Vivalda Group has confirmed strong growth for the year ending December 2017, with its turnover increasing by 19% to £31 million.
Despite the chronic under performance of the construction sector, the Grenfell Tower tragedy, Brexit and the impact of the Carillion collapse, Vivalda has continued to grow its business via a twin track strategy of unrivalled product quality and service to satisfy the needs of the expanding off-site fabrication market.
The business, which now boasts eight locations throughout the UK and Ireland, took the decision last year to stock only fully certified cladding products – providing assurance and building trust among specifiers and contractors. The company has also invested more than £250,000 in new technology, enabling it to supply finished products to the fast-growing off-site building fabrication sector.
Vivalda’s chairman, Peter Johnson, said: “Given ongoing challenges facing the building industry, the past 18 months have not been easy for many businesses.
“And yet despite this – by sticking to our strategy of investing in technology, people and our customers – we have continued to grow our company by nearly 20% year on year. At the same time, we have also been pleased to see our PURA Facades business go from strength to strength, on the back of sustained demand for its range of natural cladding products using stone, terracotta and glass reinforce concrete.”
Voted in 2018 by the London Stock Exchange as one of the ‘1000 Companies to Inspire Britain’, Vivalda has not been afraid to innovate and invest to differentiate itself from other rainscreen cladding distributors. While the company’s turnover has continued to increase, so has the productivity of the business.
Based on its 2017 accounts, Vivalda’s value added per employee* comes in at £94.300, which according to the UK Industry Performance Report (2016) is more than £30,000 above the construction sector average of £63,700.
Peter concluded: “While a healthy top line figure is always good to see, this is only the tip of the iceberg as far as business performance is concerned. During 2017, we worked hard to improve our productivity and accuracy, while reducing our waste. We’re very much behind the focus of the government’s new Construction Deal and believe that the attention on efficiency and productivity is vital to the long-term health of this vital UK industry.”
* Value added per employee is a widely used measure of productivity. This is calculated by taking gross turnover, subtracting the value of all bought-in supplies and dividing this by the number of staff. This figure was taken by the CIBT/Glenigan/BE&IS/BRE annual report into construction performance.
