Commercial Services 2024 to 2025: Looking Back and Moving Forward
With 2024 nearly behind us, we’re reflecting on MCS’s biggest achievements and challenges of the year as we work to keep our momentum going into 2025. Andrew Nolan, President of Commercial and Residential at MCS, shares his thoughts on the most critical wins for Chain Store Maintenance - an MCS Company, our commercial services business line, as well as expectations for the year ahead.
What were 2024’s key achievements for MCS’s commercial services business, and how did they align with expectations?
One of the biggest achievements for Commercial this year was the formalization of dedicated commercial self-performing technicians. We also brought in several large new customers, including three Fortune 100 companies. We experienced solid growth, with the commercial business growing around 27% year over year, so our steady progress continues.
Which new initiatives from the past year stand out?
We started self-performing HVAC, refrigeration and plumbing work in several new markets. We’d been providing this service to our residential customers, and we successfully expanded the offering to commercial businesses. In addition, we launched service centers in Memphis, Tennessee, and Jackson, Mississippi, expanded services into Fort Myers, Florida, and we’re in the process of expanding in Colorado, Alabama and Virginia.
How has our technology improved over the past year?
We upgraded the Chain Store Maintenance legacy platform to newer technology and moved that from on-premises servers to the cloud, which improved our efficiency and security. We also created tools to elevate the service-partner recruitment process. Qualification surveys can now be completed online, and because they route directly to our system, we can more quickly award business.
Another performance win was the rollout of our RFP tool to our subcontractor network this year. Historically, we had used a very manual process to run RFPs, and our new technology allows us to seamlessly receive and analyze bids, and then award business. That makes our service partners’ lives easier and helps us move faster to better serve our customers.
What were the biggest challenges the commercial services business worked to overcome this year?
We continue to see staffing challenges, such as finding qualified technicians, for example. That’s why we remain committed to helping train and develop the next generation of skilled tradespeople.
Where we’ve been seeing customers consolidate their work with a single partner like MCS, we noticed customers splitting business with smaller awards this year. But we also saw quite a few customers offering opportunities to pilot our services, and when we’ve had the opportunity to do pilot programs, we’ve earned more business. Our performance and commitment to quality always shine through and regularly enable us to overcome challenges in the market.
What are your priorities for 2025?
We’ll be continuing to grow our self-performing capabilities with more service centers and self-performing markets. And we’re working to add new customers into existing self-performing markets to build greater density and better pricing leverage for our customers. We’re aiming to add markets in Kentucky, Indiana, Colorado, Nevada, Texas and Florida. Those are states where we currently have a self-performing presence for our residential customers, so we can build on our existing infrastructure to self-perform on the commercial side. We’ll also continue to enhance our service partner recruitment process and grow that network.
In addition, we’ll work on streamlining our commercial and residential businesses. While we operate as two units, we offer the same services, so we see opportunities to improve the experience we offer and simplify processes. We can make it easier for our service partners to do work and for our customers to work with us no matter what type of property they have.
What are your expectations for growth in 2025?
We expect to see strong growth like we had this year—25% to 30% or more. That will hinge on how we operationalize and leverage our team, our best practices, and what we’ve built to make us a stronger, more valuable and cohesive business.
Start the new year with Chain Store Maintenance
Need a new services partner for your commercial properties? Chain Store Maintenance - an MCS Company, can help. Contact CSMsales@ChainStore.com to learn more.
