“The Nordic business community needs integrated industrial and FM services”
In parallel with building a strong facility management business since 2003, Coor has also been gradually accumulating a high level of industrial services competence, and is now the market leader in this segment too. In this article, we find out why, as well as the objective of Coor’s industrial services initiative.
Coor moved into the industrial services market in 2003 with its acquisition of Miab, an industrial cleaning specialist. Since then, this initiative has accelerated, so that now, Coor is one of the largest industrial services providers in the Nordics.
“At every step we’ve taken, we’ve developed and expanded our expertise or geographical presence. Our strategy has been to start in Sweden, building the necessary capacity to suit the industries that exist in and around selected regions—Bergslagen (north west of Stockholm, centering on Hofors/Gävle), Mälaren Valley (west and Southwest of Stockholm, centering on Finspång), western Sweden (centering on Gothenburg), southern Sweden (centering on Helsingborg), Skaraborg (further north west of Stockholm, centering on Skövde) and the more southern Swedish regions of Småland/Blekinge (centering on Huskvarna),” says Bengt Håkansson, Executive Vice President and Head of Industrial Services for Coor in Sweden.
Each geographical industrial service centre has the capacity that the regional industry it serves requires. Readers might question the logic of combining facility management and industrial services, but for Bengt Håkansson, the answer is self-evident:
“The common denominator of the services Coor delivers is that they are executed at and around our customers’ sites. There are substantial local synergies to exploit for all the support services executed at the same site. The more support services we can manage as an integrated whole, the greater synergies we can access. With the business structure we have in the Nordics it’s obvious that our business community needs integrated FM and industrial services.”
We’ve secured strong positioning on the current market. Our strength is the combination of the breadth of our competences, and those competences being at a very high technical standard.
Coor’s industrial services operation is currently Sweden’s largest, employing over 1,000 people in various industrial service segments. There are over 350 mechanics, 130 electricians and over 150 engineers that work on design, technology, project management and maintenance.
“We’ve secured strong positioning on the current market. Our strength is the combination of the breadth of our competences, and those competences being at a very high technical standard. This means we can initiate dialogue at a high technical level with many Nordic companies,” reports Kim Berghäll, Business Manager of Industrial Services in southern Sweden.
However, organizing industrial services operations geographically does present some challenges in transferring best practice and experience between geographical regions.
“We need to get better at ensuring the exchange of best practice and transferring competence between our geographical regions, so we’re working actively on this. Obviously, we’ll get even stronger if we’re really going to succeed in disseminating the lessons we learn and intelligent ideas right across our organization,” adds Kim.
The sectors where our customers are currently active are mainly automotive/manufacturing, steel/paper/pulp, energy and chemicals. But our ambition is to extend our industrial services business—in terms of sectors, but also geographically. To achieve this, Coor has recently implemented an industrial services organization at group level.
“We’re now ready to provide good support in other sectors and countries. We’d like to move into the Norwegian energy sector, for example. The Swedish and/or Danish food industries are also really attractive, as is the Finnish engineering and energy industry. With our huge experience and structured working methods, we feel more than ready to take the next step,” concludes Bengt Håkansson.
Find out more about Coor’s range of competencies in the industrial services segment
Key facts:
Coor’s industrial services initiative—step by step
- 2004 acquisition of industrial cleaning provider Miab
- 2006 acquisition of nuclear power service provider Stensand
- 2008 outsourcing agreement for support services at the Ringhals nuclear power plant
- 2008 acquisition of industrial service provider GR Sanering
- 2009 acquisition of Sapa Industriservice
- 2010 outsourcing deal with Kemira
- 2011 acquisition of EuroMaint Industry
- 2012 outsourcing deal with Trelleborg
