As part of our new Find It In Plymouth: Behind the Business feature, we’re giving local companies the chance to raise their profile across the Find It In Plymouth and Devon Chamber of Commerce platforms – including our websites, newsletters, and social media.
It offers a fantastic opportunity to shout about your business, share your story, and connect with potential new clients.
This time, we’re introducing Westcountry Group, a Plymouth-founded business that’s grown from humble beginnings into a UK-wide specialist in commercial and educational design and fit-out.
Here, Rick Liesching, Workspace Consultant, shares how the company evolved – and why Plymouth continues to play a key role in its success.
How long have you been part of the Plymouth business community?
We have a number of different strings to our bow, but predominantly we are a design and fit-out firm, focusing on the commercial and education sectors. We work with businesses from all sectors to specify, design, refurbish and fit-out their spaces, including all the furniture as well – a complete end-to-end package, which is hugely valuable to time-poor leadership teams.
Tell us about the type of work you do and the sector you operate in
We have a complete in-house team – interior designers, consultants, estimators, project managers – based not only in Plymouth but at our Andover office as well. Alongside that, we also have specialist education dining furniture and paper supply divisions.
It’s actually a family business – Hugh (my grandfather) started the business in 1977, at that time just selling paper all over Devon and Cornwall. As his sons joined, it gradually evolved into supplying furniture to those same customers, and then eventually providing full refurbishment projects as well – it was really led by what our customers were asking for.
We started the Andover office in the early 2010s after some friends in the same sector we knew in that direction were selling their business, and ultimately it became part of Westcountry Group. These days we have nearly 40 staff, a fleet of delivery vehicles, and we work from the bottom of Cornwall right up into London. Our customer base is pretty varied, including general commerce, professional services, heavy industry, local authorities, NHS, and even some projects with main contractors.
In one sentence, how would you describe your business to someone who’s never heard of you?
Turnkey design, fit-out & furniture projects for commercial and education organisations.
What area(s) do you serve?
UK-wide.
What’s your most popular product or service – and why do customers love it?
Probably our most popular service is our interior design – we have an incredibly professional design team and they’re frequently surprising us with the quality and attention to detail of their work. We always have a free initial discovery conversation with the prospective client first off, to find out about them and what they’re looking to do, and I think they get a lot of clarity from that, which helps them to move forward with the project in the best way. We’re just here to guide them through to the right result.
What’s your favourite thing about doing business in Plymouth?
Plymouth is a great place to do business and I think one of the reasons, although it’s often seen as a drawback, is its distance from London and the bigger cities – because there’s less population, a successful business really has the chance to stand out and get well-known across the area, and that’s what we’re finding. Although we do reach out to other businesses in the area, we find there’s a constant stream of firms actually contacting us directly with their projects, which is fantastic and something we hope to see more of.
What benefits have you seen from being part of the Find It In Plymouth network?
We haven’t been on Find It In Plymouth for too long, so we haven’t seen too much out of it yet, but we’ll always keep an eye on it for any possible projects. The way it connects you directly to the requirement and the person you need to talk to is excellent and there’s definite value in it, particularly for certain sectors.
Where do you see your business in the next 5-10 years?
We currently have some solid plans for growth over the next few years, particularly in our commercial workspace projects, so we’re expecting to be taking on more and bigger projects as part of that journey, which is exciting and will require additional team members as well. Off the back of Covid, a lot of the top international firms in London are pushing to get their staff back into the office full-time and while that may not necessarily always happen, the general trend will make its way down to the West Country – so the outlook is good as firms recognise the need to refresh their workspaces. We’re also focusing on particular markets e.g. the legal sector, accounting, blue-chip etc, although we work with businesses in pretty much every sector – we’ll consider most ideas!
And now a bit about you – what’s your role in the business and how long have you been involved?
I started in the estimating department here, along with some time to get my hands on the CAD system, which I did for a few years before moving more into a project management role. I was managing multi-six figure projects on tight deadlines, which I enjoyed despite the challenges! Nowadays I’m at the front end of the business, out and about speaking to customers and landing new projects – always on the lookout for where we can help. What I’d say is, always reach out and have the conversation.
When you’re not working, how do you like to spend your time?
I’m Plymouth-born and bred, so to be honest I love the sea and getting out on the paddle board when I can find the time. I also have an extensive ongoing house refurbishment project, so pretty much all my spare time is taken on that at the moment, but it’s good hands-on experience.
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