Andron Facilities Management is a family-owned and run soft facilities management service
provider operating across the UK. Founded in Aberdeen in 1980 by father and son duo, Ron
Stewart Snr and Ron Stewart Jnr, Andron has always been passionate about providing the
highest standards of service, investing in customer relationships and putting its people first.
The company roots lie in the determination of Ron and Ron (the name Andron comes from ‘and Ron’ and the desire to be at the top of The Yellow Pages with a name beginning with ‘A’) to head out on their and do something different with their lives. And, after being made redundant within weeks of each other, they finally found the opportunity to do just that and Andron was born. Starting out cleaning carpets with just a single bottle carpet cleaner, they soon branched out into office cleaning. From there they expanded into shopping centres, and as the retail industry took off, so did they. As new retail centres opened across the UK, Andron won more and more contracts as their solid reputation for providing a first class service spread.
Fast forward to 2024 and Andron has an annual turnover of £70 million with 2,500 employees across the UK. It’s still family owned and managed and has a brand new CEO at the helm, Ron Jr’s daughter, Cheryl Stewart who took over in June. Cheryl has been working at Andron since 2015, starting out as Bid Manager and then joining the board in 2019 as Sales Director, where she looked after the sales, marketing and sustainability side of the business.
“It’s a huge honour to be given the opportunity to step into the role of CEO after my dad and to be able to continue the incredible legacy that he and my grandad built over all those years,” said Cheryl. “It’s a really exciting time for Andron at the moment; we’ve already grown a lot and we’ve still got big growth plans for the future. It’s also an exciting time for the FM industry in general right now; there’s a lot of change and innovation happening and I’m really excited to lead us into the next chapter.”
Remaining family-owned is hugely important to Cheryl and it’s something she feels sets Andron apart from others in the industry. “Family is such a big part of our company culture and it’s important that we stay true to that,” she explains. “In recent years, a lot of our privately-owned competitors have been bought out by large global players and so the fact that we’re still family owned really sets us apart from the competition and allows us to have that personal touch that our customers love.”
Cheryl believes that being family owned enables the company to have a long-term focus on building trusted partnerships. For her, it’s not about taking on new contracts that they can’t deliver on just for the sake of the new business, or about undercutting competitors to win new contracts. It’s always about making sure they can over exceed on clients’ expectations and building long-term, mutually beneficial partnerships that last.
Initial Plans
Cheryl has big plans for her time as CEO, focusing first and foremost on growth. She’s also keen to invest further in Andron’s staff so that they too can join them on the journey. “We’re putting in place a leadership development program to try and retain some of our really loyal employees, many of whom have been with us for a long time and are starting to look for their next career move,” explains Cheryl. “We want to retain those amazing people and ensure that the business is ready for the growth we’re expecting in the coming years.
“We’re also planning to continue our investment in technology, both internally with our processes and also for our customers with data-driven technology. This includes continuing our significant investment in ESG as well. We work hard to understand the changing needs of our customers and what we need to do next to continually evolve. We’ve always been particularly good at looking ahead and being at the forefront of innovation; we’ve never been scared of that and so we’ll be continuing in that way.”
Support Customers’ Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Journeys
Andron builds a bespoke ESG strategy for all of its customers, based on their unique needs and priorities.
“Our big focus recently has been on improving our reporting for customers,” says Cheryl. “Everyone wants to understand what’s coming into their building, what’s going out and how they can make a difference.”
To this end, Andron has worked with some of its supply chain partners to improve the reporting process and to show its customers, right down to building level, key information about a range of sustainability issues. They can report on things like what they’ve saved on plastic by moving to plastic-free solutions, and what the carbon emissions are associated with the products that we’re using.
“We like to ensure that everything we’re bringing into our customers’ buildings is sustainable,” says Cheryl. “We’re always looking at more sustainable options and we make sure that everything goes back to recycling after use.”
Andron is also passionate about the social impact it has on the community. Giving back to local communities has always been important to the company, long before social impact or social value was a buzzword. Rons Jnr and Snr always supported local charities and partnerships, and the company continues to do so on a bigger scale – this includes donating one to two per cent of its profits every year to local charities and project community projects.
And that’s not all. Cheryl is also particularly proud of Andron’s employability program – Inclusive Futures – which was started in 2020 and helps people from disadvantaged backgrounds such as homelessness and care get into work. She explains: “During lockdown I volunteered to drive a food van every morning delivering food to homeless people around Edinburgh. The charity I was working with told me about the challenges they were facing, a key one being that as the people working in their cafes had come from a background of homelessness, they were now facing homelessness again because the cafes were shut and they were being made redundant. I offered one of their workers as job as a cleaner in one of our banks (as a ‘key service’ the banks were allowed to remain open) and he absolutely thrived. From the success of his case, we built a whole program. Since then, we’ve put 18 people through Inclusive Futures and it’s been amazing. We’re working in partnership with a charity called Drive Forward and more recently we’ve been working with Tent UK to support refugees as well.
“Being able to provide meaningful employment and changing people’s lives by giving them an opportunity that they wouldn’t otherwise have had is something really special.”
The Secret to Long Standing Customer Relationships
Andron has many very long-standing customer partnerships, currently averaging 15 years long. How do they do this? In nutshell, they do it by offering premium service delivery and over-exceeding on their customers’ expectations.
“Relationships are key,” says Cheryl. “Staying close to our customers, understanding what their needs are and building a bespoke approach for each of them is vital and goes a long way to building the foundations of a longstanding relationship.” She adds: “We don’t offer a ‘one-size-fits-all’ service; we look at each new contract with a fresh set of eyes and then design something that is fully bespoke and the best fit for that customer. People like that about us.
“It also helps that we work so closely with our customers that we inherently understand their changing needs as time goes on. Everything’s always evolving, customers’ portfolios are always changing, and so are their needs. We’re able to anticipate those changes and then implement adaptations without needing to be asked or waiting until the tender comes around again. We’re always at the forefront of innovation and always trying to add value to our contracts.”
Finally, Cheryl says, it’s about delivering on your promises. “Anyone can say they’ll do something at the tender stage but then not actually follow through when it comes to it. Our customers always say that whatever we’ve said we’ll do, we’ve not only done it, but also gone over and above.”
People First Culture
Andron is proud of its people first culture and believes that people are its most important asset. 80% of Andron’s contracts are now paying the Real Living Wage. “We’re proud of this and it’s something we advocate to our clients all the time,” says Cheryl. “We strongly believe that if you look after your people, your people look after your customers.”
On top of the Real Living Wage, Andron also invests in better benefits for its staff, such as enhanced sick pay, virtual GP appointments, a compressed four-day working week, as well as annual employee awards.
Cheryl says: “It’s important to us that our people feel valued and recognised so we can retain a really good workforce, especially in an industry which is renowned for a high turnover. People really do love working for us and I think that is down to our people first culture.”
Looking to the Future
The future is definitely bright for Andron. With some prestigious new contract wins – including the cleaning and waste services contract for the Crown Estate in London – the company has grown considerably. They now have 18 managers within central London alone.
“It’s been a busy and exciting few years, full of new contracts and growth,” Cheryl says. “I’m very excited to see where we go from here.”
For more information about Andron, please visit https://www.andron.co.uk/
