With the start of the near year and Cotterill Civils into its 26th year. We thought now was a good time to reflect on the success of Cotterill Civils to date – here’s some questions we asked our MD, Andy Cotterill.
What’s your new year’s resolution?
To be more disciplined around my health and fitness regime. More running, more cycling, better eating.
What are your hobbies?
My main hobby in life is my biking. That being the motorised type as opposed to the pedal type. I have a large adventure bike that I like to take on big trips. Recent trips the North Coast 500 route around Scotland and back down again through the Kielder Forest and home. A trip down through Europe this summer, over the Swiss Alps, through the Italian Lakes and round the south coast of France to Cannes. I also love extreme walking and hiking trips, this year my wife and I have done Snowdon, Cadair Idris and Scafell Pike.
What makes your business any different to other drainage companies?
I truly believe it has to be the great and friendly service we give. I feel most drainage companies are just selling commodities whereas we like to look in depth at your pain point and offerup the best solution we know how. Because we are Installers as well as merchants we are in an advantageous position to give this expert advice.
Why did you start Cotterill Drainage?
The original business was purely a contracting business. We always struggled to find a good local source of specialised drainage product for our own work so saw this as an opportunity to start our own merchant business.
What are your plans for Cotterill Civils in the coming year?
Raising the bar again on the customer experience. We are good but not perfect and perfection is something we strive for. We now have triple ISO accreditation which drives our continuous improvement process.
What’s your managerial style and how effective do you think it is?
Interesting question, I am not sure I have a style as such, I work hard and am very much part of the day-to-day team effort. I think to be in amongst this has a great effect on everyone doing what they do best.
I believe in empowering people to make their own decisions and do what they do best. I see many bosses that think every decision has to go through them and they them become their own bottleneck to growth. I believe that allowing my team members to make their own decisions stimulates growth.
What’s your ultimate business goal for Cotterill Civils and beyond?
It sounds a little bit sugary sweet but our ultimate mission statement is; “Through the life of our business we want to make the world a cleaner, greener, more fertile, less polluted and safer place to live, work and play. In so doing, we will be spoken about and praised which is the biggest reward life can bring”.
What’s the secret to Cotterill Civils’ rapid growth?
I have to put this down to having a great team of talented people, written sales processes and systems that all help maintain the highest level of customer experience. Our rapid growth has come from repeat orders and referrals.
What do you think are the most pressing environmental issues today?
Global warming certainly seems to be the headline topic at the big G20 summits. Air and water pollution that have come about from urban sprawl, in my opinion, are our biggest concerns. Our product offerings address a lot of the major environmental issues, products such as attenuation systems, sewage treatment plants, hydrocarbon separators, gas membranes and land drainage systems.
What’s the future of the drainage sector?
If we knew the answer to this we would be keeping it very close to our chests, I think certainly that SUDS is only to going to increase the demand for attenuation over the next 20 years, products made from recycled plastic material will play an even bigger part in new innovative offerings as we move into the next millennium.
These answers from Andy give a great insight into how our business strategy is devised and our plans for the year ahead and beyond. If you’d like to know more about us and how we can help your business, give us a call on 0121 351 3230!