Going for growth

Bidvest Noonan offers services such as cleaning, security, front of house and technical support across a range of sectors, including corporate, retail, education, healthcare, manufacturing and transport.

Doyle has been with the business for over 20 years. He had left his Theoretical Physics degree when he realised he loved business more than physics. After completing a business degree and gaining an accountancy qualification to work in forensic accountancy, he missed frontline engagement with people and customers so joined the FM services sector with Noonan Services Group.

He recalls: “I’ve been with the business since its days of family ownership. After we transitioned to a private equity-backed environment, I became CFO and remained in that role for 11 years, including the first two years after we joined Bidvest. I’ve spent the last five years as CEO.

“It’s been an absolute privilege, and though FM is not always the easiest industry to work in, it is very dynamic, if still somewhat under the radar. The same could be said of many of the FM brands, where outside the sector there’s no mass marketing or brand awareness with the general public. But our industry is a major employer in both the UK and Ireland.”

COMPANY CULTURE

Doyle believes that one of the key strengths of the business is that Its owners, Bidvest PLC, own other services companies so they understand the nature of the business, while its decentralised approach has given the firm autonomy to make important management decisions. The company has one leadership team operating across the UK and Ireland, with seven managing directors who manage on a regional or sector basis that allows the company to tailor its operating model to local and sector specific requirements.

However, as Doyle is quick to point out, alongside his operational structure: “We’ve co-created a fresh vision for the business for the next five years, identifying our key strategic objectives to deliver on that vision. As a team, we are all clear that we’re one brand, with one vision, one strategy, and one set of systems and processes. It’s really important that we maintain one culture, one way of working, and our one team approach.

“I see it as my principal role to maintain the culture that we’ve built and closely guarded over the last five decades. We’re all about people and every one of our 27,000 employees are very clear about our purpose as an organisation in creating safer and healthier communities.”

He also points out that being a results-focused business is core, so setting and beating targets is key to company growth. Harking back to his retail experience he gained early in his career, Doyle also stresses the importance of building long term relationships with customers.

“If you look at our key customers, there are clients that have been with us for decades. The longer we maintain a customer relationship, the more we trust each other. The more we understand their business the better we can tailor the best solutions for them.”

GROWING THE BRAND

In Ireland, Bidvest Noonan has long been a market-leading FM services provider to the education, healthcare, life sciences, food manufacturing and central and local government. In the UK it is fast building a strong portfolio, for example it recently won significant contracts to provide security
and cleaning services for leading universities.

Says Doyle: “We also provide an array of services to bus and rail companies across the UK and are now taking our specialist capability into other sectors such as ports and airports, leveraging the infrastructure we have. Although we’re a dominant player in the healthcare space in Ireland, we don’t yet have the same position in the healthcare space in the UK, so there are opportunities there for us to penetrate this marketplace by utilising the capability that we’ve developed.”

Along with organic growth the group has made a series of key acquisitions over the past few years, including Robinson Services and Sword Security in Northern Ireland, Interact in the Republic of Ireland and the Axis Group and Cordant in the UK. Doyle stresses that with so much consolidation happening across the FM marketplace, an acquisition opportunity comes across his desk every week which he usually rules out as he believes the group already has “a fantastic base” across the UK and Ireland.

However, he acknowledges: “We’re very clear on the sectors we operate in, the services we deliver and the geographies we operate in. If an opportunity can enhance our platform, add real value to our existing offerings, or bring something unique to the table, we will pursue it.”

The company recently completed a deal to acquire the FM companies NexGen Group and Just Ask in the UK, which added 3,000 colleagues to the business. This acquisition aims to secure a clear market leadership position in the UK’s social housing sector. So far, its UK offerings are mainly in the soft services space and so in the years ahead, the group may look for acquisitions to expand its service offering in the UK, but Doyle stresses they will need to be services that are complementary to the existing customer base.