Our team were initially commissioned to prepare manufacturing and clerical Location Reviews covering Vantage Point in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire by a leading local businessman and Gloucestershire First.  This provided our knowledge of an excellent location for a contact centre or back office function that fell outside of the usual radar of other site selection agents.

Two years later Aon Warranty Group, one of the world's largest providers and administrators of warranty insurance products for premier manufacturers, distributors and retailers of consumer goods and vehicles commissioned us to provide site selection services.

Their UK operation, now known as London General Insurance, was located at two Greater London locations.  The company instructed us to prepare a nationwide search for replacement facilities.  The key driver for change was an opportunity to reduce property occupation costs alongside access to a more healthy recruitment market for the company’s customer service and back office operations.

A comprehensive sweep of locations able to absorb a new contact centre and back office administrative facility was undertaken by matching Aon job descriptions to wider economic datasets from our Location Database.  This resulted in a shortlist of six locations within two hours of London and six locations outside of the two hour zone.

Shortlisted locations were put through a rigorous analysis of various aspects including specific demographic and labour market data applicable to recruitment needs, staff costs and the strengths and weaknesses of local areas surrounding destination locations. Property availability was not a significant constraint on the selection of potential locations and so filtering potentials according to ‘people’ aspects of the business became critical.

A number of key issues for the new location emerged through the first phase of the location search exercise.  A location was required that placed Aon outside of an area of high density contact centre activity, in a lower cost environment than at its two London locations and offering a labour market profile that would lead to a natural maturing of the overall pattern of employment.

Detailed work on the potential for key staff relocations was undertaken once a shortlist of alternative locations had been provided. This highlighted the Forest of Dean as a frontrunner location in which to retain the largest proportion of key staff already working with the company. Alongside this aspect, and the excellent response from the business support teams in the target location, Aon commenced a lengthy negotiation on existing sites in order to relocate operations to the Forest of Dean.

For the Forest of Dean the project will help to reduce local dependence on manufacturing and outbound commuting to other regional centres for employment. London General Insurance will bring high quality employment to local residents and, through training, lift the area’s employment prospects further.

The company are very happy with the selection of their new location.  A recent Press Release concluded, “London General Insurance has been very impressed with the support received from local organizations and especially the Forest of Dean District Council and the Economic Regeneration team over the last two years.  Already our Jobs Fairs have produced many excellent candidates from Gloucestershire and the Forest of Dean. We see this support as the foundation for a good relationship with Forest of Dean.”
Ian Kenny, Director, London General Insurance