By Business & Finance 
Paul Nicholls is the Co-owner and Group MD of Designer Group, an Irish-owned company headquartered in Ireland. The firm operates across the Energy, Industry, and Life Sciences sectors, specialising in core Building Services and Data Centres.
What are your main priorities and goals in your role?
In reality my priorities change over time. When I first joined the business in 2022, my main focus was to understand the business, to get to know the people in the business and to get to know the clients that we worked for. That took a number of months, but I felt it was important to fully understand the business before I made any changes, and I did make some changes, ones that made a big difference to us.
Right now, the main priority is to sustainably grow the business and improve the profit margins. This involves ensuring we are set up for growth, that we have the teams with the skills to deliver in our chosen sectors and that we only take on the right projects for the business.
What are your biggest challenges as Group MD?
I like to think that I take all the challenges in my stride, but there are certainly some that cause me more worry than others. I suppose, like our priorities, the challenges are constantly changing, sometimes on a daily basis. In our industry, safety is always a concern. You invest in the people, the systems, the tools etc, to try to ensure that all our people are always safe, but there is always a risk of accidents in large scale construction projects. We try to minimise that risk as far as is possible and encourage our people to be constantly vigilant in their work. Thankfully, as an industry, we have made huge strides in terms of safety, and it is a far cry from the industry I joined over 25 years ago, but it’s a constant battle that we fight every single day.
What’s the best advice you’ve been given, or would give, in business?
That’s a tough one to answer. It’s hard to pick one single piece of advice.
I pride myself on always being open to receiving advice and to be willing to learn all the time. I might like to think I’m always right, but I’m certainly not foolish enough to believe that it is the case!
The one piece of advice that does come to mind is to always ensure the customer is happy. Deliver the best possible project or service for them and most clients will treat you fairly, collaborate with you and give you plenty of repeat work.
The piece of advice I would give to others would be to be straight with people. Don’t dance around an issue, come straight out and say what you are thinking. I certainly live by that code.
What are the challenges facing the industry going forward?
Probably the biggest challenge facing the industry going forward is availability of labour and management staff for projects. It’s a global issue at the moment and that’s why it is so important to hold on to your best staff.
At Designer Group we invest heavily in our people. They are the business. We don’t try to babysit them, we expect a hard day’s work but in return we reward our people well. We want people to want to work with us and to enjoy it. Thankfully, there are a lot of people who do want to work with us. They see the advantages of working with an Irish owned, family type business. We try to gain their respect by being open and honest with them and I think that works really well.
Are there any major changes you would like to see in your sector?
I think the changes that would bring the most benefit for everyone would be to look at the contracting model. The traditional model of pricing a project and committing to a fixed price is not fit for purpose in today’s industry. The bigger and the more complex the projects become, the bigger the risk for the contractor and the less attractive it becomes. If the clients were to enter into a partnership of sorts with the contractor at an early stage on the project, they would see the benefit of this in terms of programme delivery, cost and overall constructability. The benefits, including the collaboration between the parties, would outweigh the wrongly perceived lack of competitive tension.
How do you define success and what drives you to succeed?
I have a very simple definition of success and that is, being the best at what you do. We don’t have to be the biggest, but we have to be the best. A lot of companies wrongly get fixated on turnover and they don’t see that the turnover will come if they ensure they are delivering for their clients. The key is being the best at what you do.
I am quite a driven person and that obviously transfers into my business life, which means I am always challenging myself, always wanting to do better. I also challenge those around me, encouraging them to be the best and to keep their standards really high. At Designer Group, we are blessed with a really strong and ambitious management team and workforce within the business and that makes it so much easier when we are all driving in the same direction with one common goal.
What’s next for your company?
Having achieved substantial growth over the past number of years, 2024 was about consolidation of the business. It has been about making sure we have the right people, the right systems and the right process in place to allow us to take that next step in our growth trajectory.
So, what’s next for us is sustainable growth with improved profit margins to allow us to invest further in the business and our people. A lot of this growth will be in Europe in the Energy and Data Centre sectors.
What is the best book you’ve ever read (non-business) and why?
I must say I am not an avid reader of books. I enjoy listening to podcasts and reading the business media. However, the one book that does come to mind is “Outliers” by Malcolm Gladwell. For me, it was very insightful and explains that to be really top of your game you must put in the hours. That magical 10,000 hours, which is a lot of time, but that’s what it takes to really excel at anything. It resonates with me. I grew up on a farm in South Leitrim and both my parents, particularly my Dad, instilled a really strong work ethic in me. Nothing is easy in farming in the West of Ireland, but it is something I am really proud of and I believe is the main reason I am where I am today.
What is your favourite hobby and why?
I don’t get enough time for hobbies to be honest. My main priority outside of work is my family. Apart from that, when I do manage to get some down time, I enjoy going to the gym, cycling and motor sport.
I also turn my hand to a bit of DIY. I have always been quite practical and enjoy building things. I get great satisfaction out of completing projects around the house, although being a perfectionist can sometimes make that less rewarding!
What is your mantra for life?
I suppose for me it is work hard, do everything you do to the best of your ability and learn from your mistakes
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