Victoria’s MD journey begins with regional roadshow success

It was just ten days ago when I started my new position at the helm Perfect Circle and you could say it was ‘perfect timing’. The roadshows had been planned long before I accepted the role – but they have been a great way to get to meet so many people involved in the partnership.

As well as the senior management board members of the founding shareholders AECOM, Gleeds and Pick Everard, I was able to meet regional leads and some of the wider teams and hear views on the way Perfect Circle can become even stronger and better serve its clients.

Perfect Circle was formed in 2016 to deliver nationally on the four-year £350 million Built Environment Consultancy Services (BECS) framework for Scape Group, the public sector owned built environment specialist. Now just two years on, Perfect Circle is achieving targets and delivering a staggering 750 projects to more than 220 clients.

Perfect Circle offers property, construction and infrastructure consultancy services, delivering real value with full procurement compliance to any public sector client across the UK. The unique Scape framework model provides for clients to direct-award without wasting time in additional procurement – with framework delivery teams providing social value and investing in innovation, as their resources are not tied up in extensive bid costs.

We are also engaging a growing and essential supply chain, many of whom are SMEs which we see as vital to the ongoing success of Perfect Circle and the local approach to shaping an expert delivery team for public sector clients.

Having spent the last five years at Scape in two key roles and almost 20 years prior to that working client side, I intend on bringing my broad knowledge of working in the public sector to ensure the Perfect Circle clients receive outstanding levels of service and we exceed their highest expectations.

So, what were the discussion points at the January roadshows? As always, we talk about collaboration. ‘Collaboration’ can be an overused word but for a business such as Perfect Circle, where we have three founding shareholder organisations, partnership and teamwork are at our core. We are so successful at collaboration that we are now one of the largest consultancies in the UK – with a vast supply chain of more than 500 built environment experts.

There was particular focus on working with SMEs, and how we can encourage as many companies as possible to work with Perfect Circle to form the best team for the client. We are committed to achieving the Government target of 25% spend with our SME supply chain.

There are many benefits to working as part of the Perfect Circle supply chain. It is an opportunity for SMEs to grow their organisations and gain additional expertise – as well as secure a pipeline of projects through Perfect Circles highly efficient, direct award, route-to-market for clients. On top of this is prompt payment, a critical factor for sustainable growth for SMEs.

The teams looked at ways that suppliers can safely bring opportunities to Perfect Circle, to introduce clients and projects which can embrace a wrap-around service provision where everyone benefits and achieves the best project outcomes for local communities.

Perfect Circle is one of the most exciting ventures to happen in the built environment sector and there are so many possibilities to benefit so many organisations, suppliers and clients.

So, while the first Perfect Circle roadshows for 2019 have come to an end, the next stage of development is just beginning. Listening to all the contributions from the regional teams, we will be adopting new ways of working to constantly improve what we are doing – and we are innovating to reset the industry norms.