Vision, mission and strategic pillars

Vision: Unica creates a safe, healthy and sustainable working and living environment, with smart technology

Mission: To envisage and realise a safe, healthy and sustainable future for our customers and for future generations.

Our primary activities are the development, realisation and long-term maintenance of technical solutions in the built environment and industrial applications. We offer a complete range of services from our network of nine clusters, each of which has its own area of focus or specialisation. The clusters operate independently, but depending on the wishes and needs of the customer, can also collaborate closely and deliver integrated technical services.

Our strategic spearheads are:

• An attractive employer: the distinctive opportunities for development and personal advancement we offer mean our employees remain loyal to our organisation for many years

• Innovative propositions and digitalisation: we develop new business models with new techniques and employ Artificial Intelligence (AI) and make maximum use of data to optimise our internal processes and customer service

• Controlled growth: natural growth in combination with mergers and acquisitions that deliver increased capacity and greater knowledge and skills

• Solid financial base and combination of specialist knowledge to support our businesses

As a partner in sustainable transformation, Unica can make a positive difference both for our own company and for our customers. We focus on four topics relevant to our society. To successfully continue to deliver a structural contribution to our sustainable development and a sustainable future for all, these topics have been translated into the core pillars Energy & Climate, Circularity & Environment, People & Society and Innovation & Digitalisation. Ethics & Integrity as the fifth spearhead further underpins the foundations of our operational approach.

• Energy & Climate: sustainable solutions for customers and maximising our impact in bringing about a CO2-neutral society.

• Circularity & Environment: preserving the natural environment by making sustainable and efficient use of resources.

• People & Society: a strong culture of safety, investing in people, diversity in teams and attracting new talent for a career in technology.

• Innovation & Digitalisation: investing continuously in sustainable innovation, so that through digitalisation we can make the working, living and process environments of our customers safe, healthy and sustainable.

• Ethics & Integrity: working together with stakeholders in a transparent and honest manner in bringing about and taking responsibility for a demonstrably positive impact on people, the environment and society.

The way in which Unica is structured as a network of companies is a strategy spearhead and the heart of the business model. Thanks to this network of independent companies, we can both continue to develop special services and complete multidisciplinary projects and assignments with contributions from different knowledge domains.

These multidisciplinary services are combined in end-to-end solutions. We can offer a complete package of products and services that delivers our customers an integrated solution. Take for example Sustainable Renovation, an integrated proposition that combines expertise in the field of energy systems, renovation projects, smart building applications, fire safety and ICT, delivered by the different clusters.

Integrated fire safety is another example of a complete proposition in which all construction-related, technical installation and organisational elements of fire safety are brought together.

Broadening the cooperation between the Unica companies is one of the key objectives of our commercial strategy. Combining the knowledge contained within the network of companies also strengthens the way in which we can help our customers achieve further sustainability. Alongside the more ‘conventional’ solutions, we increasingly offer our customers more sustainable options. In daily operations, almost every new order involves a sustainability component while the ever changing energy landscape calls for an integrated approach. In 2023, Unica expanded the capacity of the remote control platform for industry to include an electricity balancing function. This application helps stabilise the electricity grid in the Netherlands, while at the same time reducing the energy costs for our customers. Knowledge of industrial process management was another key element in delivering a solution for the remote testing of sprinkler systems.

Acquisitions are another important aspect of our growth strategy. Wherever possible, we focus on expanding our regional presence as well as strengthening our specialisations. Economies of scale make us stronger while for our customers we can offer an even broader portfolio with more expertise and knowledge, based on more in-depth specialisations. One of the most important criteria for any acquisition is the cultural match with the potential acquisition candidate. We focus on successful businesses with a committed management, which also after joining our group of companies is capable of generating the positive energy needed to take the acquired company to the next phase. There must of course also be a strategic match and we impose a number of financial criteria. Our Post Merger Integration (PMI) process helps us bring the acquired companies into line with our standards and ESG policy. The acquisitions successfully concluded in 2023 appear under the heading strategic developments.