A focus on niche markets and R&D has helped ADI Group see 45% growth

NO. 22
As the saying goes, one’s person’s waste is another person’s treasure, or at least a niche market to be exploited. Since 1945, Fredericton-based ADI Group Inc. has been turning waste into a golden business opportunity, and today it represents a niche market to be exploited. Thanks to its decades of expertise, the company has become a world leader in wastewater treatment and environmental technologies. 

Hollis Cole describes the company as a design-build contractor tailored to fill needs in industrial wastewater-treatment and energy-recovery systems, as well as a designer and fabricator of geomembranes for lagoon and tank covers. The company also designs and builds industrial plants and commercial buildings such as the new convention centre and office complex in Fredericton. 

Cole believes ADI Group’s focus on those niche markets is one of its main strengths. “We’re small, nimble, and smart,” he says. “We can do things the big guys can’t, like make decisions in a hurry and design and build quickly.” Although calling ADI Group small is misleading. Despite its relatively small staff of 60 in Fredericton, ADI Group has clients in more than 30 countries, many of them Fortune 500 names such as Archer Daniels Midland, Kraft Foods, and Hershey Foods. In addition to the food-and-beverage industry, other clients include pulp-and-paper companies and chemical manufacturing and ethanol producers. 

Another key component to ADI Group’s growth has been its own efforts, conducted in its own research lab, where wastewater samples are tested to develop newer and better treatment technology. A partnership with the nearby University of New Brunswick is a bonus, because academic research helps develop new technologies that ADI Group can take to market.

A recent addition to ADI Group’s in-house technology is its Anaerobic MBR, which combines anaerobic treatment with its membrane technology to transform black water, a biomass in an anaerobic digester that typically is black in colour, into almost clear water. Cole is particularly proud of the company’s structurally supported geomembrane cover system, in which a membrane is supported by a fixed structure, similar to a tarp on a truck. ADI Group’s competitors typically offer rigid covers made of fibreglass, for example, so the company’s flexible membrane offers an attractive feature in the form of a retractable cover.

Cole hopes these new systems will help develop new markets, especially in Europe, where it has traditionally been difficult to compete. A recent partnership with a European vendor should help achieve that goal. “We’re looking at growing our business significantly in the next three years,” he says, adding that he wants to triple their business with more aggressive sales, a renewed focus on business development, and employee recruitment.

Like most businesses, ADI Group’s numbers softened slightly during the recession, which wasn’t helped by the fact that most of its clients are located in the hard-hit U.S. However, the company has emerged mostly unscathed. As Cole puts it, his clients are “somewhat recession-proof,” since many are in the food-and-beverage industry, and people will always have to eat.

In 2009 ADI Group went through an important restructuration exercise when it sold its engineering consulting firm, ADI Limited. At that time, the consulting arm was at a crossroads, and it had to choose between selling and growing at a national level. The company chose to sell to a national firm, and today Cole is still happy with the shareholders’ decision. In the long run, he believes it helped ADI Group focus on its strengths and niche markets. “We look after our customers,” says Cole. “It’s all about doing things right.”