Trade secrets are legally defined as confidential information that holds commercial value and is not widely known or easily accessible within a specific industry. Trade secrets encompass a variety of valuable information, such as manufacturing processes, formulas, customer lists, marketing strategies, new product development, and product launches.

A company’s trade secrets give it a competitive edge, and by keeping valuable information confidential allows it to maintain its place in the market and protect its intellectual property. Trade secrets may well prove crucial to preserving a company’s market position, attracting investors, and securing a competitive advantage over competitors.

At Multi Vehicle Technology we understand the importance of confidentiality and take it very seriously, which is why those sourcing special-purpose vehicles choose to place their trust in us.

What is all this to do with MVTech?

It may surprise but the very nature of designing and constructing bespoke vehicles often necessitates access to some of our client’s confidential information whether we are undertaking a single van conversion or the construction of a new fleet of vehicles. This applies to our exhibition and sampling vehicles, mobile training units as much as to our cash in transit vehicles, surveillance vehicles, health care vehicles, outreach vehicles and incident response vehicles. We even must maintain confidentiality for aspects of our mobile library builds.

Clients as varied as food manufacturers to healthcare providers, security companies to NGO’s and Local Authorities all have their trade secrets requiring protection.

Examples of trade secrets we come across.

As has been mentioned trade secrets exist in most industries, companies and service providers encompassing a wide range of information. Some common examples of trade secrets that we come across when building bespoke vehicle conversions include:

1. Formulas and Recipes: The food and beverage industry are quite competitive with trade secrets covering recipes and formulas so much so that many of our sampling vehicles must be designed and built in total confidentiality.
2. New product development: When creating product demonstration vehicles and roadshow vehicles it is often essential to maintain confidentiality on the new products we are installing.
3. Marketing Strategies: Along with the need for maintaining secrecy on products, installations, or services we also must be mindful of the confidentiality of the marketing strategies themselves and the need to keep roadshow plans and activities secret.
4. Technology enterprises are constantly on guard to protect their ideas and concepts so any work in producing gaming vehicles and new mobile IT facilities, or computer crash recovery systems are always treated as “top secret.”

These are just a few examples in addition to the obvious ones regarding security vehicles, surveillance vehicles and cash-in-transit vans.

Formal protection of Trade Secrets

Protecting trade secrets often comes down to trust between two parties rather than formal legally binding contracts and having built a reputation based on confidentiality we are pleased that most of our clients automatically trust us with their secrets.

But there are organisations and some situations that, for whatever reason, require a formal approach and we fully understand this. We therefore take no offence at being asked to protect trade secrets in this way being quite at ease in signing Confidentiality Agreements and Non-Disclosure Agreements as and when requested to cover the build or conversion of bespoke vehicles.

How we safeguard Trade Secrets

Safeguarding our clients trade secrets whilst fulfilling contracts to build their bespoke vehicles requires the implementation of good practices which we instinctively operate. We can summarise these as follows.

1. Employee Training: We provide all employees with training on the importance of confidentiality and their obligations to protect trade secrets.
2. Marking Documents as Confidential: Clearly labelling documents containing trade secrets as confidential to remind and to highlight to all staff what is confidential.
3. That said we always restrict access to trade secrets to individuals on a “need-to-know” basis.
4. Secure Information Storage and transmission is necessary these days. Hence, we have ISO 9001 Certification plus Cyber Essentials Certification.
5. Exit Procedures: Establishing procedures to ensure that trade secrets are protected should any employee leave the company, including the return of confidential information and the termination of access to all information systems.

Multi Vehicle Technology Ltd

Multi Vehicle Technology Ltd specializes in creating bespoke vehicles that are far from mass-produced or off-the-shelf. Instead, we combine traditional craftsmanship with modern technology to craft unique and individual vehicles for our clients.

Each vehicle we design is tailored to meet the specific requirements of a client, reflecting our forward-thinking approach and meticulous attention to detail and our commitment to innovation ensures that we have the wherewithal to install the latest and most advanced technology into our vehicles, where this be required.

At this time of year, the County Show season is about to get underway (along with a vast range of other outdoor events and attractions taking place over the coming months) but it is not too late to consider the contribution a bespoke exhibition vehicle can make to your marketing activities. So if you are planning to attend exhibitions, festivals, or venues of almost any kind you may wish to consider changing from a traditional exhibition stand or marquee and moving over to a promotional mobile which we can base on a wide range of vehicles from buses to vans, trailers to vintage vehicles.

In addition to exhibition vehicles, we also specialize in constructing security vehicles such as cash-in-transit, surveillance, incident response, and incident command vehicles. Our expertise extends to mobile libraries, outreach vehicles, gaming vans, and a variety of other specialist van conversions.

If you are interested in exploring how the unique skills of Multi Vehicle Technology Ltd can enhance your purpose-built vehicle needs, while safeguarding your trade secrets, please contact us at 0116 326 0989 for a totally confidential conversation or email us at sales@multivehicletechnology.co.uk for secure communication. We look forward to discussing how we can meet your requirements, however demanding they may be, and how we may contribute to your success.