Founded in August 2003 by Brian Drummond, B-DACS began the way most businesses do: from a home office, in Mount Vernon.

With his wife, Diane, managing the finances, Brian wanted to build a business that was scalable and could offer people the best air conditioning services possible. The name ‘B-DACS’ came from an abbreviation of: Brian Drummond Air Conditioning Services.

Winning major contracts

Over the first few years in business, B-DACS grew rapidly. From recruiting our first engineers to gaining exceptional feedback from our customers, we were winning installation contracts with notable clients, such as Prometric Test Centres and NatWest Bank.

A few years into business, in 2007, we had a major milestone, when we won the contract for a nine-storey neoclassical office in St Vincent Street. This was part of major renovation works, and we were contracted with installing a Mitsubishi Electric VRF system, for this incredibly large and technical project.

Surviving the economic crisis

In 2008, the business was soaring, as we won more major projects, and had three air conditioning engineers, each with their own vehicle. Unfortunately, the economic crisis hit. This caused a huge downfall in the construction industry, by around 17%, which had devastating effects for everyone working in it.

Numerous companies were folding left, right and centre, which reduced the amount of work even more. Unfortunately, this meant B-DACS had to temporarily reduce our working week to three days – until things started to pick up again. We wanted to do everything we could to give our employees confidence that we were securing their jobs during this difficult time.

It took around one year before we started to see a steady increase in the number of contracts again. By October 2011, B-DACS had recovered strongly and moved into a dedicated office in Panorama Business Village in the East End of Glasgow.

Growing the family business again

Linzi, Brian and Diane’s daughter, joined B-DACS as Office Manager, providing the support that was needed to manage the expanding business. Diane formally joined the business as a full-time director in August 2012, using her 15 years of experience with Lloyds Banking Group to develop a strong management process and create a long-term business strategy.

With Brian, Diane and Linzi, B-DACS’ family values and ethos are at the core of what we do, strengthening the foundations of the business. Our ethos, as explained by Diane at the time: ‘As we grow, we need to ensure all our employees feel valued and respected. We will continue to listen to our customers as they are at the heart of everything we do.’

Awards and recognition

In 2015, B-DACS won Glasgow’s Best Performing Business (11-50 Employees) at the Glasgow Business Awards. This recognised the improvements to the management process taking place behind the scenes, as we achieved ISO 9001:2008 accreditation – recently recommended for certification to ISO 9001:2015 – and won a Mentorsme.co.uk award.

B-DACS has continued growing its reputation within the industry, becoming one of only two companies in Scotland to achieve the status of Mitsubishi Electric Diamond Quality Partner, in addition to Daikin D1, Toshiba T7 accreditations and Constructionline Gold accreditation. B-DACS was also the first company in Scotland to install a cutting-edge R32 system.

Every day, we strive to provide a better service than the day before, continually going above and beyond for our people: staff, customers and community alike.