June 2017

132 BUILD / June 2017 , Pilon specialise in refurbishing social housing inside and out in London and the South East. We invited CEO FlorianMoldoveanu to talk us through the firmand the services it provides. Breaking New Ground Pilon was founded in 2004, and since inception we have worked in more than 50,000 properties. Most of these properties are with tenants in situ, thus requiring a special set of skills in order to deliver the refurbishment works with minimal impact to their well- being and their day to day lives. Pilon has developed and fine- tuned a unique model which enables it to achieve consistent high levels of resident satisfaction. This innovative delivery model rests on a combination of direct delivery workforce and technology. We are attracting, vetting, training and managing individual workers using state of the art technology and software that we have developed to suit our needs. We start by plating the project details into its smallest components possible and setting it up into our systems. Then the system communicates in real time with our site supervisors, our operatives, every resident, the client and management to ensure everything stays on track and that the residents are happy and looked after at all times. This combination between the vetting and inducting every operative and then operating our own system ensures absolute control on quality, health and safety and residents’ peace of mind. In order to continue innovating and creating unique ideas such as this, we nurture a culture of innovation, which see us meet regularly as a team and in smaller groups in order to capture and discuss new ideas and actively encourage and reward innovation. Most innovation in a service provider is linked with technology and software. We have built our own software development capability which is able to turn most of our ideas into a practical feature in very little time. We believe that this capability backed by the culture of innovation that we have developed and nurtured is going to keep us ahead of the competition in offering the best service to our clients and their residents for years to come. One of our most successful projects to date has been the kitchen and bathroom programme for Gateway Housing Association, a two-year project based in Tower Hamlets which we are now in the second year of. The scope of works involves the refurbishment of kitchen, bathroom, electrical re-wires and minor gas works to occupied properties. However, since commencing works with Gateway we have subsequently been awarded additional works including specialist DDA refurbishments such as wet rooms, plus works to void properties. One of the biggest challenges we have faced on this contract was engaging with the residents, many of whose English was not their first language. We overcame this through various approaches. Firstly, we recruited an RLO from the local community who was fluent in many of the common languages spoken in the area, secondly we used a translation service to ensure that we were communicating effectively, and lastly, this was the first contact where we rolled out our digital communication option, the ‘Customer Portal’ which allows residents to communicate with us via smart phone, tablet or PC. The combined effect of the above strategies was very effective resulting in constantly high satisfaction scores from both Gateway and also their residents. Looking ahead, we believe the market is going to embrace more of the SME dynamism and dedication to quality and this in turn should continue to erode further the stranglehold of the monopoly of the biggest 10-12 contractors in the sector. Some of these huge contractors will have to diversify away from this sector thus creating even more space for dynamic SMEs to grow and bring innovation and increased benefits to residents of social housing and their providers. We are already beginning to see the effects of this in the market, and as such we are seeing more and more talent migrating away from big contractors and into SMEs. In fact, Pilon is one of the beneficiaries of this talent migration. In April 2016, two of the best executives in main contracting have joined our business from one of the biggest contractors. Mike Brogan has joined us a Managing Director and Tony Elliott as a Divisional Director. Mike Brogan has over 20 years in management and for the past 10 years has grown one of the most successful social housing planned maintenance business units with Apollo and then Keepmoat to over £80 million annual turnover. Mike professional ethos is focus on quality of service and deliver to client needs. Mike and Tony could both see the change in the market and wanted to work in a company that is best placed to meet the future needs of our market, and we look forward to exciting developments we will encounter during this journey. Overall, our key aim is to continue to offer our clients and their residents the best service the money can buy. We would be looking to reinvest most of our profits into developing our unique technology and our team knowledge, further enhancing the quality level and reach of our service. We believe the market is in dire need for good quality, innovative, customer focuses and dynamic contractors and we think we are firmly in this camp. Company: PiLON Address: Ashurst Manor, Church Lane, Ascot, SL5 7DD Phone: 01344 206 800 Email: [email protected] Website: www.pilon.co.uk 1605KN24