Leading provider of electrical and mechanical solutions, Woodward Group, diversifies its offering to provide turnkey services fit for the future
Established over 30 years ago, Woodward Group is now one of the UK’s foremost providers of electrical and mechanical contracting services. Founded in the late 1980s by Alan Woodward, the company was passed on to his son, Managing Director Aden Woodward, in 2015. With this came significant transformations that saw Woodward Group diversify into exciting new territories, as Aden begins: “My father started out as a sole trader, doing subcontracted work on building sites for larger companies, and he really built the business from the ground up. He eventually started taking on bigger projects, and that was followed by the purchase of his own office facility. When I joined the business, we opened another office, in Burton on Trent.
“At the time, it was still a relatively small business. We had around seven people in the office, and I worked closely with my father to steadily build that number up. Once I’d been with the company for a few years, I was around 24 at the time, he left to work as an international consultant. I’ve run the business myself ever since.
“About five years ago, we decided to acquire another business called Lavas Engineering. With that we brought 20 new people into the business, which helped us almost double in size. Now, we’re about 40 people strong, and it’s only getting bigger.”
Since stepping up to the plate, Aden has transformed his father’s company into a complete turnkey provider of mechanical, engineering, electrical, and safety services. As he details: “We continue to offer mechanical and electrical services, however the business has also branched out into new areas over the last few years. We now also provide fire safety services, compliance support, and security works. All those developments happened under my management, over the last eight-to-ten years. 
“More recently, in 2020, we brought on some specialist engineers who were trained in electrical instrumentation and control works. The addition of their unique expertise allowed us to broaden our offering and provide something that really stands out.
“Taking over the business twenty years into its tenure was beneficial for me in several ways. I grew up with the business, and my dad did an amazing job of communicating his love for the work we do. Not only that, but we had a large and very well-established customer base. Our existing customers were predominantly coming to us for electrical maintenance works, and we’d built a strong partnership with them based on trust and mutual respect. When the economy fell on hard times, many of our long-time customers found themselves being let down by other traders, and that inspired us to branch out, and start providing more of those services ourselves.
“We were often being asked to facilitate other works outside of our existing remit, and as the industry was changing anyway, we decided to take a chance on something new. If you go back 15 or 20 years, a lot of large manufacturers had their own engineering departments and were capable of running their own projects. This is less and less common nowadays, which goes to show that we definitely stepped in to fill a gap in the market at exactly the right time.
Turnkey solution
“As subcontracting became the industry standard, we arrived fully equipped and able to provide a turnkey solution. Our offering is only getting more diverse as the business continues to grow, and that allows us to take on some really interesting projects. For instance, we often get customers coming to us asking to turn their manufacturing plant into a fully automated facility. Ten years ago, we wouldn’t have been capable of taking on a project like that, but now we are.”
Having future-proofed his father’s legacy, Aden now looks to expand the business even further. “We’re looking to expand our electrical instrumentation and control division, as that’s been a real game changer for the business. It’s opened up a lot of new opportunities, so we definitely want to continue developing our service offering in that area as much as possible. We also want to move toward a more process-based model, which will hopefully increase efficiency and help bring together different elements of the business.
“In the near future, we’re looking to move facilities and expand our operation even further. We’d like to bring in a fabrication team and invest in some new machinery and technology. All these efforts will allow us to bring even more services in-house, which supports our goal of providing a truly turnkey solution to customers,” Aden asserts.
Successfully predicting and adapting to the needs of the market has ensured a bright future for Woodward Group. Technology and automation will play a major role in Aden’s long-term plans, as he concludes: “The future of the business is certainly going to look different. We’ve established ourselves as a major player in the mechanical and electrical services sector, and we want to use that momentum to continue growing the business. We’ve delivered on two major projects that have allowed us to transform the client’s facilities and bring in start-to-finish automation. In the coming years, I’d like to see us doing much more of that type of work.”