How we’re breaking ground in I&C

Jonathan Hopkins, Managing Director, BGS Utilities

When our new website launched in the summer, the page with by far the most hits was our service offering for the Industrial and Commercial (I&C) sector. I think our expertise in I&C may have come as news to some.

Truth is, we’ve been working in the I&C sector for years but have never really shouted about it. Anyone who follows our social feed will have seen a rising number of projects such as high rise residential, logistics parks and school building contracts being talked about, and these now account for a significant amount of our portfolio. But this industry is competitive, so what are we doing that’s different? How are we ‘breaking ground’ in I&C?

I’ll start with inhouse design.

There are very few multi-utility infrastructure providers operating at scale whose design function is entirely inhouse. Running this as an internal function brings huge benefits to the operational and delivery capabilities we can offer our clients. I&C is riddled with complexities and challenges, but thanks to the knowledge we hold across our teams, we’ve been able to deliver time and again for clients where other providers have failed.

Keeping design inhouse also means we can get properly under the skin of a project, which brings me neatly to the strong link between our design and ops teams. These departments sit alongside each other, enjoying a type of collaboration which can’t be matched when work is outsourced. I know how valuable a resource this is, so it’s one in which I’m prioritising investment.

And while we do run a close-knit team overall, we’ve focused on separating out our I&C and housebuilding specialisms. This is really important to us and to the people we work for. Designing, estimating and delivering an I&C project is completely different to how housebuilding works, so we’ve made sure the right people are working on the right projects and while we share knowledge, we’re focused on providing a specialist service.

And taking that approach one step further, it sounds cliché, but we’re small enough to care.

BGS Utilities is just us. We’re not owned by anyone else. We don’t have shareholders chasing us on targets and some of our most experienced team members chose to join us because we keep it ‘personal’. We’ve got ambition of course and are doing well, but as the owner of this business, I always want the strength of our capabilities to be reflected in our work and in how our clients view us.

All these elements are reasons why I&C developers are choosing to switch their multi-utility infrastructure contracts to us, but I also think there’s another factor at play.

Even though we’ve been working in I&C for a while, we’re perceived as the ‘new kid on the block’. We don’t yet have the budgets of some bigger multi-utility providers, so our marketing, recruitment and networking haven’t been at scale yet. But we’re making waves and have started to win significant contracts that are paving the way for our future.