Clear vision: Val King

The Rooflight Company would make an interesting case study for any budding business student. Since setting it up in 1993, owners Peter and Val King have increased staff from one to 70 and turnover to several million pounds a year.

They have done this without taking out a loan, or being in debt.

Building a content, motivated workforce has been an important part of their strategy.

But perhaps most importantly, they have played to their separate strengths. Mr King, an architect, is responsible for the creative side, while Mrs King, who worked for several years in international marketing, is responsible for running the business.

The company, based in Shipton-under-Wychwood, makes specialist and bespoke rooflights. Aimed at the high-end of the market, it came about in the late 1980s, when Mr King was working on listed properties in an exclusive Hampstead suburb.

Heavily protected by a trust, dormer windows were not allowed in loft conversions, so he designed a rooflight that looked like cast-iron, but was made of galvanised steel, double-glazed and draught-stripped.

Calling it the conservation rooflight, he then decided that to ensure complete control, he would set up a company to assemble and sell the product.

Mrs King explained: "To begin with they went into all sorts of historic buildings, including listed homes, residential properties, but also large buildings like the Natural History Museum and Kensington Palace."

The firm also offered a bespoke service, which helped establish new products, such as the pyramid, plateau and studio ranges.

About three years ago, they started targeting the contemporary market more and have windows in buildings by high-profile architects such as Zaha Hadid and Will Alsop.

They have also spent the last couple of years developing a brand new contemporary design called the Neo, which will be launched in January.

Mrs King said: "It's modernist in terms of materials. The whole idea is that it just looks like a flat piece of glass in the roof from the inside and outside.

"But it does open, it does have blinds, it has electric openings and you can have any inside lining that you like,"

"Design has always been at the very heart of the company's success, so this is our break into the contemporary world of architecture."

She believes it will be successful internationally, taking the company in a whole new direction.

"The conservation rooflight is principally a British product, because steel rooflights are principally a British product. It's a Victorian type of design from the industrial steel world, but this is completely international."

They intend to compete by marketing directly to architects on the basis of its aesthetic appearance, functionality and also sustainability.

Mrs King said: "It's a product which will last a long time. Also its thermal properties are very good."

About 80 per cent of the firm's marketing budget is targeted towards architects and house builders.

"We're more expensive than others, so we do market towards listed property homeowners and the Grand Designs' type."

When the Kings moved to Oxfordshire, they had a deliberate policy of wanting to work in pleasant places and they chose rural areas partly for that reason. Their other site is in Gloucestershire.

Staff wellbeing has always been an important part of the company's philosophy.

"We're not here to not make money, but we want to do it in a fair way," Mrs King said.

"It's about looking after people but still being commercially aware of what we have to do."

They do this in various ways, including offering free fruit and physiotherapy treatment, funding courses (including MBAs) and providing departmental budgets for fun activities.

For the last few years Mrs King has run the company as part-time managing director.

Given the phenomenal growth the company has undergone, averaging 18 per cent a year, how did that happen?

"The success has been very much through the management team and Paul Herbert who was general manager for seven years."

As Mrs King has recently stepped down, he is now the managing director.

She continued: "I wanted to do some business mentoring for charities, voluntary organisations and for small businesses.

"I've got two children and I wanted to spend more time with them, and I knew Paul was more than capable of doing the job."

Meanwhile, Mr King has gone back to building design, running his own company called Carden King.

He still oversees the design team of six and as he co-chairs, the couple are still fully involved in the running of the business.

Perhaps one sentence epitomises the essence of the company. Written on some A3 paper in Mrs King's office, it reads: Bad ironmongery haunts me.' It is the mark of someone with passion and perhaps that is ultimately why the company is so successful.

4:53pm Thursday 18th October 2007

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