ICM News

ICM NO LONGER A 'WELL KEPT SECRET'

ICM exhibited at the recent Interior Fit-Out Show held at ExCel in London, and found the experience to be well worth while. Steve Lewis, ICM’s Managing Director and Owner was present throughout the event and it was an opportunity for him to introduce many prospective clients to what ICM has to offer.

ICM PLANS FOR CONTINUING GROWTH….

ICM is one of the UK’s fastest growing commercial interiors companies, and plans to double turnover to £10m over the next 5 years. To implement this growth strategy, Steve Lewis the founder of ICM, has appointed David Day to the new position of Operations & Marketing Director.

Before joining ICM in 2006, David had a highly successful career in business development and marketing roles for BAT and Zebra Technologies as well as running his own company for a number of years. David relishes the challenge of doubling ICM’s business and has already set the company on course to achieve this objective by establishing a coherent management structure, devising a clear highly focused marketing and promotional programme, and implementing business process improvements in key operational areas of the company.

David recognised that within the original core shop fitting business were the skills to promote additional contracting services, namely repair and maintenance works, electrical contracting, office fit-out and refurbishment , exhibition stand design and build, and finally plumbing and heating. ICM is now organized around six Business Centres, each with its own Business Manager who is fully responsible for the division’s sales and profits. David has also created a Central Services Team which supports each of the six businesses with administration, estimating, design, marketing and purchasing services.

The opportunity to expand ICM’s horizons and grow the business horizontally into new markets is now being exploited with great success. David comments on the new business structure, “organising things in this way ensures clear lines of responsibility, and that accountability for performance and results is properly vested with the Business Managers. It’s early days with the new organizational structure at the moment, but we have put the foundations in place for a controlled expansion of the company. There are a number of other business opportunities we are currently exploring which we can easily bolt on to this organisation at the appropriate time”.

To attract new clients, a highly focused and targeted marketing programme has been running for the last 9 months, encompassing an ambitious customer relationship building campaign. This involves direct and regular contact with the decision makers in over 500 target prospect companies, and the process is now starting to bear fruit, with a number of new clients attracted to ICM’s widening portfolio of services. ICM now a number of blue chip clients which include Bathstore, Achille, ASK, Robert Dyas and Pizza Express.

Strengthening the company foundations has also involved a concerted effort to improve business processes, which is why David is ensuring ICM achieves Investors in People (IIP) accreditation later this year. He is determined to ensure that the personal objectives of every member of staff are directly linked to the company objectives.

ICM were one of the early adopters of Sage Construct, an integrated business enterprise software package designed for the construction sector. This was quickly followed by a new project management scheduling system called Fast Track, and a new document management system designed to cut out the majority of paperwork in the company, and improve the work flow.