Bigfoot innovation takes top award

Neil Wylie accepts the Holland Beckett Lawyers Manufacturing and Trade Business Award.Photo / Ben Fraser

Neil Wylie's inspiration for founding Bigfoot Equipment came in the 1990s when he figured he could produce a better central tyre inflation system than the product Canadians were attempting to sell into the local logging industry.

Mr Wylie, who has spent his career as an engineer in the transport industry, was at the time head of transport research at the Logging Industry Research Organisation (LIRO), now part of Rotorua-based crown forest research institute Scion.

"I had a look at their systems the Canadians were marketing and decided it was expensive and what they were doing really didn't suit the trucks on the road here," he said.

"Out of interest I developed a couple of systems in my garage that I reckoned I could sell for half of the Canadian product."

Im an engineer and we've always been driven by the excellence of our product, but there's much more to running a successful business than that.

Neil Wylie, Bigfoot Equipmen

People began asking him to fit his systems to their vehicles, and with the support of his wife Marie, he left LIRO and began Innovative Transport Equipment, selling its product Bigfoot Central Tyre Inflation Equipment, which eventually became the company name.

"Bigfoot" was inspired by the fact that central tyre inflation systems spread the footprint of heavy trucks.

The move has paid off, with the company building a strong reputation for innovation and service over the next two decades.

Bigfoot's achievement was recognised at this month's Westpac Rotorua Business Excellence Awards when it won the Holland Beckett Lawyers Manufacturing and Trade Award.

John McRae, partner with Deloitte Rotorua, the lead judge for the category, said competition had been tough, but Bigfoot could stand proud in their achievement. "The business has performed very well for 20-odd years," he said.

"Neil has done this using real Kiwi ingenuity through very clever innovation of their product paired with a very effective service delivery model.

"And the business model is well supported by good systems and people."

Mr McRae said that while Bigfoot flew under the radar, that took nothing away from the fact that the company had been very effective in exporting to several countries.

Mr Wylie said about one-third of its revenues were from international markets, with about one-third of exports going to Australia and two-thirds to the United Kingdom, with strong sales in Scotland in particular.

This year was the first time Bigfoot entered the business awards and Mr Wylie said it had been a very useful exercise.

The company had responded to a suggestion from business adviser Garth Beker of Bay of Plenty business advisers BFA, after he had worked with them on a business development programme run by Icehouse, which is supported by the government and private sector partners.

"I'm an engineer and we've always been driven by the excellence of our product, but there's much more to running a successful business than that," said Mr Wylie. "The awards process is useful because it makes you look across the whole business."