Weatherite Air Conditioning Ltd, part of the Weatherite Group - the UK’s largest privately-owned air conditioning manufacturing business - has announced its partnership with leading European business development agency, Aexus, to extend Weatherite’s reach into the Benelux and Scandinavian markets.
Aexus will act as a virtual European office for Weatherite, from its HQ based in Arnhem, The Netherlands, to facilitate a rapid, effective and highly efficient route to market. Primarily focussing on the telecoms and data centre markets, Aexus will provide expert sales, business development and inbound marketing activities to create new business opportunities for the West-Bromwich-based air conditioning specialists.
Weatherite has achieved great success in the UK telecoms market having worked with a leading telecoms provider for over 25 years, delivering a range of energy efficient cooling solutions. Furthermore, the company has won additional work with other major data centre/telecommunications companies in the last five years, and in 2017 achieved its largest ever single sale in its 47-year history at a major data centre site in Dublin, Ireland.
Weatherite Group director, Tim Whitehouse, who signed the agreement with Aexus, said that the need for data centres is increasing at a rapid pace globally with no sign of slowing down. He said that the company has identified the Benelux and Scandinavian markets as major growth areas where the company’s innovative cooling solutions can offer major benefits to data centre developers and operators.
“The number of data centres being built has mushroomed from virtually nothing ten years ago to now consuming about three per cent of the global electricity supply. The construction of data centres will continue to grow for some years to come,” said Tim Whitehouse.
“All these data centres have one thing in common – the servers they use to house electronic data generate heat – and this heat has to be removed from source or the servers may overheat and possibly malfunction – and this just can’t be allowed to happen.
In early December 2018 Weatherite met with the Dutch Data Centre Alliance and the Department of International Trade in Amsterdam which then referred the company to Aexus.
Tim Whitehouse continued: “We met with the owners in January to discuss opportunities and to see if we would fit together as partners.
“Aexus is a reputable company and has successfully notched up 20-years of expertise in sales and business development in among others the telecoms market. It has the right contacts for us to ensure that it can penetrate appropriate sectors and help provide new customers for us to build a future European business.
All four of the Weatherite Group operating divisions fit into the expanding Data Centre marketplace in the UK and Europe. The core business, Weatherite Air Conditioning Ltd, can cool data centres, manufacturing all the equipment in-house. The control systems that operate the cooling solutions are supplied by Weatherite Electrical. Weatherite Service & Maintenance offer 24/7 aftercare HVAC service & maintenance capabilities and Weatherite Aluminium Solutions provide the very latest in ‘aisle containment solutions”.
This was one of the reasons that Aexus decided to partner with Weatherite – its breadth of expertise and reputation for quality - combined with a history of success in a highly competitive HVAC marketplace.
Co-owner of Aexus, Jos van der Meulen, said that he was proud to have Weatherite on its portfolio.
He said: “When we met the team at Weatherite we were highly impressed with their professionalism. As a company it is important for us to run searches and ensure that they meet our requirements as well as us theirs. Weatherite immediately stood out, especially as they have not only survived, but thrived in a highly competitive marketplace, and for almost five decades!
“The company’s success in the UK marketplace is a great indicator that we will be able to open new doors in the Scandanvian telecoms and data centre markets. We have potential customers lined up already and are now working with Weatherite’s technical departments to support these new business opportunities.
Weatherite Air Conditioning Ltd is part of the £40m Weatherite Group, the UK’s leading HVAC, Architectural Aluminium and BMS Control Systems Groups.
Aexus is a 40+ people sales organisation founded in the year 2000. It makes tech and software companies successful by providing complete commercial outsourcing services in Europe. It achieves this by managing businesses in Europe, acting as an agent / partner in Europe, providing an effective route to market.