Understanding Polypipe to deliver the Genuit Group
Making a difference for our clients and their businesses is how we measure our success. And to make that difference, we don’t simply take a brief and execute it, we work with our clients to ensure it’s the right thing to do.
We have history with Polypipe – a relationship spanning 16 years. So, we’ve seen the business grow, change and develop. We’ve lived and breathed the markets in which it operates, understood how to engage and work with those markets too – building relationships with them along the way. We’ve witnessed and supported Polypipe’s ingenuity and tenacity to innovate, to help the construction industry and to provide end users with a better quality of life.
The world of construction has moved forward at an enormous pace over the last decade, and Polypipe has developed and adapted to continue its support, acquiring businesses to facilitate the needs of the ever-changing construction industry landscape, and to support the important subject of sustainability.
Given that the acquisition of more businesses was outside of the Group’s mainstream plastic pipe and drainage offering, it was at this point we were tasked to undertake an in-depth review of the business at large; to discover the real objective of the Group, given its current activity, and whether the brand ‘Polypipe’ accurately represented the Group’s business.
This project was a little different, then. A project instigated by our knowledge of Polypipe, its current markets – and its potential future markets.
To change the name that’s been synonymous with plastic pipes and drainage for more than 40 years.
We developed a strategy which included in-depth internal research of the Group and all its businesses. Interviews were set up to collate information regarding the name Polypipe and what it meant to external stakeholders, too. The process made for interesting reading and with the wealth of information received, enabled us to evaluate the results and produce a report that highlighted the obvious next steps.
The process lasted over six months, resulting in a strategy that identified why the business needed to adapt and the drivers behind the Group’s future success. The business was moving ahead as fast as the construction industry. It had businesses engineering efficient new heating systems and developing innovative ventilation solutions to support sustainability within the built environment.
These systems weren’t plastic pipes or drainage, they were much more – with the Polypipe Group now involved in new innovations in lower-carbon technologies, heating, ventilation, green space facilitation as well as drainage and water management.
This meant, as a Group, the Polypipe name was now potentially confusing and could stand in the way of the business moving further forward into new markets, particularly as the name would suggest plastic pipe manufacturer and little else.
The key drivers led to a new Group name which, instead of highlighting the product offering, delivered the essence of the Group. Genuit provides a hint of the word ‘ingenuity’ whilst also suggesting a business that’s genuine, in personality, in trust, in product quality, in support, in delivering something greater than the sum of its parts…in working together and calling upon ingenuity to make things better. It all comes together to facilitate the Group’s new purpose statement; ‘We’re helping construction build better.’
As part of the new brand development, we utilised the strategy developed in the research stage to identify why the new brand exists, leaving no doubt for stakeholders, personnel and the wider market that this is a global business that can help the industry move forward with an arsenal of solutions to build a resilient built environment for the future. ‘Helping construction build better’ has probably always been the Group’s purpose, but it’s only through the research that it’s really come to light.
Genuit. Taking the Group forward
Since the Group changed to Genuit in the spring of 2021, in the hope that existing and potential new stakeholders would recognise it as a business branching out into new low-carbon technologies and high-efficiency ventilation and heating, the figures published in The Times newspaper four months later revealed that the decision was justified.
Genuit reported pre-tax profits of £33.8 million in the first half of the year,* up 7.6% from the corresponding period, whilst revenues leapt to £295.6 million, up 70% year-on-year.
If you would like us to make a difference for your business, contact ryan.jones@slg.agency
*The Times, August 18th 2021
