Using a mix of broadband, sophisticated software and video links, the 170 staff in Northern Ireland, the Irish Republic and England can communicate with clients around the world. In fact, the Londonderry-based firm of consulting engineers is something of a communications hotshot in the world of e-commerce.

The company designs and project manages the installation of electrical, lighting and ventilation systems for new buildings in the private and public sectors. With offices in Londonderry and Antrim in Northern Ireland, Sligo, Dublin, Cork and Limerick in the Irish Republic and London, it needs to be able to pass drawings between its sites and its clients' offices. Critically, it also needs the ability for anyone remotely to update and alter the drawings.

With its sophisticated systems, Delap and Waller can now collaborate on designs across the company in real time, says IT and AutoCAD manager Lesley Mulgrew.

"We are effectively one office," adds managing director and chairman Liam O'Hagan. "We operate as one team. So if we have an expert in a particular subject in one office he can work on drawings in another - on screen, remotely, with the finished work sent around the world to client sites and altered there again if required. It's like bringing the client to a room next door."

It may seem simpler to amalgamate the various offices but that, adds O'Hagan, isn't an option. The decision to maintain a series of offices across Ireland comes from the parochial nature of business life. "If you haven't got a presence in a town over here, chances are you won't get the work," he says. Delap and Waller's network, therefore, has to stretch to every major commercial centre in the north and south.

EARLY ADOPTION HAD PAID OFF

Delap and Waller was an early adapter of e-commerce. Since its first incursion in 1993, the company has spent some £750,000 on IT with an impressive return on that investment. The benefits have been substantial: the use of e-commerce has significantly reduced print and travel costs by some £500 a month. Productivity has increase by 20 per cent as a result of its ability to share information across many sites. "We would not have been considered for inclusion in some projects unless we had a sophisticated IT structure and trained staff," says Mulgrew.

It's little wonder Delap and Waller was so quick to get wired up. O'Hagan, 51, is a communication addict. He likes to keep in touch. On his frequent trips to the US he can be found in the departure lounge tapping away on his laptop. As the flight is called he switches to his mobile, maintaining contact right through the gate. "We have educated ourselves in the ability to work remotely and that has put us ahead of our competitors," he says.

He's also a realist. "There's no point in being a mile ahead of competitors and then standing still - they will simply catch you up. You have to be a little bit ahead, and stay there. We do that by looking at what we do and seeing if there's a better way of doing it," says O'Hagan.

THE RUSSIAN CONNECTION

Despite its IT credentials, however, the Delap and Waller excursion into the world of e-commerce was by chance. "In the 1990s we had a number of clients who wanted to work in Moscow - to break into the post Soviet developing market," he recalls. "We also had a Russian engineer working for us at the time."

That inside help regarding the culture and language persuaded O'Hagan to take advantage of the opportunities for both Delap and Waller and its clients - with some success. "We won contracts to work on all the McDonald's restaurants in Moscow, and the Coca-Cola bottling plant in Kiev," he says.

The company began by mailing drawings from the Londonderry office across to Moscow. It proved unreliable. "The drawings kept disappearing in the post," says Mulgrew. The only option, if Delap and Waller was to continue with its Moscow operations, was to switch to electronic communications. The company's email era was born. "We started off using standard telephone lines," adds Mulgrew. "It was slow but it worked."

Slow, partly because of the precarious landline links between the UK and Russia, but also because drawings produced on computer aided design (CAD) software resulted in fairly large files to send. "The files were big, but not as big as they are today," says O'Hagan "It seems to me that, as the capacity of the network expands so too do the size of the files being sent. Because they have greater capacity to work with, the software writers are just becoming sloppy."

With its new ability to transfer drawings between offices, Delap and Waller began to develop its virtual team approach to work. "It didn't matter where a drawing originated - Antrim, Dublin or London - with our internal multi-site network, anyone could access it," he adds. Mulgrew says that as a result of this email, web and secure directory management, both internal and external communications vastly improved. "Marketing of the company was also enhanced with the use of our website. Clients could see the kind of projects we work on and we can track the type of information that was most requested," she says.

As the files grew in size, so too did the need to upgrade the system. The company needed to utilise the new and faster networks that came with the arrival of ISDN lines.

Clients in other parts of the world were also benefiting form Delap and Waller's online abilities. One such project, for client Marks and Spencer, involved installing systems at its refurbished site in Dublin's top shopping area, Grafton Street. "The façade of the building was listed. The inside was being completely rebuilt but, obviously, keeping the original walls," says O'Hagan. The problem was that the new floors, therefore, had to match up to the existing windows - making it impossible for Delap and Waller to use false floors to hide the pipes and wires required.

MAKING USE OF VIDEO CONFERENCING

It was a complex project and prompted M&S to ask the engineers to add video conferencing to its list of e-commerce capabilities. This integrated e-commerce technology (video, ISDN, web, email etc) was directly responsible, says O'Hagan, for a 15 per cent increase in turnover. Mulgrew adds: "Video conferencing reduced the need for travel, enabling virtual meetings arranged at the last minute. That has saved us an estimated £500 a month."

