Construction Business Review

Centimark Corporation
The Comprehensive Roofing Solutions Partner

Tim Dunlap, President & CEO, Centimark Corporation Tim Dunlap, President & CEO
The ‘as a service’ business model widely embraced by software companies is a great boon for their customers. XaaS (X implying anything) refers to a model that helps vendors deliver products, tools, and technologies to clients/users as a service over a network—typically via the internet—rather than provide it locally or on-site. It offers several advantages over traditional service delivery models, such as 24/7 uptime, seamless adaptability and customizability, easy customer support, and transparent subscription models. However, beyond the confines of software and everything IT, the hardware-oriented field of construction and civil engineering may also stand to benefit from XaaS.

The idea of ‘Roofing is a Service’ may be inconceivable in today’s construction business landscape. Yet, CentiMark delivers roofing experiences that are closest to the concept. With wide market reach and presence, comprehensive service delivery processes, customer centricity, a broad array of roofing capabilities, and vision influenced by legacy, they offer comprehensive commercial roofing and flooring solutions to their thousands of clients in North America.

A Roofing Partner Unlike any Other

Unlike the vast majority of localized roofing contractors, CentiMark holds a broad presence in the United States and Canada with over 95 offices. The company sees each roofing undertaking as a potential long-term partnership—be it with big clients having branches across the country or small businesses requiring maximum returns on their roofing investments.

  • The most important thing for us is to focus on the service side

As an all-encompassing roofing contractor, CentiMark performs reroofing, repairs, service and preventative maintenance on the nine major roofing systems instead of most contractors who are familiar with only one or two roof systems. The company can assess any building’s unique condition and provide the ideal solution/service that remedies it.

For clients, the benefits of working with the largest commercial roofing contractor in the country are aplenty. First, the company’s financial department can customize short-term payment options with no interest. Another key differentiator of CentiMark is the unique warranty structure that it can bring to clients via its corporate legal department. Typically, roofing contractors simply forward the warranties offered by the roofing manufacturer for material. This may lead to undesirable situations where customers are shuttled between the contractor for workmanship issues and the manufacturer for material issues. “We will provide you with a CentiMark warranty that takes away your every repair hassle. You can speak with us, and we will fix it for you,” asserts Tim Dunlap, President and CEO of CentiMark.

We can tell you how long your roof will last, and if you do repairs, how the index will change, and we can share with you the exact returns on the money that you invest

Owing to CentiMark’s size and reputation, it is in their best interest to serve their customer better, to ultimately service their entire portfolio of buildings spread across the country, like a one-stop roofing provider. Interestingly, as an ESOP (Employee Stock Ownership Plan) company, it is also in the best interest of CentiMark’s workforce to bring out their best at work. The company ensures that its workforce is well trained, to ultimately match their workmanship to what is expected by their clients, many of whom are Fortune 1000 companies.

Customer Centricity at its Finest

CentiMark goes the extra mile in educating clients about the best roofing solutions, their ROI, energy efficiency, and payback period, to name a few. When it comes to roof repairing, the company has developed a proprietary roof-life index to evaluate the roof in question. “We can tell you how long your roof will last, and if you do repairs, how the index will change, and we can share with you the exact returns on the money that you invest,” adds Dunlap. Be it a single building or a portfolio of buildings, CentiMark can evaluate the roofing operating expense and capital budgets for the next five years.

CentiMark also strives to raise the bar on customer centricity by delivering a digital experience to customers. By leveraging drone and AI-powered image processing technologies, the company shares with clients the real-time condition of their roof as the roofing work progresses. CentiMark also offers a novel portal from which clients can visually configure their roofs and provides an on-demand education platform where users can access all relevant roofing information. In addition to bringing a great deal of transparency to customer onboarding and engagement, these initiatives prove to be particularly useful in the wake of the COVID pandemic, where communicating and exchanging information remotely has become the norm.

CentiMark is well aware of the seismic shift brought on by the pandemic, especially in the way buildings are being used. The demand for refined roofing solutions has thus increased; as John Godwin, Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing, CentiMark states “Some of our customers in the food storage space have acquired more building real estate to meet the demands of the pandemic. All of a sudden, they’ve needed to reroof, and the need to get buildings up to speed.”

To this end, CentiMark was able to examine their clients’ entire portfolio, arrive at an expense estimate, and guarantee the same with respect to their capital budget. And the company does this with cutting-edge data and VR technologies. “It happens over and over again with Fortune 500 companies as it is our strength to quickly respond to customer needs,” mentions Godwin. “The most important thing for us is to focus on the service side. The economy may go up or down, but if we can take care of our customers at the low dollar end where the other contractors may not care about, they are going to be our lifelong partners,” adds Dunlap. Many of CentiMark’s clients have been with them for over 50 years, which is a testament to how they uphold the importance of serving customers of every need without exception.

Humble Beginnings, Moonshot Growth, Stellar Goals

Having carved a unique niche in the roofing industry, the company constantly stays abreast of the evolving roofing trends and needs to better cater to their clients. “One thing the pandemic taught us is that building spaces are going to be used differently, and that roofing needs to align well with that change. We need to keenly observe what is going to happen in the space,” adds Dunlap.

Diversification has always been CentiMark’s staple, fueling its organic growth. For instance, CentiMark had solely been a roofing and flooring contractor for the first 50 years of business. When their clients began constructing new buildings and asked them to undertake roofing construction, the company quickly grabbed the opportunity. Godwin throws light on how CentiMark evolved (and diversified) since its inception.

Edward Dunlap, who serves CentiMark as its Chairman, founded the company back in 1968 as a janitorial supply business in the basement of his home. The company would be officially named CentiMark much later in 1987 after it diversified into providing roofing and flooring services. CentiMark’s big breakthrough in the roofing space came in 1970s when they began utilizing a new roofing membrane material called EPDM (rubber), which was an instant game-changer. The rest, as they say, is history. “Each decade—in parallel to witnessing the company diversifying and innovating roofing and flooring—brought a new financial milestone: sales of $1 million in 1974; $10 million in 1984; $100 million in 1994, $300 million in 2004, $500 million in 2012, and $800 million in 2020. We are poised to become the first billion dollar roofing company, as Ed’s son Tim Dunlap, President and CEO, steers the company forward. The third generation family members of the Dunlaps have come onboard at CentiMark,” concludes Godwin. The future looks bright for the company.

- Michael Rosario
    June 01, 2021