The North East’s largest independent contract cleaning and facilities management firm is going back to school after winning a number of new contracts in the education sector worth a total of £2.4m.Maxim Facilities Management has secured the three-year contracts with a number of secondary and tertiary educational establishments around the UK, including in Kettering, Manchester, Lancaster and its native North East.
The contract wins have resulted from a strategic decision taken by the company two years ago to increase its focus on the education sector, which has seen the proportion of Maxim’s overall business based on this sort of client rise from ten per cent to near 25 per cent today.
And it has also helped the Sunderland-headquartered firm to grow the number of people it employs to over 800, with a number of people with education sector management experience being brought in to service the contracts that have been won.
Maxim FM provides commercial contract cleaning and facilities management services to public and private sector clients, and works with a growing number of well-known companies and organisations right across the UK.
The management team is continuing to implement a growth plan which is designed to turn it into a £20m turnover company employing around 2,000 people within the next three to five years.
Graham Conway, founder and managing director at Maxim FM, says: “We saw the trend for more responsibility for facilities management work being devolved to teams within educational establishments that already had wide-ranging responsibilities, and felt there were opportunities to increase the amount of business we did in this sector, a strategic approach which is now paying clear dividends.
“We’ve developed a sector-specific package that enables the schools and colleges with which we work to access the services they require in a cost-efficient and effective way, and the technology investments we’ve made give them the reporting insight they require into how and when our teams are carrying out their work.
“We think there is a great deal more potential to be realised in this sector, particularly within the North East, and we’ll be continuing to try to keep the proportion of our business that is focussed on the education sector at around 25 per cent as it grows in the years to come.
“We have already grown to be the largest independent contractor in our field based in the North East region. We are now focussed on continued organic and acquisitive growth over the next five years to develop into a very substantial business; one that can compete with and succeed against the biggest players in our industry across the UK.”