How Shimicoat Tripled Revenue with AI-Powered Operations

Shimicoat is an Australian manufacturer and supplier of high-performance epoxy and polyaspartic floor coatings, operating from their manufacturing facility and R&D laboratory in Bibra Lake, Perth. The name SHIMI comes from the Persian word for chemistry — a fitting identity for a company built on over 20 years of expertise in surface coating formulation and chemical engineering.

Their product range covers everything from residential garage coatings to heavy-duty industrial flooring, food-grade surfaces for hospitals and manufacturing plants, and non-slip safety coatings. Shimicoat does not just sell product off the shelf — they supply and install across Perth, working with a network of trained installers, tradies, and distributors throughout Western Australia and beyond.

It is the kind of business where technical expertise meets real-world application. Every coating system is engineered for maximum durability, chemical resistance, and long-term performance. Their clients range from DIY renovators recoating a home garage to large commercial operators resurfacing thousand-square-metre warehouse floors.

When Shimicoat came to Valenor, they were stuck at $1.2 million in annual revenue — not because the product was wrong, but because the business was choking on its own operations. The founder was personally involved in every quoting decision, every installer dispatch, and every major client follow-up. The sales pipeline was a series of spreadsheets and phone calls that relied entirely on human memory and manual effort.

Leads were coming in from the website, phone calls, trade shows, and word-of-mouth referrals, but follow-up was inconsistent. A homeowner who submitted an enquiry on a Friday afternoon might not hear back until Tuesday — by which point they had already called two competitors. Commercial leads for large warehouse projects were being handled with the same manual process as a single-garage residential job.

Quoting was another bottleneck. Each quote required someone to assess the project scope, calculate substrate preparation, determine the right coating system, estimate coverage rates, price materials, and factor in labour and travel. For complex multi-coat systems with primers, base coats, and topcoats, this process could take one to two full business days.

Job scheduling was done by phone. The operations team would call installers to check availability, confirm start dates, and coordinate material deliveries. Double-bookings happened regularly. Installers sometimes arrived on site without the correct product specifications or safety data sheets. The entire operation was held together by the owner's knowledge of who was available, who was skilled in which coating system, and which jobs were most urgent.

The business had reached a ceiling. Growing beyond $1.2 million was not a sales problem — it was an operational capacity problem. Every additional job required more of the owner's time, and there were only so many hours in the day.

Here is what happens when a new lead comes in today. A homeowner in Joondalup fills out the enquiry form on Shimicoat's website at 9pm on a Thursday. Within 60 seconds, the AI system sends a personalised response acknowledging the enquiry, asking a few qualifying questions about the project — garage size, current floor condition, preferred finish style — and confirming that someone from the team will be in touch.

Behind the scenes, the lead is scored and categorised. Is this a standard residential garage? A multi-bay workshop? A commercial facility? The system routes the lead into the correct pipeline and begins building a preliminary quote using the information provided. By the time Shimicoat's sales team logs in the next morning, a draft quote is already waiting for review — with product recommendations, coverage calculations, and pricing pre-populated.

Once the quote is approved and the job is booked, the scheduling system takes over. It checks installer availability across the Perth metro area, considers travel distances, matches the installer's coating system expertise to the job requirements, and assigns the job. The installer receives a digital job pack on their phone — complete with site address, access instructions, substrate preparation notes, product specifications, and any special requirements.

The operations dashboard ties it all together. At any point, the Shimicoat team can see exactly how many leads are in the pipeline, how many quotes are outstanding, which jobs are scheduled for the week, and which installers are deployed where. Revenue forecasting updates in real time based on the active pipeline.

Within the first six months of deployment, Shimicoat's revenue trajectory changed completely. The automated lead follow-up alone captured dozens of opportunities that would have previously been lost to slow response times. Commercial clients — who often submit enquiries to multiple suppliers simultaneously — were now receiving responses from Shimicoat within minutes, not days.

The quoting pipeline accelerated dramatically. What previously took one to two business days was now completed in minutes, with the sales team reviewing and sending AI-prepared quotes rather than building them from scratch. Quote volume increased by over 300% without adding a single staff member.

The $250,000 in annual savings came from multiple sources: reduced admin labour, elimination of scheduling errors and double-bookings, faster invoice cycles, and optimised installer routing that cut unnecessary travel time. The operations team went from spending 70% of their day on admin to spending 70% on activities that directly generate revenue.

Annual revenue grew from $1.2 million to $3.6 million — a threefold increase driven not by hiring more people, but by removing the operational constraints that had kept the business stuck at a plateau for years.