In an exclusive interview with Ken Dalton, managing director of AECOM Europe, Paul Braithwaite asks why the Faber Maunsell name will disappear from the consulting stage.
Farewell, Faber Maunsell. Long live AECOM.

As from this month, the consulting engineering company has changed its name.
I decided to hit Ken Dalton, group chief executive of AECOM Europe, with the big question straight off.

Could he explain why one of the biggest names in the building services sector in the UK was to disappear?

First, he insists, the AECOM name has been on logos and business cards since 2004 and that all employees of Faber Maunsell who had joined since then knew the AECOM business as well as that of Faber Maunsell.

The benefits of the move are threefold:
· Integrating operations to provide better co-ordination, expertise and resources across business lines and regions
· As AECOM, the company will be better placed to service client needs and to adapt to a rapidly changing market place, creating greater agility and client focus
· Many things will stay the same including the company's traditional strong employee engagement culture and core values.

'When employees and clients see these benefits, they will understand there is a strength in moving to AECOM.'
The move to a single brand is not just happening in Europe. 'Last October, the businesses in America and Canada became AECOM.'

Now it is the turn of Europe, Middle East, Hong Kong/China and Australasia. As well as this branding move, the company is organising into eight business lines:

· Transportation
· Planning and design
· Building engineering
· Gov't services (outsourcing)
· Environment
· Water
· Energy and power
· Programme management

'AECOM now has 43,000 employees worldwide.' And, Dalton adds, according to the Engineering News Record in the US in 2009: 'AECOM is number one consultant in pure design; number one in transportation, number one in general building and number three in
water/environment.'

Only number three in water/environment? I asked.
'We are working hard to advance in this area,' he laughs.

He demonstrates a matrix - eight business lines horizontally and six vertical regional lines. Both horizontal and vertical lines are profit streams so, for instance, transportation would be calculated horizontally as would building engineering. The profit and loss of Europe or USA and the other regions would also be calculated vertically.

'The strategy is developed by the business lines in conjunction with the regions.'
Dalton, who is on the operations management board, was part of the team responsible for the rebranding in 2004.

When he and the rest of the board began its brand quest, there were 35 different firms and 32 competing websites.

This came down to 12 companies in 2004 but, because of the policy of mergers and acquisitions, it went back up to 22 worldwide in 2008.
'We decided it was time to pull the operation together in a global brand with a strong matrix of regional and business lines.

Which is why, this month, Faber Maunsell becomes AECOM.
The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2007. 'At that time, AECOM had more than 10,000 employee shareholders, from a workforce of 28,000.' This means that almost one-third of employees had invested in the business.

'The move to AECOM will benefit our clients as well as our organisation, because the business line structure will deliver the best expertise available to any client anywhere in the world..'
I must have looked sceptical because he went on: 'And we have done that, on projects such as Crossrail, and 2nd Avenue Subway, New York, where we used all the strengths of the businesses across the world to show our programme management.'

He explains that, for instance, the Hong Kong office has the expertise which engineered some of the world's longest cable stayed bridges. 'This knowledge is available to the rest of our transportation employees across the world.'

One classic global knowledge project example was used in the competition for the British Antarctic Survey Station at the South Pole. Around 80 global teams submitted proposals but AECOM won partly because it had a sister company in America, which had operational experience of the US Antarctic
programme.

'We see ourselves as a total integrator. For instance, we can provide part funding of projects through planning and then design right to the operational phase. AECOM is becoming increasingly well known - and certainly since it was listed on the stock exchange. And this works when the company is dealing with other global players such as General Electric or Shell.'

Positive reaction
The move will not come out of the blue either for employees or clients. A sample of both have been surveyed and there has been a positive reaction. Dalton comes back to the buzz people get when they can talk to the top expert in a subject who happens to be in Australia, or the person in Hong Kong who phones the top sustainability man in Europe because he is the global knowledge leader in the company.

'This generates the terrific enthusiasm that we need.'

And will the 50:50 organic:acquisition growth ratio, which has made the company the success it is, continue for the foreseeable future?
'We are certainly not the largest in Europe, so there are opportunities to grow in all of the business lines.'

He adds that, in the UK, AECOM does not provide government services outsourcing whereas in America AECOM operates facilities for the Department of Defence and Department of Energy. But Dalton maintains the jury is still out as to whether this is the right model for AECOM in the UK.

In the last annual report, the company said it had grown from 32,000 to 43,000 employees during the year.

But AECOM is sensitive to the feelings of new merger partners.
'We do not want employees to feel they have been 'acquired', because the new organisation can often introduce key personnel and new ideas to the business, which are very positive for the whole company.'

But once AECOM is a big global brand, won't it act like many others and sell off the bits which become non-core business?

Dalton insists only very small parts of merged companies have ever been sold. Last year the business sold off some water treatment plant facilities which had been part of a merger.

AECOM's mergers and acquisitions strategy will continue and it seems the economic downturn will do little to change its policy of growth.

When I asked Dalton, which was the next potential merger in the Europe he reminded me 'it was a closed period for directors of AECOM'.

I bet the company has its eye on the next buy though.