It goes without saying how tough this year has been for businesses in every industry and area of the world. Booth Welsh (BW) is a global engineering technology business based in North Ayrshire and is one of the more fortunate businesses to continue growing amidst the backdrop of the pandemic.

With a focus on three key strategies of people engagement, adapting technology and business acquisitions, Booth Welsh has been able to make the most of the challenges 2020 has thrown at us all.

People Engagement

Internal communication isn’t easy at the best of times and with the majority of the workforce working from home, the challenge just became greater during this time.

From day one, the business prioritised regular communication from the Managing Director including live streamed videos commenting on news announcements and what this meant for BW. The company also held live online Q&A sessions with an ‘ask me anything’ approach. It wasn’t always uplifting and positive news, but certainly honest and transparent. Many employees commented that this visibility and openness was very reassuring during uncertain times.

Not being in the same place meant BW needed to think out the office box (literally) to keep culture strong. The team utilised an online platform called ‘Workplace by Facebook’ to build a virtual community. This online platform acted like a physical space where people could come together in the same way that they do in the office kitchen or meeting rooms to share ideas, jokes and generally just a supportive and friendly ear.

Today it has evolved into a solid community out with the office, where people support, update and collaborate together.

Adapting Technology

Booth Welsh has also been able to realise new business possibilities amongst COVID-19 disruptions. The company has been working in the technology space for a number of years. However, during COVID-19, a new world of opportunities has opened up across all industries regarding remote working and digital technology support.

Capitalising on the engagement and innovation inside teams, the business has been able to adapt its external offering to support clients to work smarter, get more out of their assets (both people and plant) and do more with less. Whether that is increasing quality, safety, productivity, saving costs or time, BW have shared this knowledge extensively through running a number of showcase webinars on this very topic. This has informed companies on ways they can ‘build back better’ post pandemic and resulted in new business enquiries for Booth Welsh.

Business Acquisitions

Continuing on the theme of knowledge sharing and support. Booth Welsh favours a ‘Collaboration over Competition’ approach, often collaborating and sharing learnings widely within its network.

During the pandemic, Booth Welsh took this to the extreme and acquired two businesses, one in digital automation, iTech, as well as investing a 30% share in an energy from waste business, TegCo UK.

These strategic acquisitions have allowed for industry diversification into a sustainable new sector as well as complementing and extending the company’s engineering capability, vital strategies for the business to remain competitive post pandemic.

Despite the challenges businesses are all facing daily right now, Booth Welsh has been able to innovate and adapt work practices to come up with strategies to suit today’s world. As a result, the team at Booth Welsh have been able to maintain a resilient business this year which can hopefully look forward to a bright future in these dark times.