Product category:
Construction companies
News Release from: Beard
Edited by the Buildingtalk Editorial
Team on 04 October 2005
E W Beard re-brands and changes its name
to Beard
Award-winning Swindon and Oxford-based construction company E W Beard has changed its name to Beard as part of its switch to a modern corporate brand image.
The award-winning Swindon and Oxford-based construction company E W Beard has changed its name to Beard as part of its switch to a modern corporate brand image Beard unveiled its new corporate brand on 28 September at The Corinium Museum, Cirencester, where Beard completed a complex GBP3.5m refurbishment project a year ago
This article was originally published on Buildingtalk on 27 Jun 2005 at 8.00am (UK)
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The re-branding changes the way Beard markets its services and is the latest phase in the modernisation of the company that began when Mark Beard became managing director in 1999.
The new Beard brochures and website reflect the company's achievements in recent years - from implementing best practice throughout the Beard organisation and its construction activities, to completing award-winning projects.
Beard's new marketing materials, which carry the slogan 'Partners in Construction', describe how the company works closely with its own network of trusted consultants and fosters teamwork up and down the supply chain.
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They also demonstrate the company's success in its five main target market sectors: arts and culture, commerce and industry, education, healthcare and sports and leisure.
The new Beard communications materials also convey the 'core values' that have always been at the heart of the service Beard provides.
These 'friendly, efficient and committed' values were identified during the survey Beard commissioned to find out how customers viewed the company.
However, this 'perception' survey, carried out by Camargue in 2002, revealed that most customers thought E W Beard was smaller than it actually was and could undertake projects worth only up to GBP500,000.
In fact, Beard operates throughout central southern England and undertakes new build, design and build, restoration and refurbishment projects worth from GBP200,000 up to GBP6m.
Some 85 per cent of the company's business comes from repeat business, partnership agreements and recommendation.
Beard also provides a responsive repair and maintenance service.
It was this difference between Beard's actual success and its perceived success that led to the company's decision, in October 2004, to re-brand and market its services differently.
The new corporate brand emphasises the way Beard works, the market sectors it serves and the 'friendly, efficient and committed' characteristics that distinguish the service it provides.
Beard has recently embarked on two major formal partnering framework agreements: one, worth GBP8.5m over four years, is to refurbish and extend 14 custody suites across the Thames Valley Police region; the other, worth GBP12m over four years, is to refurbish and build schools for Oxfordshire County Council.
Beard, an accredited Investor in People since 2003, is currently recruiting high calibre construction professionals to meet its ambitious plans for growth.
This year Beard is on target to achieve a turnover of GBP31m, which will be a 33 per cent increase on the turnover in 2004, and a 50 per cent increase on the turnover in 2001.
The company's achievements in the last five years have been recognised by numerous awards.
For example, Mark Beard won the Oxfordshire Businessman of Year Award in June 2004, and in August 2005 Beacon South West, a network supported by the South West Regional Development Agency, awarded Beard Beacon Company status in acknowledgment of its commitment to implementing solid business practices to improve staff performance and customer relations.
Beard has been a Construction Best Practice Engagement Company since August 2000.
In November 2003 Beard won a Constructing Excellence Award for implementing best practice across every aspect of the business, including personnel, risk management, safety and supply chain management.
Two Beard projects have won major awards this year: The Kindersley Centre, a GBP3m eco-friendly conference centre at Sheepdrove Organic Farm, Berkshire, won the Sustainability Award in the 2005 Civic Trust Awards.
The Granary, a 200 year-old timber frame barn, which Beard restored and converted into a farm office and private study, won a RIBA Award and a RIBA Conservation Award for the architects, Spratley and Woodfield.
Other recent Beard projects include a GBP2.35m sports complex for Wycliffe College in Gloucestershire, a new GBP800,000 doctors' surgery at Penn in Buckinghamshire, a new GBP2.25m warehouse with offices for Kennet District Council in Wiltshire, and a GBP1m new corporate entertainment stand at Salisbury Racecourse.
Current Beard projects include a new GBP2.85m performing arts centre for the profoundly deaf pupils of Mary Hare Grammar School at Newbury, the Cobalt Appeal Fund's new GBP2.3m diagnostic imaging centre at Cheltenham, and a new GBP1.8m village primary school at Nettlebed in Oxfordshire.
"The research we undertook as part of our re-branding project confirmed that Beard is already a successful and well-regarded company," said Mark Beard.
"Our new corporate brand builds on the achievements of our staff and their commitment to our customers.
We are delighted with our new brand image.
It is up-to-date and welcoming, and conveys the efficient and friendly way we approach every construction project.
I have no doubt that it will support our development as we seek to continue the high rate of growth we have achieved this year".
Beard's new brand image was designed by Reading-based Lillington Green, who also designed the brand image for Constructing Excellence when it was formed from the merger of the Construction Best Practice and Rethinking Construction initiatives.
Stephen Green of Lillington Green said: "The challenge for us as designers was to create an up-to-date image for Beard that acknowledged the company's successful heritage while conveying its transformation over the years into a modern, forward-looking company that is growing and taking on increasingly complex construction projects.
We believe Beard's new brand image conveys where the company is now and its ambitions for the future.
"The design of the new Beard corporate brand image is also informed by the culture that was already embedded in the company.
When we met the staff and operatives, either in one-to-one interviews or focus groups, the words friendly, efficient and committed were used over and over again to describe the service Beard provides".
Key Beard facts and figures.
* Established 1892.
* Turnover expected to be GBP31m in 2005 (up from GBP22m in 2004 and GBP26m in 2003).
* Over 150 employees.
* Engaged in the Construction Best Practice Programme.
* Quality assured to BS EN ISO 9001:2000.
* SAFE Contractor.
* Member of the Considerate Contractor Scheme.
* Investor in People.
* Chartered Institute of Building training partner.
* Mark Beard awarded Oxfordshire Businessman of the Year 2004.
* Beacon Company.
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