Black Country design group breaks record £25m sales barrier

BLACK Country-based design, technical recruitment and prototyping company, Futura Group, has seen the best twelve months in its 28-year history with sales exceeding £25m.

Futura, which offers its services through its five companies, has secured a host of new contracts with car makers including Bentley, Jaguar Land Rover, VW Group and McLaren.

The company is utilising the skills of its designers and its state-of-the-art studios in Oldbury and Wootton Wawen in Warwickshire to work with OEMs on the development of new interior and exterior designs aimed at improving both comfort and performance.

More than £3m of new orders were secured last year and this has already led to the creation of 50 new jobs in the UK, a number of which are apprentices and graduates.

Paul Cadman, Group Managing Director, said: “There are numerous facets to Futura, but all businesses across the group have the same ethos that focuses on innovation, nurturing creativity and encouraging people be the best they can be.

“The recent growth has been driven by the development of our studios, with the design departments of all of the UK’s major automotive OEMs taking full advantage of Futura’s model creation capabilities.

“We have built a team with the skill set and knowledge to cover all aspects of product design and we can provide every service that a customer may require in their development plan, including CAD engineering, 5-axis CNC, 3D printing, clay, digital and hard modelling.”

He said all OEMs were striving to create models that were lighter, produced fewer emissions while not comprising on comfort and performance.

It is by working with these firms that the group looks add value to its own business.

In addition to the design business, the group is also made up of Futura Recruitment (a specialist agency for training and finding technical automotive staff) and Clark Abel.

The latter is a luxury bespoke design company providing clients with the ability to personalise their car, yacht, private jet or individual piece of home or office furniture.

“Adding value and innovation in design are the UK’s biggest selling points and we have to do everything we can to build on this competitive advantage.”