The Principle—no
Job half-done

Just estab­lish­ing val­ues is not enough. You have to live them. That is often eas­i­er in fam­i­ly busi­ness­es with a rich tra­di­tion. They are the busi­ness­es whose for­mu­las often sound amaz­ing­ly sim­ple, feel time­less and become “clas­sics.” Just like Dutch build­ing com­pa­ny Ten Brinke, estab­lished in 1902 as a local con­struc­tion busi­ness: “My father taught me that you should always build with pas­sion,” says CEO Wim ten Brinke. Pas­sion, passed on from one gen­er­a­tion to the next, is cen­tral to Wim ten Brinke too.

But pas­sion? Is that still pos­si­ble? Par­tic­u­lar­ly in such a tough sec­tor? “Admit­ted­ly, it’s get­ting ever more dif­fi­cult,” Wim ten Brinke says. This is why he is build­ing a firm strate­gic foun­da­tion and based on solid prin­ci­ples: “The projects we pre­fer and almost always take on”, says the CEO, “are those where our com­pa­ny per­forms every phase, from plan­ning and site acqui­si­tion right up to hand­ing over the keys.”

If you want top points for client sat­is­fac­tion, it is impor­tant to iden­ti­fy with your work and the com­mon goals of a project. Ten Brinke there­fore uses its own exper­tise across the entire value chain so as to pro­vide ben­e­fits for clients in con­struc­tion time, qual­i­ty and value for money. Any­thing assumed to be unavoid­able in con­struc­tion projects, i.e., unnec­es­sary delays, cost­ly amend­ments dur­ing build­ing or repairs fol­low­ing com­ple­tion and the asso­ci­at­ed non-con­for­mance costs, and the gru­el­ing argu­ments between con­tract­ing par­ties often aris­ing from a lack of trans­paren­cy, is dras­ti­cal­ly reduced. “Our ulti­mate tar­get is the over­all result. For the desired result, coop­er­a­tion between project devel­op­ment, plan­ning and con­struc­tion oper­a­tions has to be per­fect. In our com­pa­ny, project devel­op­ers and builders are one team: “Every­one has their own project, which sup­ports the com­mon goal—and that’s what counts at the end”, says the CEO, and here is where he has also sought the advice of Porsche Consulting’s man­age­ment consultants.

Clients with high demands appre­ci­ate the val­ues of fam­i­ly busi­ness­es as many of them are fam­i­ly busi­ness­es them­selves. In the com­mer­cial sec­tor, Ten Brinke builds local branch­es for large dis­count gro­cery stores, build­ing sup­plies stores and spe­cial­ist retail­ers or vehi­cle deal­er­ships. It also builds logis­tics cen­ters for large tex­tile mer­chants, hos­pi­tals, schools, stu­dent res­i­dences or care homes and hotels. Even BioN­Tech, the suc­cess­ful coro­na vac­cine man­u­fac­tur­er from Ger­many, has decid­ed to use the end-to-end build­ing ser­vices of the Dutch com­pa­ny from tran­quil Vars­seveld (pop. 6,000). This is to build its new head­quar­ters as BioN­Tech urgent­ly needs to expand its premises.

How­ev­er, almost no indus­try has to react to eco­nom­ic changes as dynam­i­cal­ly and exten­sive­ly as the con­struc­tion indus­try. Employ­ing 1,300 staff across 24 loca­tions in the Nether­lands, Ger­many, Spain, Greece and Por­tu­gal, Ten Brinke has delib­er­ate­ly increased its pro­por­tion of res­i­den­tial con­struc­tion projects from one to two thirds of its entire busi­ness over the last nine years.

