TALKING BUSINESS
SUCCESS IS ON THE CARDS FOR FAMILY BUSINESS
A family-run firm of access control and membership card experts has taken the business community by storm – winning award after award. ID Card Centre Ltd managing director NICOLA O’BRIEN reveals how they have grown their business and put together an award-winning team.
ID Card Centre Ltd is not your typical family-run company. It does not have generations to look back on – in fact it only became a family-run business four years ago. Ben O’Brien started working for the Northampton-based firm
in 2003, when it was a subsidiary of a larger company, and was so impressed by its potential that he carried out a management buyout in 2011. Four years ago he was joined in the business by his wife Nicola. “To be honest I fell into the business,” explained Nicola. “After
years of working in event management I’d started my own café. I ran it for about three years but having children made it difficult for Ben and I to run two separate businesses. “I started helping Ben with ID Card Centre’s website and
I was blown away by his customer service. He does everything he can to help customers find the solutions they need, even if it doesn’t result in an order. As soon as I saw that I thought ‘Wow! We’ve really got something here’.” Nicola came on board to grow the business
and one of the first things the company did was launch an apprenticeship programme to develop new employees across a range of disciplines, including business administration, digital marketing and IT. “Four employees have completed
Northamptonshire Business Awards, Nicola won Business Woman of the Year, the company was runner-up for High Growth Business of the Year and employee Andrew Glenn was runner-up in the Apprentice of the Year category. Fast forward to this September and the firm was successful
‘WE HAVE
LOTS OF PLANS FOR THE FUTURE AND WE’RE
LAYING SOLID FOUNDATIONS’
apprenticeships and a fifth is doing theirs in the knowledge that there is a job available at the end,” said Nicola. “Our apprenticeship scheme really helped us, especially in the early days, to develop a workforce equipped to work in this specialist industry. We offer exceptional customer service so we need exceptional employees. We’ve worked hard to piece together the right team and we’ve got the cream of the crop.” A year ago, the business moved from smaller premises to its
current home at Moulton Park so it could accommodate more people as part of its growth plans. Investment in the right people combined with investment in the latest technology has reaped dividends. Moving its communications to a cloud-based platform was transformational because it helped the firm to reduce its administration overhead. Investment in technology also resulted in ID Card Centre picking up two of the many awards it received last year – the Best Use of Technology Award at both the 2018 Northamptonshire Business Awards and the regional Chamber Business Awards. In 2018, the company also won High Growth Business of the
Year and Small Business of the Year at the Northamptonshire Business Awards and High Growth Business of the Year at the regional Chamber Business Awards. At last year’s SME
again at the regional Chamber Business Awards, this time winning Family Business of the Year. Days later there were more accolades at the SME Northamptonshire Business Awards where they were named the Overall Winner, won Business of the Year under 50 Employees and Ben was runner-up for Business Person of the Year. They are also in the running for several other local and national awards before the end of 2019 and are one of a few in their industry to have gained the prestigious ISO9001 accreditation. Nicola said: “It’s an exciting time as we have lots of plans for the future and we’re laying solid foundations; we don’t want to grow quickly and then have to cut back our workforce at a later date.” The firm has led the way in its industry by becoming one of the first firms to look at recycling and now recycles card holders, printers, printer ribbons, lanyards and name badge holders.
It has also done a lot of work around goal setting and has moved away from six monthly appraisals towards
daily, weekly and monthly catch-ups so staff receive regular feedback and recognition. With their own young son and daughter in mind, Ben and
Nicola have created an environment that offers staff the flexibility to be there for their own families. Nicola said: “While we’re not a traditional family business in
terms of history we’ve started a new family business in a new way. We’re a family business for families. We’ve created flexible positions with parents in mind. If our staff have a school assembly we want them to go because we know it’s the small things that matter. We have a son and a daughter and we know if you miss those things it’s heart wrenching.” So, is ID Card Centre going to be a family business that is
passed down the generations? Definitely, if the couple’s six- year-old daughter has anything to do with it. “Our daughter was thrilled when we won the Family Business
of the Year award because she felt like it was hers too. She’s already desperate to work here and the other day was trying to work out whether to go to university when she gets bigger or join ID Card Centre straight away.”
DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020 inbusiness 31
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