For over 30 years, MAN Commercial Protection has delivered security guarding across a diverse range of businesses. For over 13 years they’ve benefitted from the services of The CFO Centre, helping them achieve growth.
MAN Commercial Protection is a well-established and highly regarded security company working across a wide range of sectors and with vast experience in all areas of the industry.
It remains a family-run business and passed its 30-year anniversary in 2023 which it celebrated by launching a Training Academy. The business’ ethos is to put people at the heart of everything they do, consistently delivering quality and value to their clients.
This steady approach has enabled the business to see year-on-year growth and the building of a loyal customer base and long-standing employee relationships too.
CEO Iain has set his sights on achieving £100m turnover and can’t currently see himself exiting the business that he lives and breathes.
With incredible ambition and appetite for growth, MAN’s CEO, Iain McCallister, describes himself as the hardest working man in the room. He knows the security industry inside out, but recognised he needed specialist expertise to keep expanding the business.
Growth needs funding and, as the business took on new customers, expanded into new sectors and managed ever bigger events, they needed cash flow to cover the delay between delivery and payment.
As a result of having the right team around him, Iain has managed the transition from small to large business with the valued support of The CFO Centre’s Caroline Dodds.
When The CFO Centre first worked with MAN, the priority was on raising funds because the business was trading beyond its overdraft and didn’t have the right funding structure in place to support Iain’s ambitious growth plans. They didn’t have enough focus on cash collection so The CFO Centre got to work with credit control processes and arranged an alternative funders ‘beauty parade’.
Over the ensuing decade and more, we have worked with Iain and his team on building a finance team, implementing processes to provide the right timely management information, establishing a £15m funding facility, and identifying and assessing acquisition targets. This rigour has enabled the business to grow from £5m to £70m in turnover, with a more dedicated, professional and scalable approach to finance.
Caroline Dodds became the fractional CFO for MAN Commercial in 2012. Iain describes her as his trusted advisor and recognises that she provides a critical balance to his entrepreneurial style of working. He makes intuitive, optimistic and passionate decisions from the heart whereas Caroline is more reserved and does the necessary due diligence before making proposals.
One area this has really paid off is during their various pursuits of acquisition targets. They’ve looked at several and Iain is able to make an informed decision based on Caroline’s data – to date this has been to step away from the deal.
Iain feels that Caroline has educated him over the years on how to build a positive relationship with his bank, how to interpret management information and the important role of forecasting and he trusts and values her opinions, knowing she always has the best interests of the business at heart as well as the financials to back up her thinking.
The biggest thing in business is making sure you’re going to get paid. This is the peace of mind, ultimately, that Caroline brings us”
Iain McCallister – CEO of MAN Commercial
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