From £60k to nearly £3 million in the first 5 years: how Kendra grew its Scottish Division
On 5th October 2020, Kendra officially launched its Scottish Division. An exciting move for the business and the final piece of the puzzle in becoming a truly nationwide operation.
At the helm was Raymond Timoney, who joined Kendra as Scotland’s first Regional Manager. He began building the division from the ground up, starting out with just one engineer and one client on the books.
Fast forward to 2026 and things look very different. The Scottish team is now 19-strong with more onboarding over the next few months. Now a profitable Kendra division, it works with clients across nearly every sector and is already exceeding its profit targets for 2026.
How did it achieve all this in 6 years? I caught up with Raymond, who has now stepped into a Business Development Manager role, Graeme Cole, who took over as Scotland’s Regional Manager and Regional Operations Manager, Steven Stewart, to find out.
Raymond Timoney
Kickstarting growth with an early acquisition
It didn’t take long for our team in Scotland to outgrow its first home. Shortly after launch, the two-man operation moved into a small Kendra office in Bishopbriggs but within a year, staff numbers suddenly shot up.
This was due to a key acquisition. In August 2021, Kendra acquired BMS Energy, a former Scottish controls company. The deal brought four new engineers onboard and new customers in the central belt, up north and in Aberdeen.
As the business division grew, so did those within it
Going from two to 19 people in just four years is some serious growth. For the first two years, Raymond ran the ship by himself but by June 2022, it was time to bring in help. Graeme joined, initially as Regional Operations Manager, to support the growing team and free up time for Raymond.
Just four months later, in October 2022, Steven joined as Project Manager to help the team handle a large volume of incoming projects. From there, things snowballed, and in 2024, Raymond, Graeme and Steven moved into their current roles.
In 2025, they needed a bigger space and moved into their third Kendra office at the Wright Business Centre in Glasgow, where they’re still based.
“Today, we have a great team of 10 engineers, each one of them are all good guys. We’ve got two administrators, a Small Works Manager, Project Manager and Account Manager. If you add the three of us, that makes up our office-based team.” Graeme says.
In line with Kendra as a whole, Scotland’s management team puts a lot of focus on developing its people. Sometimes, this meant bringing people in who are brand new to the industry and helping them build knowledge and skills.
Graeme added “People we brought in who were new to the industry have grown with the business, which is great to look back on. A couple of our engineers came in as Kendra fast-track recruits. We’ve trained them up over time and seeing them develop alongside the division has been amazing.”
Steven Stewart
Then came the big Kendra contracts
When the Scottish Division launched, it had just one contract worth around £60,000 a year. By 2025, its order book had grown to £2.9 million.
The driver behind that growth is hard work. While the acquisition of BMS Energy early on helped, the contracts inherited through that acquisition were relatively small. Today, the team is winning contracts three times the value of those they took on in 2021.
Over the last three years, the team won several substantial maintenance contracts, including National Galleries of Scotland, Standard Life and St James’s Quarter.
Turning growth into profit
Getting the Scottish division into profit was a major milestone. For the first couple of years, the team was supported by the wider Kendra business while they built the division up.
“It was hard work. We were all working around the clock to get to this point, but in 2025, we made it happen. That’s when the Scottish division became profitable” says Steven. “Gary Ford (one of Kendra’s owners) said to us: ‘Get to that £2 million turnover and once you hit that, you’ll be fine.’ And we did. We’ve exceeded that now and we’re still growing” says Steven.
Finding a new rhythm
As the Scottish division grew, so did its structure.
“When we first started, it was a blank canvas. Steven’s done a great job implementing processes with the delivery team and it’s helped with everything. It keeps things running smoothly” Graeme says.
“It helps the engineers, too. They know where they’re going. There’s no panic. Steven runs a very tight ship. The administrators in the office are on top of it, too. The structure is remarkable now. At the start it was all systems go. You had to be reactive and ready to go somewhere at a moment’s notice” said Raymond.
Steven adds: “I wouldn’t say there’s no panic. It’s just me panicking, everyone else is OK!”
Some of the team in Kendra Glasgow office
Never letting anybody down
The team say their biggest strengths are threefold: teamwork, building strong customer relationships and customer retention.
Collectively, they have a strong mix of skills and are always willing to help each other out. A pattern seen throughout the wider Kendra business. If someone doesn’t know the answer to a problem, they reach out to another teammate who does and if nobody knows, they’ll find an answer together.
“We get great feedback from customers” says Raymond. “We were at a meeting recently with a maintenance customer at a hospital and the head of BMS shared feedback from his staff. They said everything they’ve called us in to fix, we’ve fixed, and there’s never been a problem.
“They’ve got four or five different BMS systems onsite and most people don’t want to touch them or get involved. But for us, it’s not an issue.”
For Graeme, the team’s approach to customer relationships is at the heart of the division’s growth because it’s led to strong retention.
“I’d say retention is our biggest strength, and that comes down to the way we treat our clients. We’re always honest and transparent and work with them to resolve problems. That’s what’s allowed us to grow. Even from a project perspective, I think that’s why we get lots of work. We look after our clients.”
Celebrating Kendra’s birthday
Other pieces of the puzzle
Apart from strong customer relationships, the team highlight other things that have worked in their favour; from industry partnerships here at Kendra to the people they’ve brought in.
“Some of our growth comes down to the strong partnerships Kendra has built with manufacturers, like Schneider, Trend and other big players. Those relationships have helped” Raymond says.
“Building a strong team has been a crucial aspect, too. We’ve retained good people and given them the opportunity to develop” says Steven. “A couple of the guys who joined us through the BMS Energy acquisition are still here and they’re some of our longest-serving engineers. We’re trying to keep that going and build a team where people want to stay.”
Kendra; part of a bigger picture
It’s not just the Scottish division that’s been changing. Kendra has gone through a number of recent changes at a company-wide level, including senior role changes and a structure reshuffle. A new Energy Services and ROC division have come onboard, strengthening and diversifying Kendra’s core service offering.
The Scottish team has got onboard with Kendra’s expanding service list over the last six years.
“Kendra as a whole is moving in the right direction and Scotland’s keeping up” says Raymond. “The Kendra PROActiv team are regularly up here installing smart energy and analytics platforms and we’ve just started working with the ROC division, too.”
What comes next for Kendra in Scotland?
The plan for the Kendra Scottish Division is simple: keep growing, but make sure the foundations are there to support it.
On the sales side, the team is continuing to look for opportunities to grow, with new engineers and salespeople due to join over the next few months. The focus is on hitting targets while continuing to improve what they do.
Operationally, the next step is strengthening the project management team so they can handle a higher level of revenue while making the workload more consistent.
But while growth is the goal, the team knows its success so far largely comes down to its people; relationships they’ve built with each other, industry partners and, crucially, customers.
“Word of mouth and repeat business have been at the heart of Kendra’s growth in Scotland” says Raymond. “We don’t let anyone down. We never have, and we never will.”
Graeme Cole
Get in touch
To speak to our team in Scotland, email scotland@kendraenergy.co.uk or call our Glasgow office: 0141 732 8650
