DoorCo celebrates its 18th anniversary in December. What started as a simple distribution model supplying foam-filled doors, has grown to be one of the UK’s leading suppliers of composite door components.
The business has evolved from a small team to a 200-strong workforce in the UK alone, with multiple product and people awards.
“Since opening our doors 18 years ago, our mission has been simple: to deliver innovation and unbeatable service to our customers,” said DoorCo’s MD, Dan Sullivan. “Foam-filled doors still remain our best-seller with distribution also still a huge portion of what we do, but the business now stretches across four door ranges, a glazing cassette system and a flexible prep, paint and glazing service offering.
“Built on our values of ‘People, Agility, Quality and Innovation’, our laser-focused approach has allowed us to remain committed to what matters most to use – providing superior products to the fabricator market with an accompanying service that makes the process easy.
Growth and change
“We’ve been incredibly lucky to have been joined on our journey with a network of loyal customers, so we’d like to take this opportunity to thank those customers and suppliers, old and new, for their support,” continued Dan.
“From humble beginnings in a portacabin to taking over the whole 65,000ft2 of the building we only once occupied a small part of in Macclesfield, and a new facility in Doncaster, it’s certainly been a journey of growth and change for DoorCo.
“In December 2007, we were officially incorporated and entered the market with a container service offering four types of foam-filled composite door slabs,” he said.
“After a couple of successful years, we launched our UK-based distribution service and as the distribution business grew traction, we introduced our manufacturing service, which we now refer to as ‘prepping’. And since then, we’ve added additional services like painting and glazing and grown to a business run by over 200 spanning across all functions.
Innovation
“Our driving force throughout our growth has always been innovation,” explains Dan. “From our first 6/4 combi slab to the three different cores and unique glazing cassette system we offer, providing products that help our customers sell more doors is what defines us.
“As well as products, service innovation has also been key. In 2017, things got digital with the launch of a new online ordering system, and since then we have been able to add ‘just in time’ and a next day delivery service to our offering.
Branding
“As any business develops, so does their brand,” continued Dan. “Our 2021 redevelopment of our branding drew a line in the sand for the business, as well as helping us launch new essential product lines including: GripCore, Original, Flip, Glazing and Paint.
“The execution of the rebrand won us our first G-Award for Best Promotional Campaign and made our intentions clear to the market: we’re here to stay and we want to be the best.
People
“Along with all the highs of the last 18 years, there has also been our fair share of challenges and change to be weathered but thanks to our team, customers and suppliers, every hurdle is jumped and we’re proud to be watching operations continue to strengthen and grow with every year that passes us,” concluded Dan.
“As we move forward into the next 18 years and beyond, we’re excited by the team we have on board, the products we have on offer and feel empowered by our knowledge of the years we now have under our belt. DoorCo is still a family business, with Jayne and I firmly at the helm, but we’ve built a team around us that are experts in their fields, understand our market, business and customers to help us build a business that has same goal as it did 18 years ago: to provide high quality composite door components to the UK fabricator market.”
