Nationwide Access

Source: Construction Digital

Date :29/08/2007 16:34:45

A platform for growth

Nationwide Access specialises in the hire and sale of powered access equipment in the UK, providing efficient and safe access solutions for people working at height.

James Hurley spoke to Managing Director Peter Whittall about how the company’s commitment to strong acquisitive and organic growth, health and safety excellence and customer service has seen it become the UK's leading powered access hire company

Written by James Hurley & Produced by Nick Hargrave

Since being acquired by the Lavendon Group in 1992, Nationwide Access has expanded rapidly, principally through organic growth but also by making strategic acquisitions. Lavendon was founded with the express purpose of acquiring Nationwide Access, which in 1992 had six depots and 430 machines. Its current hire fleet stands at over 6,000 units, operating from a network of over 50 depots.

A clear strategy

Nationwide Access's first acquisition was Access Rental Ltd, a major competitor, whose business was integrated into Nationwide’s activities in 1993. Since then, the company has added a number of strong brands and businesses to its organisational portfolio - a further landmark in the company's development came with the setting up of the Nationwide Skylift division in 1996 to operate a fleet of truck mounted hydraulic access platforms.

Recent acquisitions have included Rise Hire, a van mounted powered access business and Wizard Workspace, a leading provider of aerial work platforms

“These are all businesses that fit well within the UK group,” says Managing Director Peter Whittall. “The Lavendon marketing strategy is to gain national coverage and then consolidate in each country it operates in.” In Germany, Lavendon trades under the name Zooom where it’s the leading powered access rental company in Germany.

The national markets for powered access across Europe are still fragmented, leaving Lavendon in a prime position to push for consolidation in a number of markets.

Whittall joined Lavendon in 2002 as group HR Director. He took over as Managing Director for Nationwide Access, which is the largest operating unit within the Lavendon Group, in 2006.

The Group also has two smaller businesses in France and Spain, and a rapidly growing business in the Middle East called Rapid Access which currently has a turnover of £10-15 million.

“The strategy is very clear. Lavendon is definitely a business that wants to enter the market where they can achieve prominence in the top three levels of market penetration, and then start implementing the infrastructure and technology that allows us to provide a particular service and differentiates us from the competition,” says Whittall.

Nationwide Access is now a separate operating entity from Lavendon - Whittall says he is “left to get on with it” when it comes to the daily running of the company. “We will probably see a 12-15 percent increase in revenue, so we will be heading towards £66 million at the end of 2007,” he says.

Raising standards

Any company supplying powered access equipment has to make health and safety a priority. Nationwide Access is rather proud of the system that it has in place. “It’s the most robust compliance to health and safety legislation in the powered access industry. We regularly support the HSE and IPAF (International Powered Access Federation), the lobbying body for powered access and we sit on all the major committees. We’ve redefined health and safety standards for the industry.”

While anyone in the powered access industry will tell you that it’s the safest option for working at height, the equipment can still be dangerous if not handled properly. As such, Nationwide Access will be launching improved familiarisation processes for its customers. “We feel there are occasions when customers don’t get the right level of familiarisation with machines and that’s because they have become a little blasé when they’ve used them before. You’ve got to have a license to use them but we decided to take information provision a little further and offer a structured familiarisation handover where it’s required. We also have a 24/7 technical service centre set up which can provide instant support and help.” Where the company’s equipment has been involved in accidents, on each occasion the HSE has found that operator error, i.e. people taking shortcuts has been to blame. “It’s our mission to stop them doing that,” says Whittall. “We want our customers to use our machines safely so we’re implementing the procedures to ensure this happens.”

“We always ensure that every machine has a traceable certificate that confirms it has had a thorough examination and is fit for purpose, and we also carry out mandatory pre-delivery function tests – when it leaves the yard to go to a customer, we know it’s safe.”

Partnering for success

Nationwide Access doesn’t rely solely on acquisitions to gain market share. The company has a policy of ongoing investment in the training of staff and customers. Whittall says that making the company even more customer-centric will be a major focus over the next twelve months.

“We will be focussing a lot on the customer and on significant re-organisation to make the business more focused on the end-user. We have general managers that have the entire responsibility of providing customer service and delivery locally, and we now have business sector managers that manage the major sector revenue that Nationwide provides powered access to. By breaking the business down into sectors in this particular way, it allows us to get a very clear view of the trends and requirement of certain sectors not only in terms of service levels, which do differentiate from sector to sector, but also in terms of product and product offering. This means we can provide better service to those customers.

“We differentiate our customers by sectors,” he continues, “and we have ten regional hire desks which take orders, answer queries, provide quotes and give technical advice. The hire desks know immediately when a customer comes whether they are, for example, from a media, telecom, or electrical sector. They know the products that the customer is likely to want, but this approach also allows us to let them know when new products are bought on the scene that will allow them to do things more efficiently. It allows for a better service for the customer.”

Another central aspect of Nationwide Access’s growth strategy is to develop strong strategic partnerships. The company is the sole partner and preferred supplier for powered access equipment to Select, the largest plant hire business in the UK; Select supplies Laing O’Rourke with its construction equipment. “We are now a part of that group - we supply power access exclusively to Laing O’Rourke and all the sub-contractors. It has taken us two years to develop that relationship. Nationwide access has become more of a partnering company,” says Whittall.

“Where organisations want solutions and they don’t want to have to manage things themselves, we have the ability to manage that service for them. We can give them access to management information, visible pricing policies so everything’s transparent, we will consolidate invoices – we’ll provide reports on anything they want us to and a lot of big companies like that. But at the same time, if the guy on the street wants a powered access machine, we will train him, provide the machine and support him. Big or small, we have an opportunity to provide a good solution and make sure our customers work safely at heights. We’re proud to do that.”