In direct contrast to other sectors, the global logistics industry had to react quickly to the opportunities and challenges presented by COVID-19. With shops closed, consumers turned to the internet to make their purchases. "Our clients had to fast track their growth and development strategies, with many expanding to round the clock operations and making significant investments in e-commerce, people and assets to cope with the demand."

Dave continued "Our growth is compounded by three things, acquisitions, increased demand for services with recruitment to meet demand, and new services we have started to offer. Our organic growth increased due to the increased number of projects we were taking on. The market changed massively over COVID-19, there is now so much demand for design services. The recruitment we have done has helped to match this demand. In addition to this, 3 or 4 years ago we started in fire engineering, which has been a major contribution to our growth. Sustainability has also been a huge contributor, renewables, on site generation and battery storage. "

Dave commented on Hydrock's growth through acquisitions, "As we have acquired more it has become easier managing integrating processes, it tends now to be a more stable approach bringing both companies together. Through a step by step approach, new companies we acquired started as a separate company, then moved to collaborate on new projects, then using rapport3 then they are fully integrated."

With increased demand in the energy sector, Dave commented on Hydrock's engineering specialism "Sustainability renewables and battery storage has been a huge area for growth for us." He continued "A lot of this increased demand has come through regulations such as no gas boilers in homes after 2025. Utility price rises, shortages of gas, oil and petrol prices are all driving a demand to reduce carbon and energy, more sustainable construction alongside better energy use".

"You must influence the culture, which can be difficult if you throw both companies together. It should be done in a logical manner set over time. Implications of merging should be considered, such as companies liability that you are acquiring, including the timeframe and the implications to the business of doing so."

Rapport3's is able to provide key metrics on companies and company groups, increasing levels of reporting through companies and supporting their reporting for new companies within groups following expansion.

Dave answered "With Rapport3 we have better information so we can see more clearly opportunities and our future business pipeline is looking like. Rapport3 is more intuitive and works better with information flows, with multiple views from dashboards meaning we spend less time inputting data. We have been able to make better decisions as a result."

He continued “Our success in the implementation and take up, has been clearly defining our processes as opposed to implementing new technology with no processes in place.” For anyone new looking at Rapport3, “having a process to what you will input and not input is essential, define these before you implement. We did this successfully with Rapport3, with their customer success team. Plan what reports you need to support your processes and drive your behaviours, then develop and issue those reports.”