Diploma is a Group of value-add distribution businesses serving a wide range of industrial and life sciences end markets. All of our businesses are different and they deliver success in different ways through our powerful decentralised culture. But there are some characteristics that are common to all Diploma businesses: a strong value-add customer proposition delivered by brilliant people with strong leadership.
We develop our businesses and work with them to scale as they grow, so that they become better, not just bigger, businesses.
Chris Davies, Group CFO
We are a lean decentralised Group, meaning we're not here to standardise our businesses, suppress their unique identities, disempower local leaders or add bureaucracy or unnecessary cost. We're here to drive ambitious growth and deliver it with discipline. Through this model, we have a long history of delivering strong shareholder value and meaningful stakeholder impact.
To understand Diploma, it’s important to recognise the role of the Corporate Centre, the Sectors and the characteristics that make our businesses special.
The role of the Corporate Centre is to support effective execution of our strategy to deliver value for our shareholders and wider stakeholders, through strong organic growth, consistently high returns and excellent cash generation, which allows us to reinvest in acquisitions.
We have a lean central team comprising functional experts who support our businesses to grow and scale, whilst also delivering the compliance and control obligations of a FTSE 100 Group.
We are a capital-light business, investing around 2% of revenue annually in scaling our businesses by upgrading facilities, enhancing the use of technology and investing in talent. The main use of capital is to make selective acquisitions that will accelerate future organic growth.
We have a clear Group strategy that flows through our Sectors, to our businesses, and results in specific strategic plans being set to grow and scale each business. These plans are set collaboratively between the corporate centre, the Sector and each business, and each leader is accountable for their delivery.
Decentralised doesn't mean isolated. There's great value in business collaboration and the effects of a Group network, such as sharing of expertise, experience and best practice; exploring cross-sell opportunities; leveraging customer and supplier relationships; and benefitting from the reputation and firepower of being part of a large, successful Group.
Diploma has a diverse portfolio of businesses, which all share some key characteristics that identify them as Diploma businesses. These key characteristics drive loyalty and share of wallet, reputation and market share potential, and pricing power and strong margins.
Learn more about our Businesses
Our businesses support customers with technically demanding applications and that require critical products and processes. These customers often operate in highly regulated environments with high cost-of-failure projects.
Despite these critical constraints, the products our businesses supply to their customers are typically low component cost and funded from operating expenditure.
Typically, our customers require a lot from their distribution partner: expertise and technical support, bespoke solutions, supply chain management, responsive customer service, product range and availability, quality assurance and certification.
Our decentralised model means our businesses have empowered leadership, end-to-end accountability, agility and responsiveness, engaged teams, differentiated customer service, local focus and long-term partnerships with customers and suppliers.
Our strategy is to build high-quality, scalable businesses for sustainable organic growth
We believe that sustainable quality compounding comes from a balance of ambition with discipline
Diploma is a decentralised, value-add distribution Group. Our businesses deliver practical and innovative solutions that keep key industries moving