Strategic plan sparks huge sales growth for Fusion Electrical
Stockport-based Fusion Electrical provides high quality electrical installation services across the North West, serving both the commercial and domestic sectors. The business was growing but needed a clear, strategic leadership plan to ensure that growth would be sustainable into the future.
Delivering Strategic Growth
As a young company, directors James Harrison and Tom Bell were both used to being very much ‘on the tools’ delivering services for their customers. However, this meant that the strategic side of the business was not receiving the attention it needed.
With new growth opportunities on the horizon and work stacking up, James and Tom needed to become more involved in the running of their business to ensure growth could be managed smoothly. Thankfully, the Hub’s People, Skills & Talent service was perfectly placed to help them.
Streamlining processes and improving productivity
Following an initial business diagnostic by an advisor, Fusion Electrical was matched with a business development specialist, who ran a series of remote sessions during lockdown to identify where the business wanted to be in future and what roles the directors needed to play to achieve their goals.
“We quickly realised that our focus should be ‘on the business’ rather than ‘on the job’,” James says. “We reviewed the business as a whole and got to work on a strategic plan for the next three years, identifying where our key drivers and opportunities were and how we could improve things like marketing and productivity.”
Together with their advisor, James and Tom developed formal job descriptions for their team and defined their own leadership roles in the business, with James focusing on communications, sales and back-office activity and Tom leading on project management and supervision.
During the sessions, it was also identified that the business could benefit from introducing specialist software to streamline its operations and make managing projects easier.
Exploring new markets and boosting sales
Thanks to its new structure and strategic focus, Fusion Electrical has gone on to achieve huge success, securing over half a million pounds worth of new sales.
“Despite an initial dip in business early in 2020 due to COVID-19, our new business plan and increased focus on leading the business led to an upturn in sales that has taken us to a whole new level,” James explains.
“Our sales pipeline and workload meant we could employ an Office Manager and Office Administrator to take on responsibility for administration activity in the business. The software package recommended to us has also led to increased efficiency and reduced likelihood of errors in operations, which has allowed us to take on more work as a result.”
With new sales flooding in, the business has gone on to employ two new apprentice electricians to bolster its team on the ground and is now busy exploring new markets and revenue streams.
One of the new opportunities already bearing fruit is electric vehicle charging, a market Fusion Electrical has moved into with support from the Hub’s specialist Green Technologies and Services team.
“Electric vehicle charging is a great example of a new revenue stream we wouldn’t have identified without our business planning support,” James adds. “Having explored the market and what the requirements were, we were confident enough to get two of our staff trained up, and we delivered our first commercial installation soon afterwards.”
James is now working with a Green Technologies and Services advisor to further develop its services in this area, as well as continuing to develop the business’ operations and capabilities through the Hub’s Skills for Growth – SME programme.