From Camberley to the World: Taking EMP Designs Worldwide

For much of EMP Designs’ history, our focus has been straightforward: solve interesting engineering problems and build products that work.

From our base in Camberley, Surrey, we design electronics, develop firmware, manufacture PCBs, assemble products and test finished systems, all under one roof.

Over the years, those products have found their way onto film sets, into theatres, visitor attractions, exhibitions, installations and specialist projects across the UK.

But increasingly, they’re travelling much further.

EMP Designs is becoming an international business, supplying products to customers around the world while continuing to design and manufacture them here in the UK.

From Bespoke Engineering to a Growing Product Range

EMP Designs has always had its roots in bespoke engineering.

Many projects begin with a customer coming to us with an unusual problem: something needs to move, illuminate, communicate or be controlled in a way that isn't easily achieved with an off-the-shelf product.

Solving those problems has led us to develop a considerable amount of technology over the years.

And sometimes, a solution developed for one particular application turns out to be useful to many more people.

That is how much of our standard product range has evolved.

Products such as our LED controllers, practical dimmers, wireless DMX products and pixel controllers have grown out of real-world requirements. They haven't been designed simply because we thought there might be a market for them. In many cases, they exist because somebody had a genuine problem that needed solving.

As those products have become established, we've increasingly found that the problems they solve aren't unique to the UK.

A lighting technician in Europe, a prop maker in the United States or a creative technologist on the other side of the world may be trying to solve exactly the same problem.

Making EMP Designs Easier to Buy Worldwide

Historically, much of our business has come through conversations, recommendations and long-standing relationships within the industries we serve.

That will always be important to us.

However, if we're going to make EMP Designs products genuinely accessible internationally, we also need to make them easier to discover, understand and purchase.

Our website and online store are becoming an increasingly important part of that.

Rather than somebody having to know EMP Designs, contact us and ask what product they need, we want customers anywhere in the world to be able to discover our products, understand what they do, select the right solution and place an order.

We're continuing to develop the website with better product information, application examples and tools such as our Product Selector, which guides customers towards the most appropriate controller by asking a series of straightforward questions about their application.

For a worldwide customer who may never have spoken to us before, making that information clear and accessible is particularly important.

A Worldwide Business, Manufactured in Britain

Growing internationally doesn't mean changing the way we manufacture.

In fact, we see our UK manufacturing capability as one of the things that makes international growth possible.

Our electronics are designed here. Our PCBs are assembled here. Firmware is developed here. Products are assembled, programmed and tested here.

Keeping those capabilities together gives us control over the complete process.

If we identify an improvement, we can implement it quickly. If a customer discovers an unusual application, they can speak directly to the people who designed the product. If we need to manufacture another batch, we aren't necessarily dependent on lengthy overseas production cycles.

That flexibility has always been important for our UK customers, but it becomes even more valuable as we supply customers further afield.

We can remain a relatively small, specialist British manufacturer while serving a much larger global market.

The Internet Makes a Specialist Market Much Bigger

Many EMP Designs products are deliberately specialist.

We're not trying to manufacture consumer electronics by the million.

We make products for people working in areas such as film and television production, theatre, practical effects, props, lighting, visitor attractions and creative technology.

Within any individual country, some of those markets can be relatively small.

Globally, they're much bigger.

The internet allows a specialist manufacturer like EMP Designs to reach those customers directly.

Someone searching for a compact wireless pixel controller, a practical dimmer, a high-channel-count LED controller or another specialist control product doesn't necessarily care whether the manufacturer is five miles away or five thousand miles away.

They care whether the product solves their problem.

That's a significant opportunity for companies like ours.

Learning from International Customers

Expanding internationally isn't simply about selling more of the products we already manufacture.

It also helps us develop better ones.

Different countries, industries and customers approach problems in different ways. They use different equipment, work within different infrastructures and sometimes find applications for our technology that we hadn't originally considered.

That feedback is extremely valuable.

One of the advantages of designing and manufacturing our own products is that the information coming back from customers doesn't disappear into a long supply chain.

It reaches our engineering team.

That can influence firmware updates, new features, accessories and, eventually, completely new products.

The more widely our products are used, the more we learn.

Working with Distributors as Well as Selling Direct

Our international growth isn't going to rely on a single route to market.

Our online store gives customers the ability to purchase directly from EMP Designs, but distributors and specialist suppliers also have an important role to play.

Good distribution partners already understand their local markets. They have relationships with customers and can provide local knowledge and support.

For some products and territories, that can be the best way for us to grow.

For others, particularly highly specialist products, selling directly from our UK factory may make more sense.

Our aim is to build a combination of direct sales and strong distribution partnerships that makes EMP Designs products easier to obtain wherever our customers happen to be.

Still the Same EMP Designs

International growth sounds like a major change, but in many ways our approach remains exactly the same.

We're still a relatively small engineering company.

We still enjoy solving unusual problems.

Our engineers are still only a short walk from the machines manufacturing the PCBs they've designed.

We still prototype, test, change things, test them again and continually look for ways to make our products better.

The difference is that the potential audience for those products is becoming much larger.

Technology that starts with an idea in Camberley can be designed, manufactured and tested here before being shipped to a customer almost anywhere in the world.

That's an exciting direction for EMP Designs.

We're proud to manufacture in Britain.

But we're increasingly building for the world.