Bell’s Blueprint for Success: A Legacy of Growth, Innovation, and Community Commitment:
Established in 1988, Bell is a Property Services contractor with a directly employed team that delivers Planned and Project works in various domains: Painting, Roofing, Flooring, Passive and Active Fire Protection, Kitchen and Bathroom Upgrades, Multi-Disciplinary Exterior Fabric Upgrades, Retrofit and Energy Services, and Response Maintenance contracts across all sectors in the UK and North America. With almost 40 years of uninterrupted growth averaging 12% per annum, Bell provides services to over 500,000 properties each year across the UK, Ireland, and the US.
Commitment to Ethics and Community:
Describing itself as “an ethical business with a social conscience,” the company takes pride in its business process. Employing over 3000 tradesmen in a direct delivery model via 48 branches internationally, their teams and supply chain are from the communities in which they work. As a business, and with Craig Bell as CEO, they are passionate that every project leaves a positive impact and helps develop the local communities they are so proud to serve.
Local Delivery with Corporate Support:
“We are the local delivery Property Services Contractor, with back-office support and processes you would expect from a corporate. In effect, the industry has moved towards businesses like ours.”
Craig’s entrepreneurial spirit is strong and at the core of Bell’s business strategy. He identifies opportunities to innovate and create a better world, taking calculated risks to realize his vision. He continues to demonstrate courage, perseverance, and resilience to overcome significant obstacles, none more so than over the last few years when the COVID-19 pandemic and Brexit hit the British economy and the construction industry hard.
Growth and Innovation:
Craig has championed a growth mindset within the business by establishing a culture that wants to grow, wants to innovate, and wants to make a difference. Since 2016, he has driven the business through various growth strategies, including diversification of services and more recently the internationalization of the business into North America. Remaining a digital-first and data-driven business: In an industry starved of innovation and technological advancement, Craig and Bell have established how to unlock revenue streams, improve customer service, and control costs and productivity by combining traditional people-led values with shrewd collection and management of data. The digitalization of Bell, which started back in 2019, will be an ongoing project, but the short-term benefits can already be seen for both the company and its clients.
Digital Strategy and Customer Experience:
Expanding Bell’s Reactive Maintenance & Asset Management offering: incorporating the use of technology to uplift contract efficiencies, enhance overall service, and improve the customer experience is at the forefront of our digital strategy. This not only enhances the quality of data across the project but ensures the consistency of service for the client and residents.
Sustainability and Social Responsibility:
Craig fuses the concepts of running and growing a commercially strong business with strong social values. His drive is strengthened by the desire for Bell to make a difference in people’s lives and become fundamental in the world meeting its climate change targets and agenda. Craig continues to commit himself and his work within Bell to inspiring purpose and vision in those around him by driving strategies for a sustainable future business, creating and protecting value in the long term across a broad group of stakeholders, including consumers, employees, suppliers, government, communities, investors, and shareholders.
Core Beliefs and Cultural Impact:
As CEO, Craig has implemented Key Beliefs such as “Driven to Improve and Driven to Succeed” and “Proud of you, Proud of Us” which have cemented the cultural expectations around this growth mindset. Phrases used by Craig such as “Unapologetically ambitious” and “let’s do things in the right way” have bred confidence across the business, promoting togetherness, belief, and linking back to these key beliefs. This culture has allowed Bell to innovate in areas key to the sustainability of the UK construction industry.
Core Beliefs and Cultural Impact:
Craig noted at the 2023 Bell conference, “People are at the heart of the business” and the focus on attracting diverse talent and providing opportunities is key to the ongoing success of the business. In 2023, 20% of the Bell apprentice intake were female and 9% were from a BAME background. This has all contributed to Bell doubling in size since 2020. In the same time period, the business has created one thousand new job opportunities, set up its own Charity Foundation, taken considerable market share in the UK and Ireland, and set up operations in the US.
Dedication to Doing What is Right:
Craig and Bell’s dedication to always doing what is right and not what is easy or looks good is something Bell is proud of and something Craig sees as setting the company apart from others. As a family-owned business, Craig believes the success of their contracts is driven by community investment and the involvement of local people. The Bell way is not only about the end result but about the journey you take to get there.
