Industry Voices: Graham Bourton

Graham Bourton, managing director of United, talks about having the drive to do more in this look back on our interview from the September 2024 issue of Dealer Support

CREDIT: This is an edited version of an article that originally appeared in Dealer Support Magazine  

‘We want to make a positive impact. One thing we’ve done recently is get involved with Unity Place, a homeless shelter in Milton Keynes. Giving back to the community has always been a core value for United, but over the past year, it has become a major driving force within the company.

One Step Further

We’ve always done a little bit, but we’ve never felt like we’ve done enough. We sponsor local sports teams in Clifton and Milton Keynes. Sport is important to a lot of us of on the team – I volunteer as a coach for a rugby team down at Milton Keynes and sport really resonates with us.

There’s been a homeless problem in Milton Keynes – I live here, and I see it a lot, so we’ve been getting involved with them, going down and cleaning the homeless shelter and taking cleaning equipment down for them as well. We’ve been on a CSR journey recently and felt we should be getting more involved in the community. It’s not enough for a business now to just be doing business, you need to be giving something back.

Being Genuine

Though participating in these projects is rewarding for the team, its’s vital to remember the importance of maintaining integrity and approaching each initiative with genuine intentions.

As a business we thought, what means something to us as a team?  What’s got a tie in with us? We didn’t want to just go and do something for the sake of doing it. We’ve really tried to keep our motivations pure. I’m sure at some point, things like sustainability, accreditations and CSR do resonate with customers, but we’ve got to try and do things for the right reasons.

Let’s not do this as a tick box exercise. Let’s make sure that we do it genuinely, because if you don’t people will see it, and that would be worse than not doing it. It’s good to give back as a business, but it’s also good for us as a business. We do get something out of it – I think it brings us all together for a common cause.

When you have a fairly good life – and lots of us here have good lifestyles – you want to see your kids grow up in a place where people do the right thing. I think we just have to try and help each other out a little bit. That’s what we’re applying in this business – we just want to do a bit more.

I think it’s good for everybody – it brings us all together.’