Profile
Cheshire fi rm de Poel has thrived during the economic downturn. With eyes fi xed on international expantion, Chief Executive Matthew Sanders discussed the future of the business with Waterfront
labour brokers to achieve a turnover of £500m and embark on an ambitious programme of international expansion. Now the leading UK company in its fi eld, Matthew sees no reason why de Poel won’t continue to grow exponentially over the next few years. Knutsford-based de Poel is the leading
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procurer of temporary agency labour outside of the Government and, as the company is keen to point out, not a recruitment agency. “We don’t actually supply any labour ourselves,” Matthew explains. “We buy it on a fi rm’s behalf, making sure they get the right staff .” At the heart of the fi rm’s success is its ability to cut costs and simplify the recruitment process for temporary labour. Matthew cites the example of TNT Logistics (now CEVA Logistics) as a case study: “T ey had over 200 suppliers of agency labour and 60,000 invoices to deal with as a result. Working with us they had one contract in place. We saved them eight per cent off the margins, which amounted to millions of pounds, and there was just one weekly invoice to deal with.”
“We saved them eight per cent off the margins, which amounted to millions”
Today the company supplies more than 60 predominantly blue chip fi rms such as Bupa, British Gas and Sainsbury’s. Matthew said: “In any one week there will be 800 recruitment agencies supplying our client base through us, with anywhere between 30,000 to 40,000 staff going through the system. We’re working across all sectors so you’ll fi nd us dealing with anyone from refuse collectors to surgeons. In fact we’re the largest supplier to private health care in the UK now.” As many businesses come to terms with the global economic downturn they have looked to temporary staffi ng solutions to alleviate an element of risk. As a result the economic climate has been no small factor
ince he established de Poel with business partner Mike Campbell in 2001, Chief Executive Matthew Sanders has driven the temporary
in de Poel’s growth. Matthew said: “I’ve been through a few recessions now. When we went into recession in 2008 our numbers dropped because the fi rst people laid off are the temps. But as the economy started to build up again over the last couple of years the number of clients has defi nitely increased. People have hesitancy about taking on permanent staff . T ey think ‘do I want to take on 100 people permanently? Because this order might drop off or might not be long term,’ so they’ll take on 100 temps instead.” Now in rude fi nancial health, the company employs more than 100 people and is listed among T e Sunday Times 100 Best Small Companies to Work For. “Everyone here works hard. It’s a great place to work,” Matthew said. “People stay because it’s a fun place to work and I think that’s really
important.” Confi dent in de Poel’s future growth, Matthew now has his sights fi rmly set on global expansion. T e company recently opened a new offi ce in the Netherlands and will follow that up by establishing a base in Arizona within the coming months. “T e US market is very similar to here,” said Matthew. “T e only diff erence is whereas we’re quite unique in the UK, there are other companies who do similar, if not the
“We’ve gone from nothing to £500m in the last 10 years”
same things as us in the States. We’ll have competition but the market is absolutely vast. We don’t mind competition; in fact hopefully it will help us develop. We’ve got the systems, so what we need is people and offi ce costs. T ere’s not a huge amount of costs to set up. It’s not like building a factory where you’ve got to go and spend millions of pounds on capital expenditure. Systems need some tweaking to suit diff erent tax laws but really it is tweaking rather than reinventing. So it’s fairly low risk in terms of cost.” Now the company has found a fi rm footing Matthew says he is less hands on day to day and more of a strategic long-term thinker. In contrast to the long offi ce-bound days of getting the company off the ground he has been able to indulge his hobby for racing in a classic race car series and even owns a couple of racehorses. At the time of interview he had recently returned from a 220 mile Calais to Amsterdam charity cycle ride. Despite a rich social calendar he is still ruthlessly ambitious when it comes to the future of the business. He said: “We’ve got some ambitious plans. Holland’s open, USA will be later this year, and then next year we’ll start looking at the Far East, potentially Japan. I like to think our product off ering is almost a no-brainer. We save people money, we only charge if we do save people money and all the systems are in place. So although we’ve got some ambitious sales targets we’ve shown we can deliver in the past. We’ve gone from nothing to £500m in the last 10 years turnover and we’d like to go up to £1bn in the next few years.”
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