Hip Hip hurrah: our company celebrates its 20th anniversary. The shared passion for electrical engineering of 3 colleagues grew into a #teamgiec of 90 employees. Industrial and public customers knock on our door for electrical installation work, panel building and engineering. How we aim to make a difference for them? “We deliberately look for personal relationships in a technical world.”
Rapid growth
After its founding in 2004, the workforce expanded rapidly: today #teamgiec has about 90 employees. And we also grew in other areas over the past 2 decades. For example, we moved to a new and larger location in Lokeren. Where at the start we were mainly to be found in the metal industry, GIEC is now at home in all industries such as food, pharmaceutics and automotive. Meanwhile we have, in addition to an installation team, our own panel building and engineering department. The big advantage for our customers? Constant quality and high flexibility.
Partnerships
In addition to building on our own technicity, we believe in the strength of cooperation. In recent years, various partnerships have led to a further expansion of quality, knowledge and professionalism. Just think of our collaborations with GIEC Nederland (the Netherlands, formerly I.E.T.) or the acquisition of the activities and workforce of Van Hulle Elektrotechniek in 2022. Since 2019, GIEC has also been part of a technical holding. The combination of different complementary specialties within one group of companies makes GIEC a reliable partner for electrotechnical total projects from A to Z.
Personal touch with a focus on safety and quality
Despite the evolutions we have gone through, our core values have remained. For example, safety comes first in every project. We consciously opt for a professional safety policy. Our VCA P certificate is the best proof of this.
In the meantime, we have also obtained the ISO 9001 certification. On the one hand, this provides a guarantee for the level of quality that our industrial customers expect; on the other hand, it forms the stepping stone for structural growth in the future.
“A professional approach to safety and quality is obvious to us and is very much ingrained in our DNA. The way we realize our projects and the attitude of our employees typifies us. Indeed, in a technical world, we always look for a personal touch. We truly believe that personal relationships make the difference and want to deliver quality projects together with our clients. Above all, we want to build a long-term relationship. And that with all stakeholders: our employees, customers and suppliers,” says Frederick Flamand, CEO at GIEC.
Driven #teamgiec
What characterizes GIEC employees is the passion and pride with which everyone performs their work. This comes from the heart and we appoint this attitude by “#teamgiec”. A lot of attention is therefore paid to connecting colleagues. Just think of an onboarding and buddy program for starters, a staff party, training courses, sporting events, a staff newspaper … We really want to maintain a close-knit #teamgiec, even if that is not always easy at our scale.
Current challenges
“The rapid technological evolution in the electrical industry and in the manufacturing processes at our customers are another challenge for GIEC,” Frederick continues. “These are constantly changing: new technologies, stricter environmental or safety regulations, the energy transition, green methods of steel production, the development of hydrogen power plants … offer great opportunities but also bring challenges that should not be underestimated. Not only is the industry very much evolving, there is also a very strong tendency to realize projects much faster and more efficiently. This requires not only the necessary technical skills but also increasingly strong qualities in terms of project management and planning.”
Ready together for the next 20 years
“I look back fondly on the past 20 years and the course we took with GIEC. But what I am most proud of? That is the group of people we have brought together. By sharing knowledge, we move forward together. And I look forward to continuing to do that with #teamgiec over the next few years,” concludes Frederick.
Want to read more?
You can find Dutch articles about our 20th anniversary on the following news sites:
The following trade press also published an article about our anniversary: