18 years in business

It’s often said that it’s not the amount of time that you have to play with, but it’s what you do with it that matter. That can certainly be said of Dale Moggach, Managing Director of Tekta UK.

From young age, Dale knew that he wanted to work for himself and was able to quickly lay down the foundation stones that would see Dale provide the level of customer service and client focus that Tekta UK has become well known for.

As with many milestones, ’18 Years in Business’ is a great opportunity to pause for reflection and to ensure that the roadmap for Tekta is exactly where Dale wants it to be. It’s fair to say that Dale has served his apprenticeship, with his formative years spent with Eastleigh builders, LST Projects, learning the carpentry and joinery trades.

Armashield and Tekta started from humble beginnings around the turn of the millennium with Dale working from his garage 2-3 days a week whilst continuing with his carpentry work. This proved a sound approach and Dale was able to grow the business following up every enquiry and in 2001 moved out of the garage to a small business premises (bring in his own business around the turn of the millennium). The company was known as Armashield for the first 14 years of trading and Armashield is still growing from strength to strength with Tekta UK focusing on specialist end user markets. Customer focused, even in the early days, Dale sought to give each and every customer what they needed and expanded his range quickly. Dale’s early orders were for security products, such a window grilles and shop front shutters, yet it was consumer demand that fuelled Dale’s move into the industrial door market that he is so well known for now. It’s a testament to Dale’s approach to business during these years that many of the original contractors are still supplied by Tekta UK almost two decades later.

Dale’s approach to business is a combination of risk and caution, understanding when to grow and develop and when to consolidate. One of Dale’s defining moments in the early days came with his move from supplying to manufacturing. Driven by the desire to give his customers what they needed, Dale’s ability to quote, produce and fit meant that he was in a much more dynamic position than local competition.

A family business in the truest sense of the word, Dale’s wife helped in the beginning with book keeping tasks and his son joined the company which allowed the business to become even more customer focussed responding quickly to customer needs and working on larger projects. When it came to the global financial crisis of 2008, Dale could see that the high street was failing, even a decade ago, and was able to see that a move to other markets was needed as a certainty. At this point, Dale was able to increase the product range to contractors and also to start offering Armashield’s services to some industrial end user customers to help them to fulfil their need for sectional doors, security shutters, steel doors and fire curtains.

With a move to the premises that they still operate from today, there was an opportunity to really specialise in temperature and hygiene control. With a new focus, came a new name and so Tekta UK came to be. Targeting the pharmaceutical and food and drink industries, Tekta UK developed a strong presence and can celebrate a strong first four years of trading. As with everything in life, Dale believes in keeping one eye on the horizon and is ready to respond to whatever the future has to offer.

That doesn’t mean that he hasn’t got some ideas of his own ready to put into operation. Dale has clearly laid out plans for Tekta’s growth and is dedicated to delivering value with every project he delivers. With many years of specialising in products in controlled logistics/temperature controlled, Dale is keen to take the level of specialism to the next level and build on their capabilities to deliver more niche projects within the temperature-controlled logistics industry, with projects like the Port of Dover storage facility.

As well as product growth, Dale is working on growing the business to support national coverage with a 24/7 out of hours call centre and engineer support service to underpin the dedication to customer satisfaction.

Looking back, Dale can see that the last 18 years have brought many developments and a lot of learning. It’s onwards, upwards and national in the next 18 years.