CONTINUOUS upheaval in the global construction industry allows no one to stand still. With the increasing strength of financial markets, listed companies that don't react quickly to changes in their business are going to get punished. Growth is the only word that the markets understand and a successful company has to have a strategy for delivering it. By almost any token, the UK's High-Point Rendel knows where it is going.

'In five years I would like to have increased our turnover to £100 million with a commensurate return, without reducing profit levels,' say chief operating officer Kelvin Hingley. 'We will consolidate our position in the four financial centres, build on our heritage in the Indiansubcontinent and I want to see our strategy in the Middle East and Europe coming to fruition.'

In the pursuit of its financial objectives, which amount to a quadrupling of turnover, High-Point has an extensive armoury of skills to draw on. With core competencies in design and engineering, particularly in the transport sector, it has long experience in the management of complex capital projects. In the jargon of the moment, the company can offer complete business and management solutions.

The blend of skills dates from 1985 when High-Point took over Rendel, Palmer & Tritton (RPT), a former client. Hingley describes the original High-Point as a trouble-shooter or project doctor, typically brought in to help salvage projects when they have gone wrong. In 1985 it was hired by RPT, an engineering consultancy with extensive Middle East experience, to advise on its Libyan assets when the imposition of sanctions affected its work on the Great Man-made River project. The relationship was to become a permanent one.

'High-Point had to expand turnover, move its client base and move its geographical base,' says Hingley. 'What it saw [in RPT] was a company with public sector and international skills that could marry up with the private sector skills of High-Point. In one swoop it converted the company onto a wide base, in terms of skills, clients and geography. '

The take-over of RPT added a range of new technical capabilities. This particular alliance of engineering skills in transport, bridges, tunnels and geo-technics with the project fire-fighting business is an unusual one, Hingley believes. 'While other companies are much bigger, we have unique features and a technical core that stands beside the best in the world,' he says. 'We have a real understanding of contracts and risks and how these interfaces really work'

As the costs of detailed design have plummeted in recent years and the competition from low-cost centres in India and the Far East has intensified, so the company has focused more on conceptual design work. Says Hingley: 'We do not want to compete on a commodity service that can be delivered nearly as well, and much more cheaply, by somebody else.'

The Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s boosted demand for the company's trouble-shooting skills and brought in a string of new contracts. These included a dam in China, a deep-water sewer project in Singapore, airports, toll roads and water privatisation in the Philippines, and an expressway in Malaysia. 'Typically we are brought into projects that have problems,' says Hingley. 'The Asian crisis refocused us on the basis of client needs.'

The company now has a backlog of experience on major projects involving private finance in public infrastructure. With private finance becoming a more frequent component of infrastructure and utility investment in the developing world, High-Point sees huge potential for the expertise it has acquired. When it comes to any form of private finance initiative (PFI), Hingley believes the company has a lot to offer in the Middle East where the use of PFI, typically through build-operate transfer (BOT) and its derivatives, is increasing rapidly. 'We have a distinct edge in project development,' Hingley says.

Exporting its project development and implementation to the Middle East is a prime objective of the company's current strategy. 'I think there is, as everywhere else, a greater concern for certainty that projects will be completed on time,' Hingley says. 'There are greater demands on quality, on safety and projects are more complex and more complicated, with more partners involved. We have a strong belief in our skills. No other organisation has our background in design, construction and overall management of projects.'

Since the slump in the region, fewer capital projects are now emerging from the Far East and the company sees greater opportunities there for its business management services than its capital project delivery skills. The switch to management services may bring in lowerrevenues but it is a higher margin business and margins have to rise if the company is to deliver higher returns to shareholders.

Business growth is closely linked to High-Point's strategic decision to establish a presence in the world's leading financial centres. Last year, a New York office was opened, to add to the existing corporate presence in London, Hong Kong and Singapore. The opening of an office in Tokyo, so as to be closer to the company's Japanese client base, is a longer term objective. Says Hingley: 'It's all about deal flow - all the major deals go through the major financial centres. Our function being in New York is to build on our international experience, working with US clients in geographical areas where we are strong.' A fruit of the strategy was a recent contract with a US pharmaceutical company to bring an international project under control.

The growth in turnover that the company is seeking should take another leap forward this year if it can fulfil plans to acquire Monk, Dunstone Associates (MDA), the UK quantity surveyor, which has business focused on the UK and Western Europe. MDA would add buildings and extensive telecoms experience to the company skills bank.

Hingley has set an ambitious target for growth over the next five years but knows that it is people as well as margins which will determine whether the strategy succeeds or not. 'We are a people business, with a very strong relationship with clients for delivery,' he says. 'The big company drive to win turnover at any cost reduces quality. We want to be charging high rates to produce a quality product.'

PK