15 World-class companies from across the region


CliniMed: Providing specialist healthcare and healthy results


This article is the latest in a series looking at leading-edge companies identified by BDO


The Wycombe-based CliniMed Group was established in 1982, but arguably 1997 was when its successful foundations were formed. This year those foundations are set to support global annual sales topping £71million.


When the father of current group chairman Nigel Piercey formed CliniMed with two colleagues, it was solely a distributor of healthcare products. In1997 it lost the distribution rights to the products of two major clients and faced a doubtful future.


The three directors decided to control their own destiny and soon acquired a manufacturing company in the same sector – Welland Medical. “We developed a very strong bias towards the manufacturing and design of our own products, while maintaining our own distribution,” says Piercey. Today 78% of the products CliniMed distributes are manufactured by themselves.


Through the astute acquisition of Welland Medical, CliniMed became a world-beating manufacturer and distributor of specialist care products such as colostomy, ileostomy and urology pouches and ancillary products for the care of stomas (surgical openings on the abdomen). CliniMed’s Crawley manufacturing site alone produces 10 million pouches per year and group manufactured stomacare products represent more than 50% of total turnover.


While CliniMed remains a leading edge stomacare supplier, today it operates on various healthcare fronts and in over 25 countries, providing essential products and services that go largely unnoticed by most people. But not all – CliniMed’s Laminar Medica subsidiary has won two Queen’s Awards for Enterprise.


Privately owned by a Piercey family trust, the CliniMed Group* consists of seven companies: CliniMed (the founding stomacare company), SecuriCare (a free home delivery service for medical products), Flexible Medical Packaging (concept-to-market formulation and packaging services), Welland Medical (stoma product design and manufacture), Laminar Medica (insulated medical packaging), Helapet (medical and laboratory disposables), and CareFlex (pressure management seating).


Nigel Piercey controls the companies jointly with his brothers Julian and Daniel. Interestingly, the Piercey family plans to devolve more operational authority to non-family members in 2012, and improve its locations at Crawley and High Wycombe.


With medical advances and longer-living populations, the healthcare sector has provided


THE BUSINESS MAGAZINE – THAMES VALLEY – DECEMBER 11/JANUARY 12


a rich vein of business for CliniMed, which has recorded profit and growth every year bar 1998.


“In the last 10 years we have achieved steady organic growth, adding in £50m of our £70m turnover. We believe that this growth will continue for the foreseeable future,” said Nigel Piercey.


That’s a confident claim in a sector that has competitive global markets, and one that relies almost entirely on governmental public funding or insurance-linked paymasters – both struggling with finances beset by recessionary debt and claim culture.


“Actually, it is politically and ethically very difficult to remove funding from the sector, so you don’t see great spikes, and you tend to get linear growth over the long-term,” says Piercey.


Not that CliniMed is complacent. Funding ‘ceilings’ and reliance on oil-based products remain CliniMed concerns. Having spread its product base (and its business risks) soon after 1997, today the company is constantly trying to improve the suitability of its products through R&D and innovation.


“We certainly have some very good intellectual property. There’s no doubt that our Flair Active Extra flushable pouch is the world’s most sophisticated device in its field. And across the group we have several other leading edge products.” (One of them is Appeel, the brand leader among ‘no-sting’ adhesive removers.)


“It’s just that we only shout about these products to the people that need them.” Currently CliniMed is shouting towards emerging BRIC countries.


Investment in high standard equipment is another CliniMed focus. A new bespoke £2m machine will soon boost pouch production at Crawley by 80%, without harming CliniMed’s ‘lean and green’ credentials.


Annual stomacare costs are often in excess of £2,500 per patient; the highly competitive UK market alone is worth £200m, and CliniMed is


Nigel Piercey


steadily increasing its 12% share. “People with a stoma are incredibly well-served by the range of products, advice and support. But, by nature, it usually comes down to the personal choice of the user and so we think of every customer as a cherished person. Discretion, courtesy and understanding are indispensable to the way we do our business.”


People matter to CliniMed – both customers and their staff.


“I think we have done a particularly good job of recruiting the right people into our various businesses. Many have now been with us for a long time and have proven their ability and our selection.” CliniMed has a very low staff turnover.


CliniMed hones its ‘leading edge’ through the personal development of its 570 staff, with qualifications ranging from NVQs to degree-levels. “It is no coincidence that we have chartered directors within our largest businesses. And we always look at our own people first when it comes to new appointments.” CliniMed, SecuriCare and Welland all have Investors in People (IIP) Silver status.


“If you have the right people, right products, right systems in the right market then you will do OK. You may not be the jet fighter pilots of industry but you will be commercial pilots and your ascent will be steady,” says Piercey. In CliniMed’s case, make that ‘fast-flying commercial pilots’.


*CliniMed is No 53 in our Thames Valley 250 listing of top private companies


The BDO business view by partner John Parkinson There are very few world-class companies that are relatively unknown to all save those who actually


use that company’s products and services. However, Clinimed is one such business.


For me, Clinimed is a leading edge company both in terms of its strategy and focus. It has focused on the manufacture and provision of specific healthcare-related products, notably in the stoma and specialist packaging sectors. Its strategic aim has been to have happy customers that use the group’s products and services for life. It has achieved both, while producing impressive commercial results.


Winners make bold, often brave, decisions and follow them through with confidence, skill and stamina. CliniMed made key decisions in 1997 and have been successful in the strategy they then adopted.


Next August, CliniMed will celebrate its 30th year – dare I say, fittingly rounding off an Olympic summer of well-deserved winning performances?


’’ www.businessmag.co.uk Leading Edge


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