It's all at the Co-op

arlier this year three engineering services businesses within the Co-operative Group, itself recently formed from the merging of the CWS and CRS co-operative societies, came together under the name Syncro. These businesses were CWS Engineering Services, a building services contractor, CWS Scales, a supplier and maintainer of retail and office equipment and CWS Energy and Transport offering energy procurement and management.

Prior to this merger, all three businesses had been headed up by Trevor Webb, who worked his way up through the ranks of Midlands Electricity in both its nationalised and privatised manifestations before joining CWS over three years ago.

"All three of these companies were performing reasonably well but I believed there was more to be had from them. We felt that the sum of the whole would be stronger than the individual parts," explains Webb. "There are synergies between the companies that can be exploited, such as sharing customer databases, and we now have the businesses to be able to offer the installation and maintenances of services and equipment and the procurement and management of energy. So we can act as a one-stop shop or we can offer the individual services – whatever the client wants." Within the new structure there are four business streams: Syncro Equipment Services continues the business of CWS Scales, Syncro Energy Services handles the energy side, and Syncro Engineering Services offers contracting and facilities management.

The Syncro group has a turnover of around £100 million a year, a turnover that has been deliberately reduced over the last few years.

"We have become more selective in the work we take on, so although our turnover has gone down, our profits have increased," says Webb. "The turnover is now as low as I want it to go, so we will spend this year bedding in the new approach and working on the supply chain and then we can start to grow the business again. We anticipate a 10% increase in turnover per annum, with a corresponding year-on-year increase in profits." The emphasis at Syncro is not to rush but to achieve steady growth through establishing the right sort of reputation, as Webb explains. "Our market research showed that there is some scepticism about the industry in general and its ability to deliver. So it's not a quick-fix, we have to build up respect and confidence and we're working to a three-year programme to achieve that." Growth is expected to come from two sources – internally from other companies within the co-operative movement, and from external clients. Syncro Engineering Services, for example, has roughly 20% internal work and 80% external work and both sides are expected to grow.

There are a lot of words out there, like partnering, but the deeds do not often go with those words. I think things are heading in the right direction, but it’s very slow

While it may seem that internal work should be easier, that is not necessarily the case apparently. "Our internal work has benefits and disadvantages. Internal companies tend to have higher expectations and some think we should be doing the work for nothing. On the other hand, the money is safe and we are dealing with companies that have the same ethical approach with a philosophy of openness and honesty," Webb points out.

"My belief is that if we can deliver to a very demanding client such as one of our internal companies, we can certainly deliver to external clients," he continued. "We will be offering clients a variety of financial arrangements, including open book accounting and guaranteed fixed price contracts." Ethical is hardly a term that one often hears used for the construction industry, but it forms the basis of all co-operative companies and Syncro is no exception. "An ethical approach goes hand in hand with our selectivity. There are a number of main contractors with a similar ethical approach and we work very well with them. On all the jobs where we have lost money there has been a problem with relationships on site and problems with communications. Where we've made money there has been a good relationship and good communications," notes Webb.

"There are a lot of words out there, like partnering, but the deeds do not often go with those words. I think things are heading in the right direction, but it's very slow," he added.