Taking a chance to go the extra mile (Sponsored)

Mount Charles is an innovator developing new products, services and brands that support some of the biggest and best-known businesses, sporting venues, educational facilities, and healthcare organisations across the island of Ireland.

Mount Charles Group, Ireland’s largest independently owned catering and support services provider, was founded by Trevor Annon in 1988, and has since established itself as the leader in contract and retail catering, cleaning, vending, security services and events.

The company currently employs 2,500 team members, services over 400 clients across the UK and Ireland, and works with companies as diverse as Tesco Ireland, Down Royal Racecourse, Belfast International Airport, Ulster Rugby, ICC Belfast, RTÉ, Griffith College, Maynooth University, Ordinance Survey Ireland, and The Abbey Theatre.

“The one big advantage we have is that the company is family-owned,” says Gavin Annon, Sales and Marketing Director at Mount Charles. “We can make decisions quickly; we are adaptable and flexible and we can take risks. We are big enough to cope and small enough to care, so we can compete against the big multinationals. Time and time again, we are seeing new clients come to us because we have that ability to think outside the box and do things more creatively. We can take a chance and go the extra mile.”

One of the key offerings Mount Charles can offer to Irish CFOs, says Annon, is the ability to offer bespoke bundled services.

“The Mount Charles motto is to work with clients to deliver sustainable long-term success together. This goes beyond the traditional partnership approach and the aim is to create opportunities and benefits for both parties by sharing risk and reward. We recognise the benefits of bundled services for organisations in terms of reduced management, labour and administration time,” he says.

“The bundled service approach has to make sense for everybody,” says Annon. “We have to have sustainable long-term success together with our clients. From a CFO perspective, the benefit of having one provider is that we can offer economies of scale and we can reduce the moving parts of a business.”

Mount Charles also understands the principle that one size does not fit all, says Annon.
“We are very focused on our clients’ core service lines, and we work with them to design service solutions that provide flexibility to a changing landscape and best value for money, while not compromising on quality. We have both service- and sector-specific expertise within the company, which enables us to build bespoke bundled services around the needs of each client. Our internal processes are lean and efficient, so we avoid the administration and overhead costs some bigger companies have in their operating models.”

Annon says there are two models of tailored packages in the marketplace. “A tailored package from a multinational will tell you what you are getting. A tailored package from Mount Charles will give you what you want. We learn as much as we can about our clients, their cultures, their values, what makes them tick as a business, and what their expectations are from Mount Charles. We are a problem-solving company.”

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed some of the ways Mount Charles operates, says Annon, particularly in terms of communications with team members and clients working
from home.

“During the pandemic, we adapted our commercial models with clients to protect our financial position and we worked with them to adapt service delivery on a site-by-site basis. In some cases, this meant closing units entirely, operating at a reduced capacity or, in the case of key sectors, continuing with business as usual,” he says.

Annon says Mount Charles is also adapting to the hybrid working environment, with staff working from home two or three days per week and in the office two or three days per week.

“This is likely to be the new working world for the future, so we will adapt our service offering to reflect this. This will once again mean working in partnership with our clients to provide a service tailored to their daily demographics. It will also mean re-engineering commercial models, so they remain viable for both clients and Mount Charles. Within this landscape, clients are working in partnership with Mount Charles on an agreed pathway to growth, allowing us to offer a firm commitment to seek a successful outcome for both parties.”

To support the new hybrid working model, Mount Charles has also introduced unattended retail units (micro-markets), which provide a catering service 24x7 aligned to the reduced numbers on-site.

By employing digital and robotic technology, Mount Charles has also adapted and tailored its offering to provide innovative, personalised, and dynamic services.
“In 2019, the company embarked on a three-year technology transformation programme to improve and enhance the resources and capabilities we needed to achieve our strategic goals. Good progress was made up to March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. As a result of the changes to working practices, we accelerated the programme and delivered all new systems in a period of 15 months rather than the three-year target. The need to communicate with both clients and team members during this difficult time was a driving force behind the accelerated programme,” he says.

Annon says technology has changed many areas in the business such as financial, data collection, workforce management, sales and promotion, management reporting, procurement, and customer feedback.

“It has increased operational effectiveness and client engagement. Information is now available in real-time, allowing us to monitor trends, react quickly to a changing landscape, and provide better management information to clients via an online portal. A further benefit has been towards our sustainability goals as all reporting is now paperless. In addition, we have introduced robotic cleaning machines to certain sites to improve productivity and reduce costs.”

Annon believes that as the economy recovers, there are major opportunities for Mount Charles to grow throughout the island of Ireland. Mount Charles retrained key staff during COVID-19 as it realised the importance of retaining staff. Some staff took career breaks but are now returning to Mount Charles as the company re-engages with clients who are rebuilding their businesses.

“Our vision within Mount Charles is to achieve long-term, sustainable success and we will continue on the path to developing and reinforcing our place within the industry as an innovative, forward-thinking, high-quality service provider. Our objective is to achieve significant organic growth, increasing our team, capability, and customer reach. In our approach to this growth, we will deploy lean processes, implement market-leading technology and equipment, and embark on a process of continuous improvement of our services and processes. As such, our vision is to pass on our innovations, cost-savings, efficiencies, and technological advances to both our new and existing customers,” he says.