Business Design Centre

Source: Retail Digital

Date :01/06/2007 10:45:37

A family dream come true: simply the best in the business

The Business Design Centre’s group CEO, Dominic Jones, 39, is well qualified to talk about execdigital’s “top floor to shop floor” case study concept. He left school at 16, worked in a solicitors’ office before starting an estate agency in Islington from scratch with a friend around the same time as the Business Design Centre was opening its doors nearby. Four years and a gap-year spent travelling around Asia later, Jones joined the company in 1991 “on the shop floor” in a junior marketing position. Over the next eight years he worked in the Company’s commercial property, showroom and exhibition divisions. By 1999 he was the MD and now he’s the Group CEO of this family-owned private company, which operates from the Grade II listed former Royal Agricultural Hall, Upper Street, Islington

Written by Alison Withers & Produced by James Smith

The Morris family, made up of five brothers, whose background was primarily in shop fitting around the Finsbury Park area, own 97% of the Business Design Centre Group. Their father turned his lifetime ambition into reality over 20 years ago after acquiring the Royal Agricultural Hall. Now the Business Design Centre Group is made up of the Business Design Centre, City Central Estates (a property investment company), and City North (a business park in Finsbury Park).

Upper Street Events is the BDC’s event organising division with nine annual consumer/trade exhibitions including the London Art Fair, New Designers and the Country Living Fairs. Showrooms in the Centre are used by companies to display their products and services with other units rented to various types of companies including design agencies, recruitment, lawyers, stock brokers, internet-based companies and marketing agencies. All have access to the building 24/7, 365 days a year in a secure, controlled environment.

Excellence, innovation and a new roof

The combination of operations provides a facility for networking and business development for everyone using its services. There’s a Hilton hotel on the site, which gives the Centre preferential rates to organisers and exhibitors. There are also links to a number of other nearby hotels. What is unique to the Business Design Centre, says Jones, is its own in-house concierge service helping visitors with everything from tickets to shows, finding a hotel to booking taxis. Jones says: “We are very strong on customer care. It’s quite unusual for an exhibition venue to have a concierge.”

The last year was particularly busy for Jones and for the company while phase one of a £1.5 million refurbishment completed. The barrel-vaulted roof membrane needed replacement and because of its Grade II listing, Jones says they “needed to respect the integrity of the original building”. Fortunately because modern plastics had been used in the roof in the 1980s the Company was able to use a modern system and materials without compromising the listing requirements and now has a completely new set of central roof lights expected to last for around 30 years.

The Company has been looking into energy conservation as part of this process but unfortunately the cost of installing solar roof panels is still prohibitively high, though Jones expects it to come down in the next five years so they will continue to review the situation. In the meantime, he says: “We do a lot of work on our recycling. All exhibition venues generate a lot of waste and we are now making ourselves much more efficient in terms of what we can recycle.”

The Company has a seven-member board made up of Jones, a chairman, four directors plus the Head of Upper Street Events, who is not currently a director. He says: “It’s an established structure but we have new talent coming through so it’s a situation that’s open to review and one of the things that our management team strives to achieve. Appointing new members to the Board is not something that we do a lot of in a family business but it’s an honour and a reward as well as a responsibility and an incentive for people in the company.”

There are 70 directly-employed staff and a number of in-house contractors, including a stand-alone catering company that produces high quality food for conferences and exhibitions. 25 of the directly-employed staff work on the sales and organisation of the company’s own shows, then there’s a team responsible for bookings for conferences, another team responsible for letting the showroom space, project managers responsible for looking after the exhibitions that come into the Centre and an accounts team. Jones says the Centre’s niche is to provide exhibition space for small to medium businesses looking to host stand-alone start-up events. “We are the UK’s No1 launch venue,” he says.

The CBI holds its annual conference there and it’s also been used by Sony Ericsson, the DTI (Department of Trade and Industry), the Home Office and Transport for London.

Developments in the pipeline

Phase two of the roof replacement is next, when the curved spans on either side of the roof lights will be over clad. Renewing the gable ends depends on the outcome of an appeal against refusal of a planning application to replace them with a more modern material, but, says Jones, they are still in good condition so they can be maintained if the appeal is unsuccessful.

Although staff structure is not likely to change, he says, new working conditions are to be piloted. As the Company’s workforce, which at one time was mostly young and single, has grown up, acquired families and homes, the company’s planning to pilot a flexible working scheme. Previously arrangements for people to balance home and work commitments have been dealt with on an ad hoc basis. The company has a positive and encouraging approach to staff development, as Jones’ own experience illustrates. Staff who are not on commission get a percentage of profits meets every two months with junior to middle level staff to discuss new ideas and suggestions.

He’s delighted the Company’s Investors in People accreditation has just been renewed. Only 50 percent of those companies who apply for re-accreditation are successful following changes to the standard and one reason cited by interviewers was that “staff really valued the fact that they are able to contribute to how the business is run.” New starters are paired up with a “buddy” so there’s a friendly face from day one. Staff receive management training and career development support. Initiatives with a local FE college to arrange courses on managing a business venue are in the pipeline and other local community needs are not forgotten as the company has worked closely with local groups to ensure the best possible disabled access.

The Company’s friendly culture is led from the top down. Jones says he can’t understand CEOs who walk into their buildings each day without speaking to doormen and other staff. He says: “I think we have an open and honest relationship with our staff and it amazes me how many times you hear senior people not doing very obvious things like talking to their staff at all levels. I know all their names, their situations, we have good conversations and banter. It’s important for morale.”

New business developments include expanding the exhibition offerings with two or three new shows due to be rolled out in the next 18 months, and the possibility of developing new centres outside London.