Two Decades at the Top
News release date: Wednesday 26 November 2008
From humble, Australian-import, single-depot beginnings in 1988, Pirtek has grown to become the dominant force in the UK’s emergency hose replacement sector in just two decades, as Mark Anthony reports.
History has been unkind to the 1980s. The caring, sharing decade that gave us Live Aid and the first-ever Comic Relief is now remembered more for the dawn of Thatcherism, yuppiedom and for a multitude of big hair, big shoulder pad fashion disasters. But in the world of Pirtek at least, the legacy of the 80s is secure. Having opened the door of its pilot hose centre towards the end of 1988, the company is celebrating its 20th anniversary; a two decade period of year-on-year growth, network expansion and product and service innovation.
The concept of Pirtek – a network of independently-owned but closely linked hose centres supported by fully-equipped mobile workshops – was brought to this country by Pirtek UK founders and franchising veterans Peter Brennan and Forbes Petrie following a fact-finding mission to Australia where the Pirtek business model was already established.
Having acquired the master license, the pair set up the UK’s first dedicated hose centre in London’s Park Royal, a facility that would double as the home of Pirtek UK for the next five years. Within 18 months, the network had doubled in size with the sale of the first real franchise, Pirtek Greenwich.
Just five years later, the network comprised more than 20 Centres and Pirtek had outgrown its Park Royal home. Pirtek Park Royal was sold and the head office operations moved to new premises (and its current home) in Acton, West London. The network continued to grow both in the UK and, with the sale of the first overseas license, in Ireland as well where the opening of the Dublin centre in 1994 was to set the Emerald Isle on a similarly fruitful relationship with the Pirtek business model.
Based upon the success of the Irish expansion, Pirtek then turned its attention to continental Europe, quickly establishing a firm footing in Germany, France and the Benelux countries in 1996. The following year was to prove similarly significant in Pirtek’s remarkable history as the company netted the coveted British Franchise Association (BFA) Franchise of the Year award.
“Looking back, it’s clear that we were in the right place at the right time and with the right product,” says Pirtek’s Alistair Wiggins. “We had a superb range of products and services and we were offering them at a time when the growth in self-employment had made franchising desirable and when many industrial companies were seeking to outsource what had previously been in-house maintenance duties.”
The growth of the Pirtek UK network continued relentlessly, clocking up its 60th Centre in 1998. “By 1998, we had around 200 mobile workshops on the road and we were already seen as the benchmark for the emergency hose replacement sector,” Wiggins continues. “In addition, we had continued to innovate, adding new products and services to our portfolio, the combination of which continued to attract new customers which in turn required further expansion of the network.”
As the world ushered in the new Millennium and all fears of a Y2K global meltdown subsided, Pirtek UK entered what was to be a landmark year in the company’s already impressive history. The company had been nominated again for the BFA’s Franchise of the Year award and also, following its ongoing growth across Europe, the International Franchise of the Year. Remarkably, the company achieved the double, collecting both awards in an unprecedented success that has yet to be repeated.
By 2004, the number of mobile service workshops had exceeded the magical 300-mark, the fleet regularly clocking up a staggering 7 million miles per year on customer calls. In 2006, the company’s annual turnover exceeded £50 million for the first time, a staggering level of growth in the time required to reach the UK voting age.
With so many achievements and landmarks to its name, it would not be surprising to see Pirtek seeking merely to consolidate its position as UK number one. But that’s not how Pirtek operates. As the company makes ready the champagne and fireworks to mark the 20th anniversary of its UK inception, the expansion and improvement philosophy established two decades ago remains the cornerstone of the operation today.
The company has just added its 92nd Centre – in Chesterfield – and the mobile service fleet now stands at over 400 vehicles. Furthermore, the company’s quest for innovation and ever-more-responsive levels of customer service remains undaunted. Pirtek UK has just opened a new custom-built Training Centre in Birmingham to ensure that the high standards for which Pirtek is renowned are maintained across the entire network.
Even more significantly, Pirtek recently completed the implementation of a £6.0 million IT system called Pirtek Virtual Office (PVO) that, according to Alistair Wiggins, represents the most important step change in the company’s history.
“The company has undergone some truly radical changes in the past two decades and I don’t think any of us could have predicted the growth we have enjoyed when Park Royal first opened its doors in 1988,” concludes Alistair Wiggins. “But the one thing that has remained unchanged in all these years is a commitment to innovation, and a constant improvement in customer service. Those were the foundations of the business started by Forbes Petrie and Peter Brennan in 1988 and they are still the driving force behind our business today.”
Alistair Wiggins, Business Development Director 020 8749 8444
Pirtek UK Ltd, 35 Acton Park Estate, The Vale, Acton, London, W3 7QE
e-mail: alistair.wiggins@pirtek.co.uk
web: www.pirtek.co.uk