Frost & Sullivan Accolade for Protech's Exceptional Competitive Strategy Leadership.

LONDON -- Frost & Sullivan presents its 2007 Competitive Strategy Leadership Award to Protech (SELTEC Group) in recognition of its unique business and sales strategy implementation in the European diagnostic equipment market.

"From a turnover of EU4.5 million in 2004, Protech has grown by 33 per cent over three years to register approximately EU6 million in 2007, achieved through a 45 per cent growth in volume sales," notes Frost & Sullivan Industry Analyst Benny Daniel. "The main contributing factor to this impressive growth has been a realigned product portfolio; moving from conventional gas analysers to scanners and OBD-compliant diagnostic tools, besides incorporating other equipment such as smoke meters, universal tachometers and other external systems accessories such as printers, flat screens, keyboards, multi-function cabinets and trolleys to provide an integrated and multifunctional testing platform for workshops and garages."

Protech identifies business opportunities within its core competency - garage equipment - and then adds innovative strategic solutions to give it a proprietary advantage. This approach enables the company to penetrate new markets while providing it with a sustainable competitive edge.

"Developments like the V family of diagnostic tools and the required Genie Software are indicative of this trend, allowing the company to achieve 70 per cent export demands in 2006-2007 to markets such as the United Kingdom, India, Germany and Scandinavian regions such as Norway and Sweden, besides countries within Southeast Asia," explains Daniel. "Protech has applied similar approaches to emerging markets including Brazil and Russia to reap first mover advantage."

Other product developments range from the COMPACT DIAX engine analyser to products that provide solutions for workshops including brake testers, balancers and air conditioning recovery systems. Among the company's other product initiatives are the design of infrared benches, OBDII compliant engine testers and Windows and Linux compatible platforms using LED touch screen display.

The formation of the SELTEC Group through the successful merger of Iren (the engineering division of SELTEC Group), Iteco and Protech has integrated their respective organisational competencies, while strengthening Protech's competitive advantage. The recent take over of Air Solutions, an Italian producer of innovative equipment for workshops and body shops, is set to accelerate the emergence of Protech and parent group SELTEC Group as leaders within the European diagnostic equipment market.

Protech was among the first companies to identify the importance of mind share growth through its pioneering 'STAR POOL' concept. This model sought to build a group of leading, independent manufacturers, capable of using their technical expertise to support the development of innovative products and services.

"This strategy was aimed at providing up-to date solutions for aftermarket professionals, which turned out to be advantageous for Protech as customers realised the company's dedicated customer focus," adds Daniel. "As a result of its customer focus and outstanding portfolio of garage products and services, Protech is poised to make stronger competitive gains."

The Frost & Sullivan Competitive Strategy Leadership Award is presented each year to a company whose competitive strategy has yielded significant gains in market share during the research period. Often, the company has taken advantage of recent market changes to facilitate the introduction of never-before seen methods of capturing and solidifying market presence or has executed an innovative strategy within the existing competitive landscape, empowering it to overtake the competition. In either case, the company captures the attention of the competition, which quickly adjusts in order to protect its own market position. Frost & Sullivan analysts expect such innovations to produce lasting, precedent-setting trends in the industry.

Frost & Sullivan Best Practices Awards recognise companies in a variety of regional and global markets for demonstrating outstanding achievement and superior performance in areas such as leadership, technological innovation, customer service, and strategic product development. Industry analysts compare market participants and measure performance through in-depth interviews, analysis, and extensive secondary research in order to identify best practices in the industry.

About Protech

In a competitive automotive aftermarket where affordable quality services are to be offered for customer satisfaction, up-to date solutions, products and services, are what make the aftermarket business successful.

Modern technologies require the automotive aftermarket equipment manufacturer to have access to a large number of know-how's in different areas, to built-up technological platforms suitable for the development of products and services. For over two decades we have been riding the wave of technology and we want to keep doing that for the years to come.

The challenge is to be able to develop up-to-date solutions that cover nothing more and nothing less than what our customers really need.

We want to be more and more in touch with our customers to learn from them what their job needs in a kind of partnership where, knowing how to do, we learn what to do.

"Partnering with customers."

About Frost & Sullivan

Frost & Sullivan, the Global Growth Consulting Company, partners with clients to accelerate their growth. The company's Growth Partnership Services, Growth Consulting and Career Best Practices empower clients to create a growth focused culture that generates, evaluates and implements effective growth strategies. Frost & Sullivan employs over 45 years of experience in partnering with Global 1000 companies, emerging businesses and the investment community from more than 30 offices on six continents. For more information about Frost & Sullivan's Growth Partnerships, visit http://www.frost.com.