September 2017

48 BUILD / September 2017 , Achieving growth and driving standards in a demanding market by investing in skills, experience and technology Geo-Environmental Services Limited offer a comprehensive range of services for a range of developments. Following their success in achieving the title Leading Experts in Engineering Consultancy, we interviewed the firm’s managing director, Glyn Evans. In Geo-Environ- mental Services Limited’s 21st year as a business, the deliverables that it supplies range from desk stud- ies, through to on-site intrusive investigations, which are used to provide ground models for contaminated land assessments, as well as foundation, pavement, road and drainage designs. In addition, the firm also undertakes slope stability analysis, basement impact assessments, building damage assessments, contami- nation remediation strategies and validation reports, together with preparing earthworks specifica- tions and materials management plans. Managing Director, Glyn Evans explains to us what sets Geo- Environmental Services Limited apart from their competitors, marking them out as the best possible option for their clients, and for providing beneficial, envi- ronmentally sound solutions. “The company is currently in a great position, but it wasn’t always like that. In 2007 after the stock market crash, it was a much more challenging business environment. “However out of that adversity myself and core members of the team defined a set of key aims and a long term strategic plan to achieve them. The five core aims that we defined were: “1. To be viewed as providing the highest standard of Geotechnical and Geo-Environmental Consul- tancy services; “2. To have high quality sys- tems, software and equipment to support our staff in delivering excellent services; “3. To retain all of our existing cli- ents and ensure that we are their Geotechnical and Geo- Environ- mental Consultant of choice; “4. Attract new customers across our current catchment area, with an additional focus on a new customer base North of the M25 and in the South West and attracting larger customers; and “5. Identify clients that are less susceptible to the boom and bust cycle in the UK market. “In putting together these aims we considered in detail how we thought the industry would develop. “At the time the industry was still very traditional, but it was our belief that IT would start to play an increasingly important part in our business. “We commenced a programme of upgrading and expanding the capability of IT hardware and scoured the market for software packages that would improve our analytical capabilities, the presentation of our reports, our interconnectivity with other systems and the productivity of our work. We underpinned this by employing an IT managed service company to manage and maintain the systems, which reduced the amount of time lost from IT issues and allowed us to concentrate on our core business. “As a result of these improve- ments, when challenges such as BIM came along, we already had systems in place that could meet them. “We had found that there were barriers to us winning or even bidding for work for some clients. We invested heavily in ensuring that as an organisation we had all of the accreditations that we needed to compete in our cho- sen markets. “The first step was to ensure that “we were ISO9001, ISO14001 and OHSAS18001 accredited. “Alongside this, we looked at the specific accreditations that we needed for different clients and sectors and achieved accredita- tion on Achilles RISQS, Achilles UVDB, CHAS, Construction Line, SMAS and CQMS. “Of course, you can have all of the IT and accreditations in the world, but if you haven’t got good quality staff you will not succeed. “We already had an excellent core team who had supported us through the more challenging times that we had experienced. “It gives me great pleasure to say that some of those members of staff are now members of the management team and have a 1709BU01