Just recent­ly, the CEO trav­eled to Frank­furt am Main to break ground on a con­ven­tion­al con­struc­tion project. 207 apart­ments and 67 hous­es are being devel­oped in a mod­ernist, straight­for­ward archi­tec­tur­al style in a for­mer indus­tri­al area. How­ev­er, despite a high hous­ing demand, infla­tion, increas­es in inter­est rates and falling eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty have abrupt­ly reduced new devel­op­ments. “We can sense the ret­i­cence, par­tic­u­lar­ly among insti­tu­tion­al investors,” says ten Brinke. “Investors are becom­ing more cau­tious. Their ROI expec­ta­tions are drop­ping due to sharply ris­ing costs, high­er lend­ing inter­est rates and addi­tion­al demands includ­ing the nec­es­sary use of renew­able ener­gy sources in heat­ing and power sup­ply or other sus­tain­abil­i­ty requirements.”

Once again, com­pa­ny man­age­ment has had to rethink quick­ly and prove its flex­i­bil­i­ty. “We have to know pre­cise­ly what the mar­ket will demand tomor­row,” says Peter Zents, Chief Finan­cial Offi­cer at Ten Brinke. Wim ten Brinke adds: “Revi­tal­iza­tion of exist­ing build­ings will become ever more rel­e­vant.” His motto: “Ten Brinke always lays the first brick.” For that to work, things have to move fast at com­pa­ny head­quar­ters and locations.

Tech­nol­o­gy is need­ed to accel­er­ate process­es, so a shared data­base has been devel­oped, which every­one uses and from which every­one has a com­plete oper­a­tional pic­ture. This enables all staff, even those in ser­vice and admin­is­tra­tive posi­tions, to col­lab­o­rate opti­mal­ly. This not only cre­ates trans­paren­cy, but also answers stan­dard ques­tions “auto­mat­i­cal­ly.” Wim ten Brinke says, “Every­one in our com­pa­ny has to know where they stand. That only works if the data­base shows every­thing as sim­ply as pos­si­ble, every­one real­ly uses the data­base and every­one ensures that its infor­ma­tion is cur­rent, cor­rect and com­plete. We have to be able to share all our knowl­edge cen­tral­ly. That’s why, for exam­ple, we store every sin­gle record our peo­ple write.”

Equal­ly impor­tant for Ten Brinke is sus­tain­able cor­po­rate gov­er­nance on all lev­els, imple­ment­ed in its in-house ESG (Envi­ron­men­tal, Social and Gov­er­nance) pro­gram. Revi­tal­iz­ing real estate is a good exam­ple of the prin­ci­ple in prac­tice. This goes far beyond sim­ple ren­o­va­tion. Wim ten Brinke says, “Revi­tal­iz­ing or repur­pos­ing sites, par­tic­u­lar­ly in inner cities, can be not only a cost-effec­tive option when com­pared to new devel­op­ments, but also offers greater prof­itabil­i­ty for investors and future users. Sim­i­lar­ly, regen­er­a­tion also helps to reduce CO₂. In terms of ener­gy, a good design can sup­port main­tain­ing exist­ing real estate, from suit­able roof insu­la­tion right through to using solar-gen­er­at­ed elec­tric­i­ty for oper­at­ing the new heat pumps.” To cal­cu­late exact prof­itabil­i­ty, the Dutch com­pa­ny is work­ing with sophis­ti­cat­ed loca­tion­al and eco­nom­ic analy­ses to gage all issues and adjust them to how the prop­er­ty will be used. “It’s impor­tant to mon­i­tor the results and liq­uid­i­ty of cur­rent projects.” We must ensure that liq­uid­i­ty is always suf­fi­cient to be able to spot oppor­tu­ni­ties, even in eco­nom­i­cal­ly dif­fi­cult times,” says CFO Peter Zents.

Even if the con­struc­tion indus­try has to nav­i­gate chop­py waters, both men at the helm con­vey the relaxed demeanor of an expe­ri­enced cap­tain on the high seas. Their skill keeps them on the right course. Ten Brinke con­cludes, “We are only com­mit­ted to our­selves, our clients and employ­ees, not the stock mar­ket. And that approach has worked very well for the last 120 years.”