SUNDAY TIMES FAST TRACK 100: Article by Peter Marsden, International Gas Engineering 

December 2001

The December 2001 issue of International Gas Engineering and Management included a company profile by Peter Marsden which is quoted here in full.

Wilcock Consulting's Route To The Top

Fast Track To Success: With annual sales rising from £468,000 in 1996 to £6-million in 2000, it is hardly surprising that Wilcock Consulting is ranked 32^nd in the final 100 companies selected from over one-million for the Sunday Times Fast Track 100.

As the only gas company included in the Fast Track 100 league table, that makes them a very special item in our industry.  But that is not all.  In the recent top 500 ranking of Europe’s most dynamic job creating Entrepreneurs, Wilcock was ranked 142^nd, a remarkable achievement given the Pan-European cross-sector analysis employed.  This 2001 listing identified and selected 500 fast growing, independent and job creating companies based on their performance between the beginning of fiscal year 1995 and the end of fiscal year 2000.  The companies listed have created in excess of 252,000 jobs across Europe in the last five years. 

So what is the secret of the company’s success?  Founder and owner Graham Wilcock spent 20 years with British Gas before leaving in 1990 and establishing a consultancy business he subsequently sold.  He started Wilcock Consulting in 1994 and now has over 100 staff and access to over 1,000 specialists with considerable technical and management experience developed in the gas industry.  The company incorporates professional skills including accounting, distribution, marketing, training, transmission and utilisation. 

Accumulated experience

The real secret however is that the company is built on a huge amount of accumulated experience.  For example, Graham manages the business but is supported by four account managers and this management team jointly has 150 years of experience in the gas industry.  Between them they are able to provide clients with the knowledge and expertise necessary to develop solutions to gas industry related problems.  Another secret, identified by the Sunday Times, is that the company ‘prizes experience over youth in its consultants’.

The policy has certainly paid off in a big way.  The company’s list of customers reads very much like a Who’s Who of active energy companies.  There is current and recent work across the UK as well as projects in Chile, India, Vietnam, Egypt, Brazil and Indonesia.  The overall spread also takes in Argentina, Eire, Israel, Japan, Norway, Pakistan, South Africa, Thailand, Ukraine, Uruguay, the USA and so it goes on.

The range of work is similarly impressive.  Most has a significant technical content such as stress analysis, network analysis, leakage assessment, pipeline route appraisal, pipeline uprating, transmission procedures, commercial and industrial meter specifications, bid preparations, technical specs, gas conditioning investigations, gas holder risk analysis, safety reports, corrosion protection, CAD design, site supervision and many many more, plus a complete range of training designed to assist companies with the technical development of their employees.  In other words, everything in the down-stream gas industry.  The company however provides more to complete the full package with legal, accountancy, communication, environmental, quality and insurance skills to complete the loop. 

What of the future?

So where to next? The company continues to collect accreditations.  The latest is ISO14001 achieved for its environmental management systems plus GWINTO course approval.  These just add to the list, which is best appreciated by a visit to their impressive and well organised web site at www.wilcock.co.uk

The company is based in Barrow-in-Furness, on the coast of the English Lake District under the influence of the Gulf Stream.  It might sound an out-of-the-way location for a company achieving so much, but with modern communications, the world is seconds away. 

There is huge investment taking place in the UK gas industry and the world gas industry is a further huge growth arena. With gas now the world’s second most traded commodity, and environmental factors having an increasing impact, the demand for the best expertise has never been greater.  The cream, they say, always rises to the top of the bottle.  As far as the future is concerned for Wilcock Consulting, it is already at the top.  As for further awards, no doubt the expression is ‘watch this space."

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