News and Insights

At ECI, we believe that building successful businesses means building businesses for the long term. A social value strategy - how a company contributes to the well-being of its people, communities, and the environment – is often part of that growth story when it comes to attracting talent and winning new opportunities. From meeting public procurement requirements to aligning with investor expectations and engaging employees, ECI work closely with our portfolio to think about what is important to them, embedding social value to help to drive long-term, sustainable success. Here’s how to align social value to growth:  

1. Tailoring strategies to each business

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to social value. We support our portfolio in developing strategies that reflect their brand, values, and commercial goals. 

Many use frameworks like the Social Value TOMs (Themes, Outcomes and Measures) or the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to ensure their approach is aligned with best practice and measurable outcomes.  

If you are seeing requests from customers, for example, around Net Zero, we would recommend incorporating this into your SVS. It is also helpful to take a grassroots view, and many companies establish ESG Committees or Employee Resource Groups to engage their people in the strategy right from the start.

2. Attracting and engaging talent

We’ve seen firsthand how a strong sense of purpose can help companies attract and retain great people. According to Deloitte, 89% of Gen Z and 92% of millennials say that having a sense of purpose is important to their job satisfaction—up from the previous year. Having clarity over your purpose can help attract employees and provide a feeling of purpose above and beyond their role.  At Ciphr, the company aligned its social value strategy with its brand and values, using it to energise internal teams and attract new hires who are passionate about making a difference through its company goals framework, V2MOM. Since embedding this, they have seen an improvement in their employee NPS (eNPS) of +33. 

Social value strategies also often include DEI initiatives like blind CVs or inclusive hiring practices, which not only signal a commitment to equity but also help widen the talent pool so you can be sure you’re recruiting the best talent.  

3. Winning business through purpose

A well-defined social value strategy can help businesses stand out in an increasingly competitive market, particularly where customers are placing greater emphasis on ESG.  

For example, TAG is responding to growing demand from artists and promoters for more sustainable touring options. By adding emissions totals to route options on their itineraries, TAG is helping clients make more environmentally conscious travel decisions. This means the artists they work with can reduce their environmental impact while maintaining the quality and efficiency of their tours - turning sustainability into a commercial advantage.  

Peoplesafe, the global provider of workforce safety technology solutions, has a purpose-led mission to protect lone and at-risk workers through innovative safety technology. This mission not only helped attract new customers but also opened up new markets. As protecting employee safety became part of how their customers demonstrated a strong duty of care, new modules such as Travelsafe, which helps keep employees safe on their commute, were developed. In 2026, Peoplesafe was realised to Summa Equity's Article 9 Fund, which aims to address critical global issues – in this case workplace safety and risk management.

4. Sustainability-linked loans 

A third of our portfolio now have ESG-linked KPIs in their debt agreements, tying financial incentives to sustainability and social outcomes. 

Having a clear social value strategy helps companies to define and track these KPIs, aligning teams around shared goals and delivering tangible financial benefits when targets are met. Supporting companies to define those KPIs and key milestones they're looking to achieve, is a part of ECI's ESG toolkit.

5. Finding your next investor  

Through analysing the scores on our ESG framework, we’ve seen that companies scoring higher on our ESG framework tend to achieve stronger returns. ESG is now a standard part of investor due diligence, and is a good indicator of businesses that understand and mitigate risk. So being able to demonstrate that ESG is embedded in your business and drives growth, either ‘checks that box for them’ or ‘creates a more compelling opportunity’, depending on how important ESG is to their Fund .

While there is evidence that the ever-growing appetite for more ESG data and assessment is slowing in the current era, investors are still seeing demand from the LPs in their fund and regulators. So even as the broader ESG conversation evolves, we believe social value will continue to be a key part of building great businesses. 

Field services has all the key signifiers we look for in consolidation opportunities. The landscape is fragmented, it has strong revenue visibility, loyal customers and economies of scale.

