Taking a tried-and-tested new technology that has already established itself in one region and applying it to another is not the easiest of tasks.

With the idiosyncrasies of differing supply chains, it takes a well-thought-out business plan to launch it successfully into a new market.

But one company that has made this transition is Anglia Business Solutions, which has set out to make its LINKFresh solution the technology of choice for the US market. The company opened an office in Ventura, California in June last year following the hiring of Ron Myers as executive vice president for its North American operations. Rather than adopting the name of its British parent, the new company was christened LINKFresh, Inc.

“There was no product as well developed as LINKFresh in the US market,” Myers recalls. “This is a highly developed system for fresh produce, and we had a fantastic reception on launch.”

LINKFresh is an add-on product for Microsoft Dynamics, working in tandem with Dynamics modules such as general ledger, sales/receivables, purchase/payables and warehousing and manufacturing. And Myers believes the fact that the system can be tailored to customers’ individual needs will make it popular in the demanding US market. “Fresh produce does not fit traditional ERP out of the box,” he explains. “The industry requires very specific forecasting and control of production costs, and advanced quality-control methodology is critical.”

So was it as simple as taking an already established system and applying it to a hungry new market? No, insists Myers. “The entire trading world in the US industry in terms of consignments and logistics is very different, so we had to go through an entire rearchitecting process. We spent two years on that with our initial customers.” As if to underline the amount of planning required, Anglia spent thousands of man hours on the software to get it ready for the new market.

And the company was grateful to have had customers who sought it out and were prepared to invest in a “foreign” technology. It certainly didn’t do any harm that the platform had a reliable track record and the backing of Microsoft either.

It’s still early days for LINKFresh in North America, but with a number of customers already signed up and ambitious plans for further expansion across Latin America, the hard work is already starting to bear fruit. The office hopes to double its eight staff in 2013, and its shared resource pool with the UK ensures best practice is available both sides of the pond.

In terms of advice to other companies looking to replicate its success in taking a winning formula abroad, Myers points out that LINKFresh has had to invest substantially in advertising and branding, appearing at food safety expositions and getting its name out there. And more than that, know your market, he warns.

“Be very mindful of the cultural divide,” he explains. “The way people do business in the US is very different. Understand how to communicate with customers at a local level – having local people on the ground is key – and understand how the UK and US sides work together on the same side. There can be no territorialism.

“And don’t try to reinvent the wheel just because you are in another country.”