Interview with the CEO

Since 1 November 2024, the management of the group of companies has been in the hands of the new CEO, Jilko Andringa. In the first few months following his appointment, this experienced executive has come to cherish the inspiring culture at the technical service provider and has turned his focus to customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction, safety and the winning team that is Unica.

What made you decide to take up this position at Unica?

After a fabulous 7-year journey at Brunel, I saw Unica, with its inspiring culture in which entrepreneurship, family values and cooperation all enjoy high priority, as my next exciting destination. On top of that, Unica is positioned in an attractive growth market that can make a huge positive impact on the way people work and live. The challenge for me is to maintain the spirit of the winning team, and to take the company to the next level.

What is the strength of Unica?

We have an excellent balance between projects, management and maintenance contracts and specialist services. I sometimes jokingly comment that we can be found working for half of the Netherlands. But in truth, thanks to the growth we have achieved over the past few years, our business today consists of 50 companies organised in 9 clusters. Strengthening the cooperation between those clusters will help create even more opportunities to better serve our customers. 

Achieving that cooperation is sometimes quite a challenge as the independent-thinking and individual entrepreneurship we cherish so highly occasionally mean that the individual businesses tend to stick to their own ‘territory’. Nevertheless, we are seeing ever more positive examples of cooperation that demonstrate our ability to deliver greater value for our customers. And those examples are an inspiration to push the boundaries. Encouraging and promoting cooperation is a vital element of our leadership.

Another key driver behind the success of our business is employee satisfaction. At the end of the day, dedicated and satisfied employees mean satisfied customers, who in turn serve as brand ambassadors for Unica. Employee satisfaction and customer satisfaction are inextricably linked, backed up by the third essential pillar that underpins our business: safety. I cannot overemphasise the importance of a safe working environment. Everyone should return home from work safely, every day. If your business has a culture of family values, you want to look after each other and look out for each other. Our safety culture is a decisive element of those family values.

Social safety is also a vital aspect of that culture. We want everyone at Unica to feel at home and to feel respected. We have established extensive procedures to guarantee that situation and work with both internal and external confidential counsellors whose task is to thoroughly investigate any incidents and to report on their findings.

Where do you see opportunities for Unica?

We focus on three topics vital for society: safety, health and sustainability. These issues play a central role in all our business operations, but these same topics also offer us excellent market opportunities.

More than 40% of CO2 emissions in the Netherlands are generated in the built environment. Unica plays a role in reducing the environmental burden from buildings by assisting its customers in their energy transition and lowering emission levels. Sustainability is a subject of discussion in almost every customer contact, and we have the knowledge and practical capacity to help them in their efforts. Increasingly our customers see us as a trusted advisor and sparring partner who is able to assist them with their challenges in various fields. For example, in sustainability programmes we also look carefully at air treatment, not only as a means of managing CO2 emissions but also because better air quality can improve overall health and reduce absenteeism due to sickness levels.

Building renovation is one of our specialisations. We help our customers gradually achieve their objective of zero emission buildings. The process often starts with insulation before moving on to improving and optimising building systems. But it doesn’t stop there. The ultimate solution can also include the generation, use and procurement of energy. Throughout the process, at every stage, Unica offers support and solutions. Grid congestion is one excellent example of a complex field in which we can offer our customers the support they need. With a software solution, we can ensure the perfect match between supply and demand at every level, to ensure optimum utilisation of the grid capacity. More flexible energy consumption is an essential precondition for a successful energy transition.

Another vital point for attention for our customers is safety. And there too we can offer solutions based on different disciplines. For example access control, drinking water security and fire safety. Our cluster Unica ICT Solutions can also help ensure excellent cybersecurity solutions by combining our knowledge of the various security domains in the service we provide to our customers. Safety is a perfect example of an area in which our clusters complement each other in providing total solutions for our customers

What role do innovation and digitalisation play?

Both are essential in combining solutions and developing new applications. In response to the advances in the remote digital control and management of buildings and other assets, we are investing heavily in ICT solutions that provide maximum support to those developments. We have specialist knowledge in house and are constantly working on our own infrastructure. Our Unica Innovation Center specialises in developing innovative solutions and supervises innovation processes in the various specialist clusters. Thanks to our focus on digitalisation and innovation, we are able to play an ever broader role as strategic consultant for our customers and we supply and manage total solutions on their behalf.

How does Unica plan to continue to grow over the next few years?

If you look at the market as a whole, at present we serve just 3-5% of the total. In that sense, 95% of the market remains untapped. There are enough opportunities for growth at all of our clusters. In achieving that growth, we see huge potential in combining the total pool of knowledge we have at our disposal. By encouraging collaboration between our clusters, we can combine solutions and deliver more added value to our customers. In other words, responding to the needs of the market and the changes in society still offers us a wealth of possibilities.

Digitalisation and innovation are areas in which we can really stand out. Future generations will have ever changing needs. Gen Z for example has grown up entirely in the internet era and that has led to huge demand for Internet of Things applications in buildings. The digital knowledge we have at our disposal means our company is perfectly positioned to respond to those demands. By combining external data and building data, we are already providing functional solutions for the optimum use of buildings.

Finally: in your opinion, what makes Unica a winning team?

Without a doubt our dedicated and enthusiastic workforce who once again last year helped make Unica so successful. During my first few months at Unica I have met so many loyal, dedicated employees. They all share a real sense of customer focus and pride in working for our company and in the solutions they supply to our customers. This combination of family culture, a total focus on the wishes of our customers and efficient business practices are what make us a winning company. I experience exactly that winning spirit every day at Unica, and that fact places us in the perfect position to achieve further growth and to continue to exploit the opportunities offered by the market over the next few years. I look forward to making the most of our business, together with our employees, customers, partners and all other stakeholders.