Technical focus

Nationwide Autocentres has been announced as one of top performers in the annual league table of Britain’s fastest growing private companies. They achieved the number 57 position in the prestigious "Sunday Times Virgin Atlantic Fast Track 100" and are the highest placed company from the automotive sector. The league table identifies exceptional turnover growth over the past three years, a period which has seen Nationwide Autocentres, who are based in Solihull, West Midlands, become the UK’s largest vehicle servicing network. With 214 centres in the UK, they now service more than 50,000 vehicles every month and perform more than 250,000 MOT tests every year. The company won the industry’s "Repairer of the Year" award for both 2003 and 2004. Nationwide Autocentre was formed in 2001 as a result of an MBI of the Lex Autocentre business, with funds from a venture capitalist MBGI and Bank of Scotland. Since then the business has grown exponentially from only 45 initial autocentres, to 180 autocentres in 2003, and now the current 214. The entrepreneurial management team all have shopfloor experience and have managed to turn a loss-making network into a £78 million business. The Fast Track 100 bases its results on turnover figures between 2001 and 2004, which saw Nationwide Autocentres increase sales by 78% a year. As well as investing in people, Nationwide Autocentres is also driving to become the UK’s leading technically based service and repair specialist, last year making a £500,000 investment in new technology. It now has 18 mobile technical support units operating throughout the UK, complete with state of the art equipment and ready to support their network of centres whenever more advanced diagnostics are required.