Heading into its 54th year of operations, Mallow-headquartered EPS has been named Family Business of the Year at the 2022 Deloitte Best Managed Company Awards.
“As a family business, we operate a ‘big tent’ approach, whereby all our employees, their families and our stakeholders, suppliers and communities form part of our journey,” says EPS Group’s Managing Director Patrick Buckley. “We’re all in this together and that helps us to keep our feet on the ground. There are plenty of challenges ahead for us, but we feel that it’s our imperfections that keep us focused and keep us grounded.”
Rising from humble beginnings in Kanturk to become one of the biggest water and wastewater infrastructure businesses of its kind, today EPS employs more than 570 people across its Irish and international operations. The company still proudly has its original customer base and product focus, dealing with treatment and pumping of water and wastewater for private residential homes and farms, expanding to encompass commercial and industrial businesses and utility companies across Ireland and Europe.
Now in its second generation of family and non-family management, one of the company’s newest growth areas over the last decade is in the data centre space. “You’d wonder whether the company’s original founders could ever have imagined it would support the delivery of such futuristic activities,” ponders Patrick.
“While the business has grown over the last half century, we are very much rooted where we started,” says Patrick. “By that, I mean that the local group water scheme in West Clare is still as important to us today as is the data centre we are working on in Poland. So, while EPS has expanded internationally, we still work with the farmer in Offaly who needs water for his cattle.
Being part of the Deloitte BMC programme since 2013 provides the company with an annual benchmarking opportunity. “The yearly independent assessment from Deloitte gives us a sense of reality,” says Patrick. “The programme has excellent judges and it is incredibly useful to have people who are external to our business evaluate how we are doing. The annual application process gives us the opportunity to reflect on our progress and strategy. To be affirmed by Deloitte for the eighth year running is, in itself a huge honour, not to mention being named Family Business of the Year.
“The Deloitte BMC Awards are equally important for giving our teams acknowledgement for the fantastic work they do,” says Patrick. “Many other Best Managed Companies are our partners, our customers, suppliers, or indeed, companies we would like to work with. It is a great network to be a part of.”
It’s been another busy year for the company as it expanded its presence in Ireland in January with the acquisition of Industrial Pumps and Process (IPP) Ltd., the Dublin-based, market-leading supplier of pumping and associated plant to the building services and industrial sectors.
Looking to the future, Patrick quotes Hermann Simon, author of ‘Hidden Champions’ who notes that there are three things that make a business successful in the long-term, a focus on growth; market leadership and innovation. “We have our vision and strategic focus at EPS and, whether we achieve this in five or ten years doesn’t matter, but what matters is that we get there, financially stable and financially independent.”