Eco-Renovation and Success Story, from 80 to 1800 Employees with a smile!

This article is a summary of episode 17 of the podcast The Builders. Exchange between Richard Mitha and Philippe Benquet, president of the Acorus group. In the Les Bâtisseurs podcast, Richard Mitha, serial-entrepreneur, CEO of Synaxe, interviews industry visionaries to inspire you in your own environmental, digital, and managerial transformation.

Acorus Guiding Principles

In this episode, we invite Philippe Benquet, president of the Acorus group. He shares with us his three guiding principles for his business. The first is to focus on the service rather than on construction, by specializing in renovation. The second is from create jobs and to work with teams in order to offer a quality service in the long term. The third principle is toprogressively expand the company's competencies to include other areas required for the maintenance and renovation of buildings.

Acorus recruitment and growth strategy

Philippe Benquet, president of the Acorus Group, discusses the growth of its business and its strategy of recruitment. He points out that their market offers constant recruitment opportunities and that they are open to hiring good candidates. They also worked with an external recruiter for coaching and created an internal recruitment firm. This allowed them to recruit a high percentage of women as business leaders. Philippe Benquet explains that these acquisitions were made for extend their area of action and add new jobs, types of customers and geographies.

This episode highlights the Acorus company and its evolution from its beginnings as a plumber to its current growth as a specialist in eco-renovation. Acorus is positioned as a company that improves the lives of people in their buildings through ecological renovations. They offer a complete range of services, ranging from study and design to the maintenance and management of building equipment. This episode also discusses the reuse of materials, a real current topic, in order to avoid waste and promote the circular economy. Hervé de Maistre, President of Valobat, is part of this process of reuse and use of materials. During our interview, he told us that he trusted industry players to adopt these so-called responsible best practices. It encourages manufacturers, distributors, and construction sites to sort waste more efficiently and to reuse recycled materials in their manufacturing process.

Introduction of lean in construction

Philippe Benquet and Richard Mitha discuss the introduction of Lean in the construction sector. Philippe explains that he contacted Patrick Dupin, a consultant specializing in the application of lean to construction, after reading a book on the subject. He explains that lean consists in identifying wastes and to solve them. Philippe Benquet, highlights the waste associated with the managerial posture of construction managers, who are often in command-control mode. Construction managers are constantly called upon by telephone, which leads to stress and a waste of time. Philippe and Patrick worked with the best construction managers in their company to find solutions to this problem.

Transformation and corporate culture

It is an episode that highlights the experience of Philippe Benquet, who shares his experience of transformation of his company, Acorus, by adopting an approach of trust and accountability employees. By eliminating unnecessary calls and promoting direct communication between technicians and customers, the company has grown significantly. Technicians gained confidence and autonomy, which allowed them to broaden their skills and provide higher value-added services, such as providing quotes and advice.

Philippe Benquet, business manager, discusses the mark and corporate culture. It highlights the need to further formalize the identity of Acorus in order to reassure new employees and customers. The company focuses on customer service, the communication, theinformation And the tips. The Acorus brand is based on the principle of “shared smile”, symbolizing the satisfaction of employees, customers and the company itself. Acorus also wants to be committed to an approach decarbonating. Nicolas Cruaud, co-founder and CEO of Neolithe, in episode 8 of The Builders, gave us a similar opinion. Indeed, he is committed every day to diversifying his offer and honors a strong corporate culture, for Nicolas like Philippe, to maintain a culture of collaboration is a key to success.

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