Bulging Order Book Bodes Well for Bovema
By admin
Issued on behalf of Bovema
A BULGING order book on the back of a 200 per cent increase in sales over the last 12 months is expected to make 2008 a highly successful year for a Welsh-based business that specialises in saving lives at work, rest and play.
Bovema/UK, which has its British headquarters in Cardiff, is the country’s fastest-growing designer, manufacturer and installer of natural ventilation products and smoke control systems.
With a client list boasting blue-chip businesses like Jaguar, Redrow Homes, Kwiksave, GAP clothing, McArthur Glen Designer Outlet Villages and the executive apartment developers City Lofts, Bovema’s products and installations can be found in shopping centres, factories, warehouses, supermarkets, theatres, office blocks and housing developments right across Britain.
With a Dutch parent company that has been trading all over Europe for 25 years, Bovema moved its UK base to Cardiff a year ago this month and in that time has racked up more than £1.1m worth of business.
Three of its biggest orders has seen Bovema smoke and natural ventilation systems installed in the Jaguar car factory in Coventry, the Gap UK distribution centre at Northampton and the McArthur Glen designer outlet village at Livingstone in Scotland.
The Bovema/UK design and sales teams in the Welsh capital are currently working on a number of other projects, including for a national housebuilder and one of the country’s leading security businesses.
Staff numbers at the company’s Cathedral Road, Cardiff, offices have doubled in the last year to 12, with managing director David Fitzpatrick targeting not only graduates from the city’s UWIC university, but highly experienced staff who have brought a wealth of knowledge to the business.
“The business has been operating in the UK for 10 years, but the last two years has seen a period of rapid growth,” said Mr Fitzpatrick. “In the last 12 months we created £1.1m worth of business – a record set of figures.
“Most large commercial buildings and residential apartment blocks have some form of smoke ventilation system which is hardly surprising when you consider that the biggest killer in any serious fire is not the fire itself but the smoke it produces. Smoke can reach temperatures of 600 degrees and literally burns everything it comes into contact with.
“So the idea is to get that smoke out of the building as fast as possible. Depending on the design of the ventilation system, if there is a fire then the smoke will automatically trigger the ventilation system to open.”
Mr Fitzpatrick added: “We believe we offer something very different in our sector, but we are still at the beginning of our expansion. This time last year we took £45,000 worth of orders into the new year. We started 2008 with an order book worth more than £400,000.”
