South Dublin Electricians is an electrical contracting company which has enjoyed a quick rise over the past five years. Building Ireland heard all about the company, from its origins to the state of business at the moment, from Managing Director Martin Lavelle recently.
From their centrally located commercial unit in Dublin 12, South Dublin Electricians provides solutions tailored to its clients’ electrical needs right across Dublin City and County.
The company currently employs 18 staff and are proud to offer top-quality home electrical rewiring along with other domestic electrical services.
South Dublin Electricians operate with an expert team of registered and qualified electricians, with customer satisfaction being paramount to the company since ‘Day One’.
Building Ireland touched base with its Managing Director Martin Lavelle to learn all about the ins and outs of what is a thriving and award-winning business.
“We specialise primarily in domestic and commercial maintenance in the south Dublin area,” Martin outlined.
“We’ve vans on the road every day carrying out service jobs, so it’s maintenance and reactive maintenance that we specialise in.”
With a vast and varied customer base, South Dublin Electricians complete commercial and industrial electrical contracts competitively and competently.
These include large corporate or business fit-outs and LED lighting projects for high-visibility clients.
With close to 20 staff in total and half a dozen vans on the road from ‘9 to 5’, the company has enjoyed a quick rise over the past half-decade to the point where it is now “very busy”.
It’s all a far cry from where Martin first started out in the electrical contracting business, as he explained himself.
“I served my time with O’Hara Engineering and following completion of my apprenticeship spent a number of years working for Instrotec, during this time I gained vast experience in the electrical contracting industry and in business operations through the mentoring of Donal Johnston, Instrotec’s founder and managing director. This industry experience and insight was a great help when setting up on my own.
“It definitely had its challenges getting off the ground and competing against established companies but we persevered.
“Looking back at it, a lot of it came down to value for money and quality of work.”
The company’s growth continued into another year in 2020, before the Covid-19 pandemic stalled some of its projects.
Government lockdown this past March closed companies all over Ireland and Martin and his team certainly felt the effects last Spring.
“80% of operations were grounded for eight weeks during the Covid lockdown,” he said.
“However, we did have two guys doing essential work on different projects, so we can’t complain that much I suppose.
“Since May 18th, we’ve found it has been very busy and more people are now spending money to upgrade their homes rather than spending it on a holiday or whatever.
“Another thing is that we also find it easier now to schedule jobs with customers because more and more of them are working from home.”
It seems the jobs keep on coming thick and fast for the company.
Repeat business has been a major aspect of South Dublin Electricians’ success to date and Martin is intent to keep it that way going forward.
“We’ve just finished an Italian restaurant in Rathmines, which is our second one now for Sprezzatura,” he stated.
“We’ve done a couple of period houses in Rathmines and Ranelagh recently, and are currently working on LED lighting fit-outs for a couple of offices and a new gym in Sandyford.”
There’s certainly no shortage of work at South Dublin Electricians, so the burning question is what has been the secret to success thus far?
For Martin, carrying out jobs with quality and a professional service have always been key in this line of work.
“We try and do the simple things right all the time, from the initial point of contact in our call centre, the scheduling of jobs, the continual dialogue with our customer to the branded vans and branded uniforms. Things like that go a long way.
“Right now, we have around 15 lads on the road for us and another three in the office here, so it shows how far we’ve come in the space of five years.
“Hopefully, we can continue to grow like we have been and gain new customers along the way.”
The company’s professionalism was recognised on a national scale at this year’s Irish Enterprise Awards.
South Dublin Electricians won Most Client-Focused Electrical Contractor – Dublin and Excellence in Domestic & Commercial Electrical Services.
Their commitment to high standards was what allowed the company to achieve a success which its Managing Director was delighted with.
“The awards themselves were back in March and it was definitely nice to get that kind of recognition for the company. We were delighted with it,” said Martin.
“I think it reaffirms all of our structures and qualities and that all of the hard work does in fact pay off, which is nice as well.”
Looking towards the months ahead after what has been an unprecedented year with regards to the Covid-19 pandemic, Martin is keen for the business to keep moving in the right direction.
Growth of staff, more vans on the road and award successes certainly show that the signs are positive for the future at South Dublin Electricians.
“Looking forward, we just want to take more of a market share in our area. That’s our goal,” he stated plainly.
“There are 90,000 houses in the south Dublin area, so there’s certainly enough work to go around and we’ll look to grow our customer base again in 2021.
“We’ll carry on with our mantra here which is looking after our customers and looking after our staff as well.”
South Dublin Electricians
Unit 7,
Universal Business Park,
Old Naas Road,
Dublin 12
Tel: (01) 969 6581
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: southdublinelectrician.ie
This article was published in Building Ireland Magazine, January 2021, Vol 7 No 1
