Serco Gropu plc Annual Review and Summary Financial Statement ...

a n d i n v e s t o r s . S e r c o ’ s r a p i d g r o w t h a nd e xc e l l e n t p r o s p e c t s c o m e f r o m a s i m p l e p r o p o s i t i o n : o u r a b i l i t y t o m a n a g e a n e x t r a o r d i n a r y
We help customers add value to their existing assets. Under our
custodianship since 1995, the UK’s National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
has continued to advance its stature, influence and revenues. Under a new
Private Finance Initiative (PFI) contract, we are part of a consortium with
John Laing plc, which is building a state-of-the art 36,000m 2 new complex
of laboratories, engineering workshops, offices and meeting rooms. This
will increase NPL’s efficiency and allow it to maintain its position as one
of the world’s great national standards laboratories. The project involves
cl ear and
A CLEA R AND CO HE RE NT BUSINES S At first sight, Serco looks
relocating people and science facilities from some 2,800 individual rooms.
bewilderingly diverse – over 450 contract managers run individual operations ranging from
bus services to research establishments.
In fact, it could hardly be more coherent. To every project we bring the same things: our expertise
in managing change, and our other proven management processes.
These processes are our product. With the help of the Serco Institute we research and update
them, document them and train our staff to use them. They are designed to change mindsets;
to instil customer focus; and to provide unobtrusive but effective controls that leave contract
managers free to run their businesses entrepreneurially.
Initially, they enable us to increase value for money while maintaining quality and continuity
of service: significantly, no Serco phase-in has ever provoked a strike. Longer-term, they enable
us to help customers add value to existing assets: for example, at the UK’s NPL we have
recruited an additional 100 scientists to government and commercial programmes since 1995.
The great strength of our management processes is that we can apply them to almost any
activity. Our strategy is to keep moving them into more complex areas where our skills can
be best used. We are now also applying them in Public Private Partnerships.
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