Yet, outcomes vary for field services consolidators, as stakeholders often don’t recognise the fundamental differences that make this sector so unique. Faye Maughan shares her thoughts on why you must approach consolidation here with a people-first mindset:

1. Benefits of consolidation 

Local field services operators are strongly positioned to win against large incumbents, with all the benefits of local entrepreneurialism versus a top-down approach. Combine this with bringing together local operators, and we see that real efficiency gains are possible:  

• Route optimisation improves efficiency for engineers as well as limiting their time away from home 
• Cooperation on larger, national accounts unlocks new revenue streams and enhances brand reach  
• Spreading shared benefits across a broader revenue base enables greater resources for every individual in the organisation, from training centres to allow engineers to expand their skillset to improved digital tools that would otherwise be too expensive 
• A bigger group allows talented employees to grow within the organisation, important for attraction and retention in a tight talent market 

Individually, a local champion may struggle to service a multi-site national client. Together, it’s an attractive and more agile and responsive option to the larger players.  

2. The right way to do it – empowering the local workforce

In field services, the loss of an employee is immediately felt by the customer. The engineer who has serviced a client's boilers for seven years, who knows the building, who the client calls by name – that is the service to the end customer. The service is relationship-driven, locally rooted, and fragmented by nature.  

This is all the more important in a market where labour is in shorter supply. The best engineers know they have alternatives, and for the consolidation group, that means their investment has a high propensity to walk out the door. What engineers typically want is the autonomy, fair pay, and freedom that drew them to the job in the first place. Clock watching, scripts, or aggressive upsell targets may have them looking elsewhere. Equally, out of all the things to save on in the group, pinching salaries is not the place save. Rather, schemes that allow top performers to benefit from their contribution to the group should be highly encouraged.

All this means that the best consolidators are those that think engineer-first. That might mean using group scale to give someone a patch closer to home, or ensuring pay structures genuinely reward output. The point is making clear that the acquisition is adding something to their working life, not taking something away. Get it right and they will deliver better service and in turn improved customer retention – getting it wrong tends to have a quick impact on the bottom line.

3. The old school consolidation playbook might not work

There is a tendency, particularly for PE-backed consolidators, to think about bringing everything under one brand as quickly as possible. However, while that may work for some companies, it’s not a one size fits all approach. A local business trading for 25 years under its founder's name has built something genuinely valuable: a trusted reputation, embedded in its community, reinforced by word of mouth. Customers do not choose it because of its marketing. They choose it because their neighbour recommended it, or because they have used it for years and trust it. Individual businesses have individual cultures, that often reflect the needs of their local customer base.

We often see co-branding (“part of X group”) or other types of affiliation is often a good middle road to opening up the group benefits whilst retaining the local loyalty. This also gives more autonomy to local managers, who are empowered to continue to run their local hub / business in the context of the larger group. Consolidating under a handful of existing, strong, regional brands is another solution to preserve the legacy that has been carefully built over decades.

4. PE's role is to add infrastructure, not interference 

This raises a question. If it’s all local and individual – how is private equity helping here?

The answer is infrastructure. What local field services businesses often lack is the operational backbone that lets their people do what they do best, more efficiently and at greater scale. We tend to see a few common areas that smaller local businesses may struggle to deliver on their own:

• Scheduling technology that reduces dead time on the road and means the same team handles more jobs without working harder.
• AI-assisted tools that help engineers on-site, for example through report writing and compliance documentation.
• A common ERP system that enables data sharing and financial visibility across the group.
• Training and development pathways that give engineers a reason to grow within the group rather than go elsewhere.

Conclusion: consolidation is ultimately a people question 

The economics of field services consolidation are real. But we see that success is not driven by the fastest to centralise, or to push cross-sell opportunities. Measures of success here are often engineer retention and satisfaction – that measure of M&A success, is likely to be what delivers long term growth. By doing the right things for the group, growth naturally tends to follow.

We’re delighted to announce George Moss has been promoted to Managing Partner and joined the ECI Board from 1st April 2026.

George was promoted to ECI’s Investment Committee in April 2025, reflecting his longstanding contribution to the firm and his successful track record working with management teams, with a particular focus in the travel and healthcare subsectors. His appointment as Managing Partner marks the next step in that progression.

This promotion is the latest in ECI’s proven succession model, with the four Managing Partners ensuring smooth leadership transition, something that has allowed the business to evolve and retain its best talent for 50 years.

With a large number of Nordics companies expanding into Europe, ECI’s Chris Watt and Ludvig Hamilton share their views on why there has been so many successful expansion stories and where we have seen it work effectively.