It's a high-tech solution to modern communications needs creating a company that operates globally in real time, a far cry form the original dreams of its founders.

Delap and Waller was created in 1911 in Dublin by General Delap and Mr Waller, both structural engineers. Early business was based on designing roads and bridges in the British colonies (Ireland was itself then part of the empire).

Little changed until the 1960s when it diversified into mechanical and electrical engineering - it has since dropped the mechanical and structural parts of its portfolio. The Northern Ireland company was launched in 1964.

With its bases in three countries, Delap and Waller is, in effect, three different private limited companies. The same six directors sit on all three boards but whereas O'Hagan is chairman and managing director of the Northern Irish and English operations, Alec O'Riordan takes those posts in the Republic. The directors are the shareholders but to ensure old ideas to not prevail, they must relinquish their shares - if not their posts - by the time they reach 65.

MOVING TO BROADBAND

Its desire to be forever at the edge of technology means the company is no longer happy with its ISDN network. Delap and Waller is now looking to switch to broadband. "Broadband is excellent and the cost saving is immense," says Mulgrew.

It's not that straightforward, though. BT has yet to introduce broadband to its Antrim exchange, despite its proximity to the wired city of Belfast. Once BT's fat pipes do reach the town, the company plans to create a virtual private network linking all its offices. "Life is so much simpler with the ability to communicate," says O'Hagan.

Delap and Waller's e-enabled business is as good an example as any of the business benefits that can be achieved by innovation and foresight. On a turnover of £8 million, the company enjoys a net margin of eight per cent "and that's good for our industry," adds O'Hagan.

It's true, margins within the industry are being squeezed but that, believes O'Hagan, is often self-imposed. "Competition over the past five years has taken a suicidal view towards fees. Other companies have reduced their fees to the point of stupidity," he says. This culture to undercut has left many engineering companies cash strapped. "They are making such little money that they can no longer afford to train people - or recruit them."

That's a problem that had reached epidemic proportions. "As a result, salaries in engineering for a new graduate start at just £16,000 a year. A newly-qualified doctor starts on £27,000." O'Hagan should know, his daughter has just graduated from medical school. He sees both as equal professions. O'Hagan himself went back to Queens to take a BSc in 1977 - he had an HND in engineering - as without a degree he could never become a chartered engineer.

"Starting salaries are a real issue. Even qualified engineers are charging a callout rate of just £28 an hour. My plumber charges twice that. This ethos of undercutting is just not sustainable."

ATTRACTING NEW SPECIALIST STAFF

The pay rate reflects the price of the bids being put in to win contracts. But the low salaries do little to attract youngsters into a profession already tarnished when compared to the seemingly more glamorous world of IT. Even the engineering departments of Northern Irish universities are failing to attract undergraduates, says O'Hagan, further reducing the pool of future labour.

O'Hagan, however, is meeting this challenge head on. First he has upped the recruitment stakes by going direct to the sixth form colleges and offering work experience. "Those who work here for a year and who want to continue in engineering will then have a chance to be sponsored through university." It's a high-risk venture as any contract clause that states the employee must remain with Delap and Waller is, in effect, worthless. "If someone wants to leave six months after graduation, you can't really stop them," he adds.

The company also follows a policy to training existing staff to keep them ahead of the latest changes in the industry and for that the firm hires in lecturers from the universities. "We may have someone who is expert in IT wiring," says O'Hagan. "But with wireless developments coming on as they are, that person may find they are unemployable - with redundant skills - in five years unless they re-train now." It all adds to the costs of labour - which forms the largest slice of the Delap and Waller cost base. Engineers are expected to account for 2.5 times their own salaries in revenue.

When O'Hagan joined Delap and Waller in 1978 there were just seven engineers. Today there are 70. It's not an option, however, to cut staff. To win and deliver contracts across the world, Delap and Waller needs to ensure it has top quality staff. "What counts is repeat business," says O'Hagan. "I say to my staff, I can go and get the first order, it's you that gets the second."

If costs can't be cut, income has to be generated. Many companies with freehold properties raise important capital through sale and leaseback schemes. No so for Delap and Waller. It owns its Antrim site and the vacant site next door. It also owns the freehold for its Londonderry premises. "Our assets are our staff, our work in progress and our buildings," says O'Hagan. "Buildings are good collateral when it comes to raising finance."

"Our investment in IT has enabled us to collaborate between offices, to train new staff remotely, to conduct meetings via video conferencing and to upload the latest designs onto a secure website for discussion," adds Mulgrew. "I don't know how we managed to compete without IT. We don't have IT for IT's sake - it actually works for us.

Liam O'Hagan can see the Mull of Kintyre from his home on the north Antrim coast. With his commitment to IT, O'Hagan is ensuring Delap and Waller never operates as an island in the sea of global engineering companies.

www.delap-and-waller.com

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