Perfect delivery

It is rare to meet someone with less pretension than Steve Elliott, managing director of office fit-out and refurbishment specialist Overbury.

Although the head of a successful division within Morgan Sindall - the construction group that operates a national network of construction, fit-out, affordable housing and infrastructure businesses - Elliott is refreshingly down to earth, even when it comes to something as mundane as his choice of refreshments.

When he is questioned about preferring bottled water to tea or coffee, Elliott is quick to say: "But that doesn't make me a saint or anything."

When it comes to business, the lack of caffeine has not dampened his energy and enthusiasm.

With Elliott at the helm, office fit-out and refurbishment work carried out by Overbury has taken on a whole new meaning and put a lot of distance between the company and its rivals.

"In 1998, we were trying to come up with what would truly make us different," he recalls. "We wanted to be outstanding and put clear blue sky between us and our competitors."

By using a customer satisfaction measurement scheme that the company has been employing for 10 years as raw material, Overbury launched its Perfect Delivery (PD) initiative in 1999.

Essentially, this is when a fit-out project is handed over to the client to his complete satisfaction - no delays, no delayed O&M manuals and no snags.

"We commissioned independent market research where a compilation of client statistics were looked at and we came up with four client objectives," explains Elliott. "First, that we should finish a project on time. Second, that it should be snag-free; O&M manuals must be handed over to the client on completion, and lastly, that the client should be delighted."

While no one would argue that construction is capable of arousing strong emotions, 'delight' does not normally figure highly among them.

Even when this sceptical point of view is pointed out to him, Elliott treats it lightly.

"If you get the first three, the client will be delighted," he says.

Point taken, but if such a scheme is going to be sold convincingly to the clients, then the company has to make a start on its personnel. How did it go down with Overbury staff?

"There were a few old hands who were negative at first, but the ratio of staff was something like seven-to-one positive about the scheme. We are four years into training our staff and the reaction so far has been positive. It is all about achieving a change in attitude," he says.

Educating staff

Elliott is not one to instigate a new initiative and promptly delegate its administration to someone else. In his first year at Overbury, 50% of his time was spent on educating staff (who number approximately 200) and helping them to gain trust in the scheme. Added to which, he still takes part in training sessions on a regular basis.

"I want to hear people's feedback," he says simply.

As a result of 18 staff workshops, 605 suggestions have been made on how to achieve perfect delivery. One of these was to pay subcontractors within 30 days. While other companies might baulk at such action, the company decided to adopt the idea.

"It cost us a lot of interest at the bank and although there has been one or two payments that slipped through the net, on the whole we have a very good record," says Elliott. "Most initiatives lose impetus, but four years down the line we are still here and we believe in it as strongly as ever."

As well as getting clients to fill out a customer satisfaction questionnaire (over the course of the last decade the company has conducted nearly 2,000 CSQs), Overbury staff are told to follow 10 best practice steps (see box right).

How does Overbury get the staff to buy into the scheme? Do they get a big bonus?

Elliott seems to find the question distasteful. "There's a very small bonus for PD," he says cautiously. "It can be anywhere between £800 to £1,000 for project managers. But the aim is to keep it pure. People have been very good as it relies on honesty and a sense of pride. It is the first thing site managers talk about on site and there is a sense of friendly rivalry between contracts."

Staff efforts are recognised at the company's annual conference, scheduled to take place this year at the London Business School in Regent's Park.

"An important part of the conference is the annual staff awards," enthuses Elliott. "It is all about standing in front of your colleagues and being awarded trophies, photos and kudos. I would love to win an award myself!"

Overbury has improved its performance against its PD benchmark since its inception. From a 24% success rate in 1999, it saw an increase to 60% in 2000 before reaching 76% the following year and 70% in 2002.

"We have reached a plateau now because we are at the point where PD has become the norm and people are less forgiving. They mark us harder," says Elliott, relentlessly critical of the progress being made. Despite the drop, Elliott is aiming for 80% PD this year.

While on the subject of statistics, he points out that in 2001 88% of O&M manuals were handed over on time and out of 694 projects, 421 (60.7%) have been perfectly delivered.

Is there a danger that Overbury could become complacent about PD? "It scares me to death that we would ever become complacent," says Elliott looking suitably alarmed.

As proof that the company is its own sternest critic, Elliot adds: "In 2002, there were 13 projects where the clients were happy to sign PD forms, but we were not."

Expanding the business

Elliott has not wasted any time in streamlining Overbury's relationship with its supply chain.

Although Overbury and PD has taken up a lot of Elliott's time, they have not prevented him from looking to expand the company's fit-out business.

"Overbury has an annual turnover of £200m; I intend to see that increase to £400m in four-to-five years' time," he says.

"One of the ways we have been looking at achieving this is by organic growth and we spent some time looking at companies in the market, whether they were in the South West, Manchester or in Scotland," says Elliott.

"However, we did not find quite the right fit so we took a fresh look at the situation and we launched Vivid Interiors in March 2002, a fit-out division for the leisure, retail and entertainment industry. It has worked out better than buying another company as we had no baggage when we started off. Also, we did not want to confuse our existing clients. Vivid supplies a different set of skills to a different set of clients."

Since Vivid achieved an annual turnover of of approximately £3m in 2002, Elliott has high hopes that the new division will reach £10m this year.

Varied contracts

Contracts are varied. Among the jobs undertaken by Vivid was a £1.5m Chelsea hotel refurbishment along with the contract to fit-out a clothes outlet in Regent Street where Elton John carries out the bi-annual sale of his own clothes.

"It is only open for two weeks and all the money goes to an Aids charity," explains Elliott. "The project manager's dream was to get Elton John to sign the PD form, but in the end he wasn't able to do it."

Along with Vivid, Overbury has also launched a furniture outlet entitled Backbone - a natural extension to the work the company already carries out and although Elliott says it is "very early days" the division has got off to a good start.

"They cross-sell across the existing three brands and have established new markets - it is a joined-up solution," says Elliott making a rare lapse into 'management speak'.

Like everything else undertaken by Elliott and his team, nobody takes the easy route and Backbone has made the conscious decision not to align itself with any furniture manufacturer in particular.

"We could get into a dealership, but we prefer to consider that our approach is the best value for the customer."

Nonetheless, it is Vivid where Elliott expects to see the most growth - even when it comes to work outside the UK. "Both Overbury and Vivid could travel to Europe and I genuinely see us as a European fit-out specialist, but bizarrely Vivid will probably get there first," he says.

"A lot of US companies come here, but we don't go overseas. Vivid will take that plunge and test things on one or two jobs, although Overbury has carried out its first international job - in Cardiff," adds Elliott mischievously.

So what is next on the cards? "There is the pharmaceutical and laboratories sector next," says Elliot. "But we have enough to be getting on with for the time being."

Elliot must be getting it right because rivals are starting to copy the company's tactics.

"We recently received a CSQ from a client who told us that one of our competitors was using the term 'Perfect Delivery'," concludes Elliott. "The client said it would change nothing as he told us: 'The great thing about your PD is that I know you guys mean it'." n