Commercial
A stable portfolio with loyal clients in a wide range of sectors represented an excellent starting point for achieving Unica’s growth ambitions. Over the past decades, Unica has acquired extended domain knowledge in numerous segments, with long-term management and maintenance contracts.
One good example comes from the health sector, where in 2022, Unica extended its maintenance contract at the Jeroen Bosch Hospital in Den Bosch by five years. The Sint Maartenskliniek has also entrusted its maintenance services to Unica, with the group taking on responsibility for the entire technical service of the clinic based in Ubbergen in 2022. Unica is also well represented in new build projects in the healthcare sector. For example in 2022, the new main building of the Radboudumc in Nijmegen was completed by a consortium that includes Unica. 2023 will see the start of an extensive new build project at the Erasmus MC in Rotterdam, where Unica, with its technical specialists, has for years been a key player in the field of measurement and control technology. Also at a highly specialist level, Unica companies provide support to the healthcare sector. The Unica company Nsecure, for example, delivered an advanced digital security solution for radioactive liquids, at the Amsterdam UMC.
Another field in which Unica has been strongly represented for years is education. The company provides services from primary education through to universities. For example, Unica Building Services improved the indoor climate installations at the Beatrix College in Tilburg, Pranger-Rosier contributed to the construction ‘De Skool’ education centre on Texel, and in Amsterdam, with the Jakoba Mulderhuis project, opened the ‘teaching theatre of the future’. This building was realised with a contribution from Unica Building Projects and is the most sustainable teaching building of the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA). For the University of Technology in Delft, Regel Partners completed a new control room, from where the safety of the more than 27,000 daily users is monitored by an integrated security management system. The order from HTC Eindhoven is another excellent example of the type of services provided by Unica. The High Tech Campus has chosen Unica for the maintenance of its measurement and control technology systems, with the ambition of becoming Europe’s most sustainable and innovative campus by 2025.
In the field of fire safety, with its Unica Fire Safety cluster, Unica is able to offer a full range of fire safety services, from pump systems and active firefighting through to passive fire safety solutions. This integrated approach was demonstrated among others at HAVI Logistics. The Battery Power Supply (BPS) solution launched one year previously by Boele Fire Protection was installed for the first time in 2022: the lucky recipient was the Churchill Tower (‘The Minister’) in Rijswijk.
E-mobility activities are another division of Unica that is delivering strong revenue growth. As a separate product group within Unica Building Services, the development of this service sector has enjoyed considerable attention, including the installation of more than 1,000 charging points for the Dutch Central Government Real Estate Agency. In 2022, E-mobility specialists produced a three-part podcast on this theme, under the title ‘Even opladen met’ (‘A quick recharge with’).
Unica’s roots lie in mechanical engineering and electrical engineering, but ICT technology is today another prominent element of the group’s services. For dozens of clients, Unica ICT Solutions is responsible for management and maintenance of the entire ICT environment. In 2022, multiyear management agreements were extended with various clients including Syncasso, Vesting Finance, Betap and Wensink. Together with Regel Partners, part of Unica Building Intelligence, the Tax and Customs Administration will be supplied with new hardware and intelligent building automation systems. On behalf of two units of the Dutch Police service, Unica ICT Solutions is responsible for the monitoring and storage of camera images, in collaboration with access & security specialists Nsecure.
The domain of access control and security is another growing specialisation at Unica. In 2022, for example, all offices of the Employee Insurance Agency UWV were migrated to a central environment for access control and security. Thanks to this integrated solution, it is easier for UWV staff to work from different office locations. For the new Belgian head offices of DPG Media in Antwerp, Nsecure was commissioned to implement a uniform security policy in 2022, having previously demonstrated its expertise for the DPG locations in Amsterdam and Rotterdam. Security is a focus of attention as part of the system integration services offered by Unica Building Intelligence. Among others, Regel Partners assisted in developing the security requirements of the new campus for Booking.com. Regel Partners has since been awarded the order for the implementation of all safety and security systems in their overall management system.
Alongside utilities, the industrial domain is developing as a new core area in which Unica occupies a solid position. On a daily basis, the specialists in industrial mechanics and automation provide support in the optimisation of production processes or the setting up of new production lines, for example for Berry Global. With more than 135 employees at Van Kempen Koudetechniek and PCT Koudetechniek, Unica is a market leader in the Netherlands in the realisation, management and maintenance of refrigeration installations. Refrigeration installations were, for example, supplied to DL Fresh Logistics, Fresh Park Venlo and R&M Forwarding.
A final segment in which Unica can provide extensive expertise is the datacenter domain. Together with construction partner Cordeel, Unica Datacenters is currently realising the largest datacenter in the Benelux, in Amsterdam’s Westerlijk Havengebied. On behalf of Silver Falcon, work will be carried out over the next few years on three new buildings, each eighty metres high, with a total capacity of 100 megawatts. The first tower of Datacenter Westpoort is due to be completed at the end of 2024.
Unica is also an active service provider at historical locations. Among others, Unica was a partner in the sustainable renovation of the Groote Museum Artis, the original main building of the Amsterdam zoo, which once again opened its doors to the public in 2022. In Rotterdam, Unica is responsible for the management and maintenance of various technical installations at the RDM yard, the former site of the Rotterdamse Droogdok Maatschappij (RDM) that now offers space for businesses, education and research. Two recent commercial highpoints that must not go unmentioned are the extension of the maintenance contract with Rijkswaterstaat (Executive Agency for Public Works and Water Management) and the latest expansion of the World Trade Center Amsterdam. On behalf of Rijkswaterstaat, Unica has been responsible since 2018 for overall maintenance at more than 350 locations, a contract that was extended by a further two years in 2022. The realisation of construction at the challenging location of the building Tower Ten was a prestigious project for which Unica Building Projects provided all-round engineering and implementation of all systems in this tower building, which is part of the World Trade Center in Amsterdam.
The ever closer collaboration between the Unica companies is a source of growing added value for the group’s clients. The increased utilisation of the integrated implementation capacity of the network of companies is one of the primary objectives of the internal commercial network, which met on two occasions in 2022. The focus on commercial results and forecasts was intensified in 2022 via a uniform dashboard, while the integration within the commercial process of new companies joining the group was simplified. This makes it possible to further improve the concentration on the commercial pipeline across all entities.
It goes without saying that Unica continues to focus on the satisfaction of its existing clients. A uniform customer satisfaction survey was held for the third year in succession in 2022. The survey and the NPS score (40) provide an increasingly reliable picture of the development of the overall customer experience with the Unica companies. One of the most important yardsticks is the European Net Promotor Score (NPS) that expresses the relationship between customers with an extremely positive recommendation and customers with a critical view. The fact that the score has remained unchanged (40 both in 2022 and in 2021) shows that the majority of customers have a positive recommendation intention in respect of Unica. In the case of maintenance contracts, all work is followed by a short satisfaction measurement to determine whether the work has been carried out satisfactorily. At a more universal level, the individual companies regularly organise customer arenas during which the entire customer team consults with clients about the level of service they have experienced and possible areas for improvement. These meetings are held at client locations, thereby further reinforcing the already close ties with the client’s activities.