Every manufacturer aims at producing perfect products at the right time and cost. But the reality is often very different. Production bottlenecks, the wrong products at the wrong time and competition are familiar obstacles. When factories become seriously unprofitable, the owners either try to relocate them to reduce labour costs or shut them down. The turnaround option is under-used, but investment group -“Burrator” looks for companies that are underachieving but have considerable potential … and then turns them around. And this is exactly what it has done at Nottingham-based Access Doors.
Access Doors has been in existence for over 35 years, offering a wide range of industrial door and window security solutions that include commercial and industrial doors including security steel door sets, collapsible partitions, awnings, automated entrance doors, and a highly efficient and cost-effective repair and maintenance service. Indeed, it is renowned for its quality workmanship and fast, friendly customer service, particularly since Burrator got involved just two years.
Indeed, there is no doubt whatsoever that the turnaround has worked incredibly well, and the results can clearly be seen in the 15% year-on-year growth since Burrator took over. The pay-off of the investment required and all the hard work has resulted in a number of benefits to the company itself and the local community.
Access Doors’ client-base now incorporates a significant number of blue-chip organisations, as well as government bodies and private customers. A recent successfully completed project was for Boots, the high street retailer, at its main distribution centre in Nottingham. Here, following an open tender, the company replaced 28 doors and refurbished associated dockshelters at Boots’ ‘inward bound’ building – what’s more, it finished three weeks ahead of schedule.
This kind of performance has only been possible thanks not only to a highly skilled and qualified workforce, but also an entrepreneurial, experienced management team, brought in by Burrator that has taken Access Doors into a completely new era, from a company that was ‘plodding’ along into a confident, streamlined business that is now able to take on even the most challenging and complex of projects.
This is a creditable result. It reflects the impact of slowly recovering market conditions as well as a substantial programme of change carried out by the new management team. The result, however, is perhaps even now not reflective of the full potential of Access Doors, but it certainly suggests a significant turning point in the history of the company.
There’s still opportunity to create profitable, desirable businesses, and with the right environment, structures and encouragement, companies can be turned around and into profit relatively quickly. Just ask Access Doors!
