No business wants to be offline or unable to function due to a refurbishment, refit, similar essential works or even due to failure of existing equipment or external sources. But for many organisations, including those within the financial services sector, it can be more than an inconvenience, it can result in loss of service, dissatisfied customers and fines or other penalties from governing bodies.

Here at Morris & Spottiswood, we understand just how much disruption to services can cost your business – and that these disruptions, and their implications can vary not just from business to business, but from department to department. That’s why from day one of the planning phase of any major project we work closely with each client to understand what business critical looks like to them, and how we can ensure continuity, avoid downtime or loss of crucial services and maintain resilience to buildings/data halls, all whilst working in a live environment. It’s something we have factored into our work for a long time, and we made it a more formal and focussed part of our process in 2021.

To further strengthen this, we work in partnership with our subsidiary company Livingston Building Services who provide us with critical engineering services across these demanding projects. To ensure that we keep disruption for our clients to a minimum – four years ago, Ross Kennedy and Robert Lauchlan joined Livingston in the roles of Critical Engineering Director and Operations Director respectively. They have been driving our Critical Environmental Services offering forward ever since, growing the team and ensuring that those involved are fully trained to keep things running as smoothly as possible for our clients during the delivery of every project.

Critical Environmental Services is now a key part of Morris & Spottiswood and Livingston Building Services joint offering and is delivered across the UK from all seven of our offices. In the last three years alone, we have incorporated it into 25 successful projects, with values of up to £20m. To support this, since 2020, Livingston have trained an increased number of authorised engineers, and have recently welcomed John Monk to the team as HV Director, meaning we are better equipped than ever to handle even the most complex services projects. Combined with our ability to work in live environments or complete key tasks outside normal working hours, we’re perfectly placed to keep your business running at full power during key business hours.

As client needs evolve as more and more businesses seek to reduce disruption, so does our offering. And to make sure that we are ready for each and every new demand, we are constantly developing our training, adding new areas such as HV and fibre, to meet the needs of the contemporary workplace.

We work to the highest standards and every member of the team is fully trained and authorised, giving clients not only the peace of mind they expect when working with us, but ensuring that they are able to demonstrate preparedness and compliance with the relevant regulatory bodies and authorities within their industry.

To ensure that our team are always able to deliver, they not only undergo extensive in-house training, but also rigorous external training which complies with the standards set by our clients’ governing bodies. This is undertaken every three years, and to make sure that standards are maintained at all times, we conduct annual internal audits in the form of an exam undertaken by each team member. This testing is not an external requirement but reflects the importance we place on this aspect of our service and our ongoing commitment to excellence and skill development.

As Critical Engineering Director, Ross Kennedy explains, Critical Environment Services is an increasingly key area not only for us, but for our clients across all sectors. “More and more businesses – especially those in the financial sector, where fines are routinely issued for failing to meet service standards – are coming to appreciate the value of this part of our offering. Even companies who don’t face penalties for downtime, are keen to avoid it for reputational reasons and to ensure customer satisfaction.

“We are constantly developing the ways in which we help businesses keep things up and running and maintaining the levels of service that are expected of them. Sometimes it’s a case of working over a weekend to replace something like a faulty switchboard so that the client can avoid loss of service and the associated fines. But it’s also about making sure that we are compliant with the standards set by our clients’ governing bodies, which is why I personally work with a number of these bodies to develop our training and ensure it meets the expected standard.”

As you would expect, we have rigorous procedures and processes in place for our Critical Environment Services. For starters, we work incredibly closely with the client from day one, making sure that areas that need additional support are identified and they can see what is needed. We act as part of their team – what matters to them matters to us – and we ensure that they can confidently take things forward, safe in the knowledge that there will be no loss of business-critical elements of their business. Because that looks different for everyone, we make sure that we are fully emersed in the process end-to-end and create briefs that reflect the specific requirements of each client and spend as much time on site as needed to deliver on our promises.

To ensure seamless continuity of delivery at our end, we make sure that this is implemented across the supply chain for the project, working with trusted and experienced partners who understand the process and why it matters.

These are just a few of the reasons why more and more businesses – particularly those in the financial sector – count on us to keep things running smoothly during major works.