the trend toward a new contemporary is an opportunity for these colour schemes and finish materials to gain ground.
We seem to wish for a simplification of life in general, and that will probably translate to colour choices. With the backdrop of the new neutrals, vivid and pure colours are showing up as accents throughout our homes in lighting, paint finishes, soft furnishings and wall papers and I can’t see taste being any different when it comes to our kitchen and bedroom doors.
Thankfully with the many great offers out there at the moment we are all spoiled for choice.
