Youngstown's Turning Technologies goes global

Turning Technologies is on the verge of becoming a major exporter.
By DON SHILLING
VINDICATOR BUSINESS EDITOR
YOUNGSTOWN -- A downtown technology company that hired its 100th employee this week expects continued growth after signing a global distribution deal.
Turning Technologies' product will be sold in 80 countries by LUL Technology of Australia.
The partnership between the two companies, which was announced Friday, will make Turning Technologies a major technology exporter, said Joe Nigem, LUL chief executive.
The local company has been using smaller distribution agreements to sell the product in 30 countries.
Growth
The expansion will create significant job growth in Youngstown, said Mike Broderick, chief executive of the local company. More local workers will be needed for marketing, training, technology development and order filling.
Broderick expects revenue to increase 500 percent over the next five years, with exports growing from 15 percent of total sales to at least 40 percent.
The 5-year-old company is no stranger to growth as schools, colleges and corporations adopt its product. Sales grew 200 percent last year.
The product, TurningPoint, has been well received because it can be integrated into Microsoft's PowerPoint system.
TurningPoint allows corporate presenters, school teachers and professors to ask questions and receive immediate feedback from people using credit-card-sized responders.
Other countries
Nigem said he thinks the product will be in such demand that his company can achieve higher market penetration rates in Japan and Europe than Turning Technologies has in the U.S.
"There's nothing wrong with some internal competition," he said with a smile as he looked over at Broderick during a press conference Friday at the Youngstown Business Incubator.
Turning Technologies has outgrown its incubator space and is moving next door after the Taft Technology Center is built.
Nigem said his office will handle sales, marketing and support for TurningPoint in the other countries.
Two offices will be set up in Japan and one each in Germany, Singapore, Korea and Hong Kong. This last office could support expansion into China later, Nigem said.
LUL, which previously sold TurningPoint in part of Australia, is a finance company that also resells technology products. Nigem said he wanted to represent interactive products and he uncovered Turning Technologies in his research.
He predicted that TurningPoint will be huge in Asian countries because students are more reserved and not likely to interact with teachers. TurningPoint will provide an acceptable way for them to give feedback, he said.
He also has his eyes on the corporate market. Japan has 2 million corporate trainers, for example, and "I want to put TurningPoint in the hands of every one of them," he said.
shilling@vindy.com