McGoff Construction has made a remarkable transition from a regional general Building Contractor to a one of a kind vertically integrated constructor, shaking up the industry choosing to in-source rather than outsource its activities.
At a time when conventional construction businesses appear hell bent on offloading risk into an unsuspecting and often ill equipped supply chain, McGoff Construction has decided to take control of its own destiny by self-delivering specialist trade packages including civils, off-site lightweight steel superstructures, mechanical, electrical, passive fire protection and internal finishes via its related subcontract entities Panacea and MGFS. Effectively clawing back specialisms that have conventionally slipped into the supply chain over recent years.
Such skills seepage often leaves Principal Contractors nothing more than brokers of subcontract packages, assuming all the responsibility but devoid of the skills necessary to deliver with confidence.
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McGoff Construction decided to exit the lottery of tendering third party onerous contracts peddled by unimaginative consultants on behalf of disenfranchised Clients, who appear habitually underwhelmed by a disconnected race to the bottom procurement process.
The strategy has been to focus on being a build partner for the roll out programmes generated by related operational businesses, JV partnerships & turnkey clients; Newcare, Back to the Garden Childcare, Villafont and Barchester Healthcare within the Care and Residential sectors. This build partner approach encourages early collaboration on commercial and technical support from design inception to facilities management of the completed buildings. A holistic approach drives alignment at every phase of the process, ensuring each scheme is wholly fit for purpose whilst expediting delivery programmes in record time.
A major benefit of any partnering arrangement is the unparalleled pipeline visibility created, if you can see it you can plan it!
Drawing inspiration from successful vertically integrated businesses such as Ikea who've developed an intimate understanding of consumer demand at the counter of every store. This intelligence breeds confidence to make strategic decisions such as assuming control of its own supply chain from source to the ultimate sales experience. Interactions at the tills located within their own showrooms, that double up as logistic hubs, receiving furniture from Ikea owned manufacturing facilities, who rely on timber from their own lumber yards, yielded from their own forests. Control enhanced and economies driven at every stage of the process. This philosophy ultimately improves the quality of the end product whilst allowing an organisation to access profit centres at every level of the process.
We've emulated such vertically integrated strategies. The success of our related operational businesses within the care and residential environments sets the expectation and pace of the respective roll out programmes. Early engagement with a raft of tangible projects drove our strategic decision to embrace offsite manufacture, invest in new technologies and build our own expertly trained labour force. We are now a Principal Contractor that manufactures our own buildings offsite, founded on land acquired by our own land teams, cut by its own operatives, serviced by its related specialist electrical and mechanical business, finished and protected by plasterers and passive fire operatives sourced from within the Group.
We've focused on commoditising what we produce, buying power is improved as we leverage off the volume we purchase. We forge excellent relationships directly with product manufacturers, undiluted by industry intermediaries that often blight and distort trading relationships for conventional contractors. Embracing offsite encourages a disciplined approach to decoupling the design and construction phases of a project. Such overlapping is rife within our industry as traditional construction methods can inadvertently encourage flexibility to vary design during the construction phase. This exposes stakeholders to huge risk from an ever more stringent statutory compliance environment in the advent of Grenfell.
A wholly collaborative and holistic approach is driving the sustainable growth of the Group, evidenced by the recent success of Newcare being rated one of the Top 20 care home Groups in the UK; operating out of 11 settings, with a further 4 under construction, a similar trajectory expected with Back to the Garden Childcare as we open further settings in Lymm and Bowdon in the coming years.
We’ve a number of exciting mixed use & high rise residential schemes for our JV partners breaking ground this year including The Downs, Altair, Rochdale Road, Market 41 and a multi-generational scheme in the heart of Bowdon.
Our strength is in the collective!
Blog written by Dave McGoff
Joint Managing Director
