Growing outreach and prospects for an established marine services company.
Thamescraft is an independent company that provides a range of marine services. Based on the Greenwich Peninsula, four miles from Tower Bridge, they operate three floating dry docks that service both commercial and non-commercial vessels. They also operate a fleet of modern multi-purpose workboats, which play a vital role in delivering some of London’s largest marine construction projects, such as the London City Airport extension, Thames Tideway Tunnel, and Fulham Football Club’s riverside stand development.
Keen to grow their business and explore new market sectors, they started working with SALINE in February 2022, as their Director Jack Deverell tells us:
“We’ve seen a lot of change since the company was created 40 years ago. It was originally set up as a shipyard, but in the past decade or so, our work in marine and civil engineering support has become a prominent part of our business, and the two parts of our business work neatly in tandem with one another. We’re a small company, and until recently our projects have mostly been London-focused, but we have pretty big ambitions. We were keen to expand the business into new areas such as coastal civil engineering support, marine construction and also renewable energy support, so we engaged SALINE to help us to explore and find new opportunities.
I got to know the SALINE team through their work with Leask Marine, who were working in similar areas to us. At first I didn’t realise that Ryan of SALINE wasn’t actually a Leask employee, as he seemed so much a part of the company and clearly had a lot of sector knowledge! But then I came to understand that this is part of the unique and embedded way that SALINE work with their clients.
I knew we needed more commercial help… more eyes on the horizon and more connections across the sector and beyond.
Initially I was sceptical about engaging an outsourced business development company. We’re a small family business, and we were doing okay. But I recognised that in my day to day, I just didn’t have the time or the focus for going out, making business connections, talking to people and winning new business. I knew we needed more commercial help, and especially help with spotting opportunities that we probably wouldn’t have been aware of – to have more eyes on the horizon and more connections across the sector and beyond. So we had some conversations with SALINE and agreed to give it a try.
We’ve quickly won some valuable work in line with our goals.
The experience we’ve had working with SALINE so far has really surpassed expectations. We had already made the decision within the company to explore new markets, but having SALINE on board has supercharged it. Ryan is very likeable, approachable and easy to talk to, but he’s also very professional. He quickly started delivering brilliant connections and opportunities. In the short time that we’ve been working with him and SALINE, he’s used his expertise to build strong target client lists, and thanks to his relentless energy we’ve quickly won some valuable work in line with our goals, with commercial projects around the UK, as well as some sizeable government-funded work projects.
We recently bought a new boat to add to our fleet – and this was largely enabled by the new business that SALINE has helped us to win. That boat is already out and working, and I’m letting Ryan lead on bringing in new work projects for it. We’re very excited to see what the years ahead hold for Thamescraft, and we look forward to working with SALINE to build on the growth of this past year.”
