From the outside looking in, it might seem that the course of James MacBeth’s career to date has run straight and smooth. After working with his dad – a boat builder and diver in a small fishing village off the west coast of Mallaig in Scotland – he came to Edinburgh and started his career in 1992 as a trainee technician with Auto Windscreens, which is part of Markerstudy Group.
From there, MacBeth worked his way up the ranks, taking on a management role at the turn of the millennium, which saw him build up the firm’s Edinburgh branch to become one of Auto Windscreens’ most successful sites. Since then, he’s seen many changes and taken on a progression of senior leadership roles becoming area manager, regional manager and operations director before stepping up as managing director in 2019.
He shared that he has experienced a certain hesitancy in taking on each new leadership position, most notably before becoming MD, wary that it might take him away from the hands-on work that first caught and continues to hold his passion for the business. It has been an unfounded fear for MacBeth who, at each turn, has managed to shape and reshape his identity as a leader to enable him to keep his boots on the same ground from which have sprung up almost the entire Auto Windscreens leadership team.
“I’ll always be hands-on because I like the day-to-day work we do,” he said. “I like being involved with meeting our customers as well and getting a chance to work closely with our people. I recognise that you’re only ever as good as your team and you need to treat everyone as you want to be treated. And if you don’t listen to your team, how are you going to support them in being the best they can be?”
That ethos is a familiar story across the entire Auto Windscreens proposition which MacBeth credits as the reason its retention rate among clients and colleagues is so high – and why there are people in the business who have served it even longer than he has. In fact, he said, the man who trained him, Kenny McMillan, is celebrating his 36th anniversary with Auto Windscreens this year while multiple other stalwarts are also celebrating decades-long anniversaries.
“Auto Windscreens is about people and it always has been,” he said. “One of the things I always say to my directors and my management team is: ‘When you go to visit any of our sites, go there to talk to people’. They’re there to spend quality time with people, listen to them and give them an update on what’s happening in the business and anything that’s happening in the macro environment. That engagement is so important to us and it’s one of the most fundamental aspects of our business – that anyone in the business can speak to anyone else at any point.”
Providing his own update on how the business is progressing, MacBeth noted that it stands in a strong position and is well-placed for further growth. Now with 73 sites nationwide, he said, Auto Windscreens boasts a team of over 800 colleagues and supports a significant tranche of apprentices each year. Despite only receiving the Apprenticeship Levy fund for England, the business continues to fund apprentices in Scotland, Ireland and Wales, he said, and has taken over 200 apprentices since 2017 – with 2023 yielding a 75% retention rate.
“We always like to employ from within, where we can, and to give promotions internally,” he said. “That stems from providing the right training and qualifications to allow our people to progress to the right level.
“But our focus is on training and development, because that’s how the next generation comes through. It’s really important to develop that pipeline of new recruits, not just out in our contact centres but also in sales, in finance and in every other area of the business. And our target now is to move from 30 a year up to 50 apprentices a year.”
For those who didn’t walk the tumultuous road, it might be easy to forget the many roadblocks, crossroads and detours it took to get to where Auto Windscreens stands in the market today. In his time with the business, MacBeth has seen it through many changes, including ownership by Lex Group, Aviva and Arques Industries AG before Markerstudy stepped in to bolster the flailing business when it entered into liquidation in 2011.
When Nigel Davies was then appointed MD, he took up the mantle of rebuilding the firm’s credibility in the market, and particularly among its insurer partners. Unfortunately, he had to step down and the new managing director’s strategy was to look for cost-savings by closing down sites, it was suggested.
“We ended up with something like five sites at that time [in 2015], which was probably the darkest period in my career,” he said. “It was very hard watching a business that you love and are passionate about going the wrong way.”
The road ahead looked brighter by the time MacBeth stepped into a new role as operational director in 2016, this time under Rupert Armitage as MD who, though he came from a completely different professional background, soon “fell in love with the business”. Profitability remained a challenge, he said, but Kevin Spencer [Markerstudy chief executive] threw his weight behind the business, investing in and encouraging the Auto Windscreens team to target growth.
MacBeth was seconded into the MD role before his appointment became permanent in 2019.
“I’m proud to say that I’ve enjoyed every step of my journey with the business, even through some challenging times, such as the pandemic,” he said. “Now, we’re going from strength-to-strength, continuing to build on the relationships we maintained even when things were at their toughest.
“The business is looking very strong at the moment and we’re re-engaging with a lot of insurance companies. We’re continuing to strengthen our profile in the industry, with all the innovation we’re rolling out with ADAS technologies. For me, we do offer the best proposition in the industry and I’m so proud of what this team has achieved and will continue to achieve.”
