SJUK speaks exclusively with Paul Fitzgerald, Managing Director at HKC about the company’s relationship with ASSA ABLOY and the roll out of a new, UK growth strategy.
Paul joined Irish intruder equipment specialist HKC in February 2022 as Head of Sales & Marketing. A little over a year later, he became its managing director. Now 9 months into role, Paul is looking forward to seeing his strategic UK growth plan, which has been months in the making, start to take shape in 2024.
Paul started his career in the security as a process engineer for GE Security – an American multinational company best known for its work in the power, renewable energy and aerospace industries –25 years ago. He spent several years managing production lines and implementing new products during which time he acquired more skills as a project manager becoming a Lean Six Sigma black belt in the process.
This marked something of a turning point, says Paul, explaining “I found myself doing more customer related activity and became a customer advocacy leader, so suddenly, I was facing customers as opposed to being very internally focused on manufacturing and the production environment. I did a good job in a lot of places and after a period, I was offered an opportunity to move over into sales and look after several key accounts.” After almost 20 years with GE Security, Paul was asked to do a bit more on the fire side with UTC Fire & Security, in addition to his Country Manager role, but with less of a focus on Ireland.
In 2019, Paul moved to G4S as Sales Director for the monitoring business in the UK and Ireland. Paul explains, “I was supporting a lot of UK colleagues with monitoring related technology-based opportunities to enhance the offering. The role at HKC came about purely though chance. I’d gone in there to talk about all things monitoring and shortly afterwards, I was offered the role of Sales & Marketing Director for the entire HKC business.” Paul’s remit was to develop the markets in the UK and further afield. Little did he know that the Managing Director who hired him had a longer-term plan to retire from the business. “So, there was an opportunity to put my name forward and in March 2023 I was offered the role of Managing Director for the HKC business.” Established in 1990, HKC is already well established in Ireland and while it’s had a presence in the UK with just a small sales team and distribution hub in Littleborough for just over 12 years, its growth has been.
HKC was acquired by ASSA ABLOY in 2018, as Paul explains: “The ambition is greater now under ASSA ABLOY to do to do more. When I came on board, one of the things we did was expand the sales team up to six people with a good geographical split that allowed them to cultivate partnerships as locally as possible. That started to work, we were building stronger relationships with our distribution partners, and we also had a lot of plans in the background with respect to product. We did a lot of focus group research to find out what the industry was looking for.”
With the company’s new growth strategy gaining moment, halfway through 2023 HKC took the opportunity to move its “little distribution centre” into ASSA ABLOY’s main centre in Willenhall. “We effectively closed the operation in Littleborough but retained the staff because of their value to our business, so they now work remotely.”
The move has given far greater access to ASSA ABLOY’s resources as a major UK supplier of door opening solutions. What’s more, Paul is just about to appoint a marketing lead for the business as well. “That’s key. Despite being founded in 1990, HKC has never had a marketing department. It just grew by product reputation and by the force and quality of the salespeople and backup of the office. As Head of Sales and Marketing I had command of but there wasn’t a marketing function to steer and manage. So, we worked with several third parties to try to promote the brand. To have someone laser focused on marketing strategy and the execution of it, that’s a significant investment and step forward from my point of view. So that person will come in and be solo runner for a period, but they are being brought in to lead the function as we work towards developing that team and the strategy and the investment as we grow.”
Paul continues, “ASSA ABLOY is trying to lend strength of its brand to our brand, which has opened a few more doors. We’re looking to collaborate a little bit more with our ASSA ABLOY colleagues to see how we can bring the HKC name to more customers.
HKC only sells to the licenced professional installer. “We sell through distribution predominantly; in Ireland it’s 99% distribution and then onwards to the licenced installer. We only train and give access to our engineering tools to licenced installers. In the UK, it’s probably more direct installer relationships, but that’s historical based on building share in the market and acquiring some direct installers, but predominantly, again, it’s a distribution market as far as we’re concerned. We’ve adhered to that, and we’ve been very loyal to that channel, more loyal than maybe some of our competitors. I suppose that’s what disruption is, it’s other ways and methods of gaining ground. But we’ve stuck to our task, and I suppose we’ve had such great success and that loyalty, that we’re not willing to waver from that just yet.”
The UK strategy says Paul, is weaved around three pillars. “One will obviously be product; we need to bring new products to market, so we will be doing that this year. And we can’t bring those new product developments out without having a marketing map to follow, so we will invest in more marketing than done before.
“The third says Paul, is about engaging more with ASSA ABLOY in terms of the doors they can open. “There’s lots of colleagues we can collaborate with, whether it be at marketing level or sales level to extend our reach and enhance the brand recognition of HKC.” 2024 looks set to be a very exiting year.
As the conversation draws to a close, Paul reflects on his early aspirations. “I always wanted to be an engineer. I was one of those tinkering kids at home, taking things apart so I could put them back together again.” He went on to win a Bachelor Technology, Product Management degree at the University of Limerick College, with early roles as a Process Engineer at InnRoom Controls, and a Senior Process Engineer focused on the implementation of cellular manufacturing, with Aritech prior to joining GE Security.
Paul has picked up several nuggets of advice during his 25 plus years in the industry, a key one, he says, is really believing and listening to customers. “Take heed of those early warnings, if you’re hearing something from more than one customer, that somebody is doing something somewhere which is pretty much lined up to come through, you can’t ignore it, especially of you are hearing it more than one or two times in a few places.”
On his leadership style, Paul says: “I’m not and won’t be a name known in the industry because I’ve always just let other people do what they’re good at doing, you won’t see me at awards and events nights. Or at least, very, very infrequently. I might pop up and I’ll be in the background somewhere, but the person accepting that award should be the person who did the work to get that award, not somebody who’s leader of the business necessarily. I might steer the ship, but there’s people rowing at the same time.”
An under fifteens football coach and a scout leader, Paul is a “team player” both in work and life: “It’s not about me. It’s about the 15 footballers on the pitch; it’s the scouts building the tent. All you can do is give them a little bit of direction and the trust to make it happen themselves, because you employ the people to do that job with the skills they have, so they are the engine that gets you there.”
Paul is very proud of the team that he has and is excited about the addition of a marketing function to propel the brand forward in 2024. “When I see all the hard work that’s been put in by the team prior to me coming onboard and having competed with them for many, many years, I always ask, “how have they done this?” This great team of people has longevity; there are people who have worked for HKC for 25-30 years who have just poured their heart and soul into doing the right thing every day for the customer.
“I’d like to see the brand go further to testify to the work that has been done and for those people to take joy in and get recognition for how far the brand has climbed.”