The Key Safe Company: Access management business bids to lock in growth overseas

A pioneering UK access management business has reached a turning point in its bid to lock in major growth overseas.

The Key Safe Company, which specialises in designing and manufacturing police preferred key safes, is eager to tell the world of its leading technology and innovative products after making a series of break-throughs in its own domestic market.

Group Sales Director, James Buckle, says that tell-all ambition is ‘energising’ all who work at the company, founded by British entrepreneur David Ogden.

“It feel likes like the company is at an important stage of its progression,” said Buckle, whose arrival to the business in January was a statement of intent in itself.

“It’s time to start taking overseas opportunities and making things happen because we have a product that is world leading. It’s class leading and there’s definitely an energy around the business to get that message out there.

“There has been a turning point in the last six months and that is the focus of the business now.”

Building relationships

Wherever Buckle and Ogden have gone of late – whether it be the United States or the United Arab Emirates – the feedback from industry experts has been overwhelmingly positive.

To the point the pair can’t book return trips quick enough.

Add in the fact the Worcestershire-based company’s sales in Europe were up 280% in the first quarter of the year, following the appointment of EU Business Development Officer Loredana Sciaraffa, it’s easy to understand why Key Safe is so invested in its message-spreading mission.

Italian-speaker Loredana, the company’s first internationally-focussed sales professional, is tasked with building relationships in Europe and enabling Key Safe to better understand the market.

The company’s newest ark Tamo range – incorporating the Tamo, Tamo Pro, Tamo Mini and Tamo Go – is blazing commercial trails the company hopes to tap into in the coming months.

“These products are our big push at the moment,” Buckle added. “I think our future lies in Tamo, in that product range and what we can do with it.”

ark Tamo range

Not only are these safes mechanically-operated as opposed to electrical, ticking the boxes of enhanced reliability, they have a function that opens up millions of combinations.

“They are unique in the fact that we have a multi-push button on them,” Buckle continued. “On every other mechanical ten-button push lock in the world, you can only use each button once in a combination.

“That gives you a very limited amount of combinations you can use. For example, you can’t use a memorable date because there’s often numerous ‘1s’ or ‘2s’ and you can’t do that.

“What we’ve done is find a way you can use each button up to four times in a combination. On a normal ten-button push lock you have 1,024 combinations. With ours you have 9.7 million.

“That’s exponentially more and opens up a whole raft of extra security because you can have a 40-number combination if you wanted one.

“This has made the Tamo far more secure and the fact the buttons light up is a big bonus when using in the dark.

“There’s also a light on the inside so you can see your keys. All these things have enabled us to take what is the most premium mechanical lock box into Europe.”

“We’re on the right track”

Buckle says the fact Key Safe’s innovative technology is helping the company gain market traction.

“There are many electrical key safes on the market right now and for some people they have their place,” he added.

“However, we have found that they can sometimes be unreliable as they require a power source to operate.

“Our mechanical range doesn’t, so we can guarantee it will work 100% of the time and especially when you need it most.”

The glowing feedback Buckle and Ogden received at ISC West in Las Vegas was encouraging – in the context of expansion plans in the US – and unlike anything he has seen in 20 years of international sales.

The ark Tamo’s B1 rating and standing as the world’s only mechanical key safe to achieve the LPS1175 Issue 8 A10 security rating from the Loss Prevention Certification Board, making it the best key safe in its class, was elevated by a perceived shortage of high-security systems on the US market.

“After meeting and connecting with new people and showing them the Tamo range, it became very clear very quickly there’s a lot of potential for us over there,” Buckle added.

“Because the US is such a huge market, it’s going to be difficult to do it direct from the UK.

“We’re going to have to partner with distributors, wholesalers, other brands and large scale companies to get our product to the consumer.

“That event showed we’re on the right track and have a product that is not only needed, but wanted as well. Numerous times we were asked where people could buy it now.

“We’re consolidating some of those contacts and getting samples out to the people we feel really need them.

“We’re planning another trip over there to have more face to face meetings with potential partners. It’s a watch this space scenario, but the overall aim is to start selling in the US in 2025.”

Strengthening its presence

While global prominence is on the wish list, growth in Europe is the immediate ambition. And Key Safe is laying down foundations in that regard, rather literally.

Working with partners in Belgium, Key Safe has launched a European distribution centre to ship products more efficiently.

The hub has enabled Key Safe to fulfil orders on a next day basis, in some cases, and to circumnavigate exportation issues arising from Brexit.

“There’s a huge amount of paperwork involved in shipping from the UK to Europe nowadays,” Buckle added. “If we can minimise that for our customers it makes their lives a lot easier.”

The company will be attending shows around Europe in the coming months as it looks to gain market penetration.

Further afield, Key Safe hopes to leverage Buckle’s vast experience conducting international business in a bid to make an impression on the global market.

“Some of it will come down to resource,” he admitted. “But I believe we have a product set in a group that most people will see a need for in most countries.

“Whether that be the Middle East, south-east Asia or Australasia.”

“Educating and explaining”

The UK care sector has become an increasingly lucrative market for Key Safe in recent years, due in part to the inclusive and cost-effective nature of the solutions it can offer.

The NHS’ well-documented struggles, its chronic shortage of hospital beds chief among them, have also magnified the UK’s need for key safes.

Care industries overseas do not tend to operate in quite the same way. Yet Key Safe firmly believes the European door is ajar.

“What we actually have is a product that isn’t just right for care,” Buckle said. “That’s where our business has been built over many, many years.

“That revenue has provided us with a stable platform to do other things. But it’s not the only thing that keeps us going. There are so many uses for key safes, in so many walks of life.

“Our products offer something that pretty much every building could have a need for at some point.

“So, it’s about us educating and explaining to people that actually keeping your key at point of need is not as problematic as it once might have been. Our key safes are safer than most front doors.”

The Key Safe Company

The Key Safe Company has been offering access management solutions and expertise since 1996.

In 2022, it launched ark Life – its design and manufacturing brand – to develop leading access and security products.

Born from close consultation with customers, ark products are a hallmark of British design, bringing innovative features and high levels of security that users have come to expect from Supra UK products.