Building Products Aftersales Director | Case Study

The Company

This multi-billion-dollar turnover client is one of the world’s leading names in building products manufacturing, and at the forefront of innovation into sustainable products and solutions.

Having managed the recruitment of this divisions Manging Director last year, Collingwood was briefed to headhunt for one of the director level roles underneath.

The division had experienced rapid growth over the past five years, with revenues forecasted to double during the next 10. Products are aimed at both the residential and commercial markets. The UK government’s continued drive to its green agenda towards becoming Carbon Zero by 2050 fuels this growth.

The Role

The products manufactured and sold are viewed as a long-term investment by commercial customers. Added to this, due to the continued, dramatic growth expected from the product range, implementing a sustainable, reoccurring maintenance model was paramount.

This person was to lead on driving customer excellence throughout all post sales activities including commissioning, maintenance, repair, remote optimisation and decommissioning across the division. Fundamental to this role was to ensure the manufacturer was viewed as providing the best-in-class service.

They were to also manage the integration of Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and data capture / analysis into the post sales activities. This person would lead on the division’s Innovation Plan.

Added to the above, Engineers trained to install and maintain products are in high demand and short supply. Driving resource efficiencies through learning and development, the utilisation of remote access services along with the greater utilisation of the firm’s apprenticeship scheme, were all considerations in meeting this resource challenge.

Other than the above, along with the need to be able to get into their Home Counties head office twice a week, the client’s stakeholders wanted a wide-reaching building product search, not to be restricted by their specific range.

The Business Challenge

Putting it plain and simple, much like the Managing Director of last year, this was a flagship position, for a leading global manufacturer of a product primed to disrupt the conventional heating & ventilation market.

With expectations set extremely high regarding how this aftersales function should perform in the coming six years, the European board wanted to secure the best possible individual from an allied market.

Aside from the above, the business required someone who:

• Had worked with and built strategies around a sustainable building product.
• Appreciated how to build a UK team of aftersales engineers.
• Had led the introduction of digitalisation into a product range (IoT for example).
• Would be visible at their Home Counties head office.

These factors ensured a consultative approach was required throughout the research and approach phase, thus ensuring both parties stayed aligned.

The Solution

This had the potential to be an extremely challenging assignment, based on the areas outlined above.

Collingwood conducted a thorough research approach and was also able to lean on the support of his extensive existing network. However, two weeks into the search, it was evident that the head office location was limiting the search.

Upon sharing key data with the client’s stakeholders, it was agreed to open the search up to the southern half of the UK. This opened the search up to 53 potential candidates.

Collingwood shared Collingwood’s online client portal throughout the process providing an overview of each stage, allowing both the search and expectations to stay on track.

The Result

In summary, the following process took place:

This was a fantastic example of Executive Search best practice; not only from the work done by Collingwood, but from how the HR Director brought into and communicated throughout the process.

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