TVD Group drives its business forward

Bolton-based TVD Group recently appointed a new leadership structure as part of ambitious growth plans. Simon King headed to the company’s HQ to meet Lucia Maguire, the newly appointed Managing Director of the business.

TVD Group is one of the leading UK providers in audio visual solutions, which celebrated its 25-year anniversary in 2021 and achieved a record-breaking turnover of £18.7 million in 2021/22 having emerged from the pandemic in a position of strength.

The company was founded in 1996 by Jim Brown and his sons Mat and Dan. The family-run business operates across six divisions, including TVC, which provides and installs technology solutions in commercial environments including Hospitality, Betting and Gaming, Retail and Healthcare; TVD B2B, a leading business-to-business supplier of electronic goods, and Mitchell and Brown, its own British TV Brand.

As part of the new structure, company co-founder Mat Brown has taken up the role of CEO and will continue to lead major corporate decisions and oversee the business. Lucia Maguire has been appointed Managing Director, having worked for the business as Head of Strategy for almost three years.

She was previously Executive Director for a leading UK tour and hotel operator, and in her new role she is working to oversee business performance, daily operations, and help to formulate and facilitate the achievement of TVD Group’s ambitious strategic aims.

Ms Maguire said: “We are striving towards another record year of revenue, which is by no means an easy task in the current financial and geopolitical context, so a continued team effort and business resilience will be vital in creating our success.”

When Ms Maguire joined TVD Group, her job was to do an audit of the business, which included looking at each area and seeing how it was performing. She then wrote a white paper on what she thought could be done in the business and was then tasked with implementing some of that. “We were doing pretty well and then COVID came” she said. “It was about navigating the business through that period, we had certain elements of the business that really dropped off, like the pub installations because no hospitality was open.”

“Our retail store in Leigh and TVD B2B did really well during that period, not having all our eggs in one basket paid dividends. We were able to maintain the workforce and were able to push forward in other areas. The business stuck to its strategy and has done very well.”

Looking at the various sectors TVD Group operates in, Ms Maguire said that the pub installations side of the business isn’t quite back up to pre-pandemic levels. “There’s quite a bit of growth to come back there” she said. “Leisure facilities, like indoor entertainment venues, are really taking off and we’re doing quite a lot in the betting industry.”

“We’ve seen really great growth on the retail side of things during the pandemic, which was fantastic and really kept the business going. At the minute, it’s tricky out there, because of the cost-of-living crisis.”

“On the B2C side, digital signage is going to be huge, people want these LED screens; they can help to engage with their clients better and they’re seeing this as a way of doing that.”

With the supply chain challenges in the sector, Ms Maguire said that the business has been lucky with the availability. That being said, she said that Mitchell and Brown is really the rising star of the business. “We are six years into it now and it’s grown every year and we are predicting that will carry on.”

Ms Maguire reports that Mitchell and Brown is available in more than 200 stores across the UK. “We’ve just launched our new Mitchell and Brown website that has a retailer login section, so retailers can go in and download marketing assets” she said. “We’re always on hand – the founder of the business is literally a phone call away for people, there’s not many businesses that give that kind of access.”

Looking ahead she said: “We want a bigger market share of all the market we’re operating in. We’re focusing on what we do really well, and we don’t want to get distracted.” “We’re not looking at any acquisitions, we’re looking at organic, sustainable growth, because there’s enough out there for us to get.”

As well as an internal restructure, TVD Group is investing significantly in the business, with an expansion to its Bolton HQ set to include a new state-of-the-art showroom showcasing the latest technology available to the industry.

Ms Maguire said: “It will be a fantastic showroom, the only technology showroom outside of London and we’ve had fantastic support from our industry partners, who will be displaying their products, and people are queuing to give us products they can put into it.”

Thank you to IER Magazine for the incredible feature: https://www.ierdaily.co.uk/