1. A logical next step 

For Nordics based companies, the U.K., DACH and Benelux, are natural next steps. Yes, they are geographically close, but more than that there is an affinity between the regions in terms of how we do business, aligned cultures and values - we see clear similarities.

In particular, we see Nordic countries take a first step into the UK. The UK economy offers significant opportunities, with total market value of c.£13 trillion. It provides an opportunity to diversify customer base, in particular with a large global financial services hub, which is why so many success stories have happened in the fintech sector. English fluency in the Nordic countries is among the highest in the world, which means while there is a big opportunity for finding talent as part of expansion, there isn’t a need to start with an all new team and offices can work seamlessly across borders.

An example is the Danish financial management platform Scaleup Finance, which since entering the UK in 2022 has ten-folded its revenues and launched “Nume” – an AI CFO for startup founders.

2. M&A accelerating European ambition 

M&A activity from Nordics firms is also a well-established route into European expansion. We have seen this with our own portfolio with Advania, a leading Nordics IT services provider, acquiring UK-based Microsoft cloud specialist Content+Cloud from ECI. This was Advania’s first strategic expansion outside the Nordics, giving them a fantastic foothold in the UK, subsequently leading to further acquisitions of CCS Media and Servium in the UK. Their UK footprint now comprises 1,600 professionals across 20+ locations, and the cultural alignment point mentioned earlier is brought to life by the fact that key executives from those businesses have gone in to take senior roles within the Advania Group.

ECI are still an investor in the combined Group which is backed by Goldman Sachs Asset Management. M&A has further allowed the business to add strategic AI capabilities to enhance its service offering and regional strength as it aims to become the leading IT Managed services provider in Northern Europe. Other notable acquisitions expanding capability during this investment have included The AI Framework and Mirus IT Solutions.

3. Organic growth  

Nordics companies can expand into Europe organically, and while they usually need some local support, it can be more fluid than if you were seeking to expand into the US, for example. This is why we often see companies such as Pleo, the Danish spend management platform unicorn, retaining key focus on Europe with significant headcount expansion in the UK and DACH, while now also aiming to expand in DACH.

A key part to successful organic growth, is delivering effective cross-sell. For example, ECI-backed Imagesound already served large, multi‑site global brands in retail, leisure and hospitality and through their client’s international footprint, they benefited from built-in expansion opportunities. They further enhanced this by selling beyond the core in-store music product to sell adjacent offerings such as digital signage, visual content and bespoke music and sound design through their Musicstyling division. This deepened customer relationships and supported further international revenue growth.

It is important not to overextend yourself but to target countries systematically, looking at where is the most relevant and addressable market, but also one where you can effectively compete, and targeting that region before moving into the next. If you can win in one geography, it is often easier to roll out from there, rather than spreading yourself thinly across multiple regions. At ECI a key part of our international toolkit is to help companies assess potential routes to market and look at where they are most likely to win, and work with management teams to understand a prioritised roadmap for growth.

4. People and culture 

One of the most important parts of successful expansion, wherever you are in the world, is getting the right people in place. It is important to have boots on the ground and commit to a region that is strategically important and be present in the market. More than that, it is key to have trusted individuals, especially if operating a global Board.

Bringing in senior talent that has experience with international expansion is clearly helpful. At CMap, the business benefits from having a Danish Chair, Peter Colsted, who has proven experience of scaling businesses into Europe and the US. This brings relevant understanding of challenges opportunities, as well as a global perspective to the Board.

It is clear that it is important for any company to be plugged into local customs, but there is also a good opportunity for Nordics companies to translate their culture globally. Probably the most famous example of this is Spotify, who were one of the earlier adopters of unlimited vacation and generous parental leave, regardless of gender or location, reflecting a distinctly Scandinavian model.

5. The investment ecosystem

Because of all these factors mentioned, Nordics companies have a fantastic ecosystem to operate in. In particular the investment community is well set up to invest in the region, with the largest UK investors holding on average 9% of their portfolio in the Nordics according to Gain.Pro.

An indicator of the strong investment market in the Nordics is also the rebound in IPO markets, with Stockholm leading Europe in 2025 IPO activity and PwC’s Nordic IPO Watch 2025, reporting total Nordic IPO proceeds of €7.4bn in 2025, up ~370% vs €1.6bn in 2024.