After taking over the business his father Brendan founded in 1979, Codex CEO Patrick Murphy has an eye on the digital and sustainable future.
Codex is a leading business- to-business office solutions supplier specialising in office supplies , print and office furniture. It works with customers large and small, to support them however and wherever they work to consolidate suppliers, reduce costs and streamline ordering across their business.
The business recently emerged as one of eight new businesses to qualify for the first time in Ireland’s Best Managed Companies 2023 at the 15th annual awards programme led by Deloitte in association with Bank of Ireland. In doing so Codex joins a network of 130 businesses from 24 counties across Ireland with a combined turnover of €17bn, export sales of €3bn and 53,000 employees.
“We have ambitious plans and we are pushing forward with a great team. I’m really excited about the next few years”
Codex was founded in 1979 by Brendan Murphy and over the past 40-plus years has grown from a being a small outfit, to a much larger team withmore than 90 people behind it. Brendan’s son Patrick took up the reins of the business in 2019 as CEO and with the support of Bank of Ireland this year became the official owner of the business.
Under Patrick’s leadership, scaling the business and transforming it for the digital and sustainable age we are now in is a priority. Codex is committed to being carbon neutral by 2030 and among its initiatives are plans to replace all vehicles with electric vans by 2025.
Best practice
“My priority since I’ve succeeded as CEO has been to work hard and build the team around me and I cannot be more proud of the things we are doing as a business. It’s a natural progression but it is also very strategic.”
Patrick’s father Brendan was an accountant by trade before he started Codex. A poor customer experience with a supplier made him realise he could do this himself and Codex was born. “He gave a supplier a big order and the supplier never came back to him. He always wanted to go into business himself and having done some research into the market where he discovered poor service was the norm, he saw it as an opportunity.
“My father was always about providing for family and building a long-term sustainable business. The key to it was providing a good customer experience and by doing he knew he would be successful.”
Patrick points out that it is now a different time where more value is put on mission statements and demonstrable results in areas like ESG (environmental, social and governance), which adds a new range of responsibilities as well as maintaining that customer experience cachet.
“My dad was actually ahead of his time in how he ran the business. He focused consistently on applying best practices and that’s why he was so successful. He stood out from a lot of other businesses because the customer was at the core. He was thinking continually about the long-term and invested in the future. And over time he grew a successful business. He was ahead of his time again terms of things like next-day delivery and offering customers a “white glove service”. By standing out from the crowd he built a business that was profitable every year since 1979. His north star was building a long-term sustainable business.”
Patrick, like most members of a family business, found himself working in the firm as a teenager at weekends and during holidays. “I’ve done all the jobs and made all the mistakes along the way.”
After school he studied biochemistry and spent some time in the pharma industry before returning to Codex initially on a part-time basis. “The deal was I would help dad out with a few projects and he would support my further education in business as I did an MBA at UCD. I returned to the business full-time initially as a sales manager, then director of operations and I became CEO in 2019. Since then it has been about putting my own stamp on the business.
“My focus is on the next level of innovation in areas like e-commerce and looking after our most valuable asset – our people – by focusing on initiatives such as flexible work policies and the future of work. The business my dad created was defined by his innovative way of looking at things and I’m carrying on that tradition with a fresh set of eyes in a very different time. One thing that will never change is our dedication to providing a positive customer experience.”
Strategic succession
It is worth considering that if it wasn’t for a bad customer experience, Brendan might never have started Codex. Now more than 40 years later, as part of the succession path, his son Patrick values his father’s insight.
“The succession was very gradually. His view was that he wanted to add value, not just sit around giving occasional input. I am lucky to have him as a mentor and you can see the respect for him in the industry and among the staff. He is very strategic in his thinking and I am very detail-oriented. He has always urged me to see the bigger picture as a leader of a business and he has a point: the world doesn’t change as much as people think and people are still people. The challenges you come across as a business owner might change with time and technology, but as a business leader they are quintessentially the same.”
Murphy’s instinct is to keep a steely focus on the bigger picture. “Our strategy is to stay on top of workplace technology trends. We want to get closer to our customers to stay relevant and react to their needs, adapt to the marketplace and invest in the right areas. If you think big, you have to invest big. But the north star is how do we add more value.
“It’s great to have loyal customers, it’s great that you have a good relationship with them, but you have to always be able to show how you are adding value for them.
“We have tripled our furniture sales and we have tripled our print and design and facilities management segments.”
Andrew Keenan, senior relationship manager with Bank of Ireland’s Business Banking New Business Origination Team agrees. “We are delighted to support Codex in this exciting stage of its development. Codex has a strong customer ethos which has been central to its success over the last 40 years. It was a pleasure to work with Patrick and the team in Codex Ltd and I am personally thrilled to have been involved with such a fantastic business with an exciting future.”
Looking to the future, Murphy says people and technology are the lynchpin of the bigger picture. “Codex is one of the top 1,000 companies in Ireland. And we wouldn’t be there if it wasn’t for the calibre of our people. We believe in partnerships and our relationship with Bank of Ireland has been key because it has always been a long-term partnership. I would describe the relationship as having open and honest conversations at its core. It’s not just transactional, it’s about feedback, insights and a genuine relationship where you are working together and focused on mutual success.
“We have ambitious plans and we are pushing forward with a great team. I’m really excited about the next few years.”
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