Topbond plc, which employs 30 people at its Castle Road Facility in Sittingbourne, is a civil engineering specialist working across construction, marine and rail.
It combines technically innovative project management expertise with traditional skills to offer services, including refurbishment of bridges and structures, bespoke joinery and design and build of footbridges.
Challenge
Approaching its 40th year in business, the company’s senior management team were plotting out the strategic plan and identified a number of markets that could potentially benefit from its core services and products.
One of those was Offshore Wind, with the UK programme alone consisting of over 40 projects with an estimated value of between £80-£100bn.
Whilst the opportunity is massive, Topbond plc is a relative newcomer to the sector and needed additional capabilities in order to offer its expertise in structural repairs and refurbishment to harbours and offshore wind farms.
GROW:OffshoreWind Support
The company enlisted the support of GROW:OffshoreWind Advisor Fern Doherty, who carried out a business capability review and then matched the findings to current and future market opportunities.
As part of this exercise, Topbond identified the possibility of purchasing the ‘TopLift’, a multi-hulled, modular road transportable workboat that can operate up to sixty nautical miles away from land.
This could be used on wind farm installation projects and for use in on-going maintenance and repair contracts, with the fact it can be easily moved around the country giving the firm an immediate competitive advantage.
The cost of the vessel was £750,000 and the company needed additional financial support in order to complete purchase and be the first to market.
“This is where GROW:OffshoreWind’s Flexible Enabling Fund came into its own and made everything possible in a much quicker timescale than we originally expected,” commented Glenn Springett, Managing Director of Topbond.
“We managed to secure 20% funding towards the purchase that speeded up the process by a couple of months and gives us an immediate advantage over our competitors.”
The Results
The ‘TopLift’ is now an important feature of the Topbond offer and is providing clients in the offshore wind sector with a safe working platform for transporting spares, stores, equipment and personnel.
It has already been used on three harbour/jetty contracts to date, including Dover who used the vessel to carry out essential repair work caused by storms earlier this summer.
Initial orders are vindicating the acquisition, with the longer-term vision being to increase turnover 10% year on year, creating ten jobs in the process.
“The GROW:OffshoreWind funding we secured has made the whole project possible much quicker than we’d anticipated. We also really value the benefits of having an Advisor who understands the sector on hand to provide external advice and market intelligence.”