WHAT do air conditioning units, coffee machines and light features all have in common?

No, this isn't a bad joke you might find inside a Christmas cracker - this is a list of some of the things a young Colchester company take pride in.

Let me introduce you to Cloudfm.

They're a facilities management company who, put simply, help other businesses perform as well as they can.

They organise re-active and planned maintenance services provided by roughly 250 other contractor companies.

But they try and take a pro-active approach to they do so they stop things breaking before they break - rather than repairing them afterwards.

It is a business that was founded in 2011 and just six years on it is already one of the leading players in the industry.

They already boast a turnover of roughly £75 million and by 2020 are hoping to have trebled in size.

Clients such as ASK Italian, Poundland, Prezzo, Karen Millen and KFC are just some of the high street names who trust them to keep things running smoothly.

Jeff Dewing, the chief executive of the company, said: "Our clients certainly appreciate what we do and, while they might not know who to thank, their customers definitely appreciate our work as well.

"By some measurements, facilities management amounts to eight percent of the UK’s GDP, yet it’s something that the general public often know very little about.

"However, what we do touches the everyday experience of almost everyone.

"We’ve all felt the annoyance when a bathroom is out of order, when a restaurant can’t offer its full menu, or when a store is too warm or too cold to shop comfortably.

"That’s annoying for businesses too – a restaurant loses money when it can’t serve food, and a clothing store’s turnover reduces significantly when customers aren’t able to try on clothes comfortably.

"We’ve designed technology and processes to ensure that breakdowns like these are minimised and that they are rectified faster when they do happen."

Their vast clientele means they are responsible for more than 3,000 shops and 1,000 restaurants across the UK and Europe.

And earlier this year the company took a big step closer to achieving their goal of trebling in size with a brand new training academy.

The site on Severalls Business Park is their third in Colchester and the new academy will help them bring through the next generation of engineers

The academy on Severalls suite is unique as it houses equipment for workers practise on that they would come across in everyday situations.

Mr Dewing said: "We’re not just in business to make money, we’re here to show the industry that there is a better way to serve its customers.

"One of the ways we do that is by making sure that both our helpdesk staff and our engineers are familiar with the exact pieces of equipment that our clients use on their premises.

"This means that our teams have the knowledge and skills they need to diagnose and solve problems as quickly as possible, and that our clients don’t have to suffer breakdowns any more or for longer than is necessary."

Former Essex and England cricketer Graham Gooch was given the honour of opening the new academy and his appearance was a sign of the deep-rooted relationship Cloudfm have with the area.

They sponsor Essex's Chelmsford ground and Mr Dewing said the company take pride in their community involvement.

He said: "We’ll be expanding the programme of learning at the academy over the coming year and our ambassadors for the academy come from the youth development squad at Essex County Cricket Club.

"This year has also seen the launch of our apprenticeship scheme, in partnership with Colchester Institute.

"That’s allowed us to offer a group of very bright and ambitious school leavers an opportunity to join our team, and develop their skills in a range of business areas.

"Exceptional people at all levels of the business have been the foundation of our success over the last few years and maintaining that growth depends on our ability to recruit and train team members of the very highest quality."

But what are the ambitions beyond trebling in size and giving chances to youngsters?

Well, the company also has a desire to be the industry's best and show their competitors how to go about doing it.

Mr Dewing said: "Our priority is to lead the way in an industry that traditionally hasn’t performed as well as its customers expect.

"We aim to provide a service that is materially better value and better quality than any of our competitors, and we won’t make compromises on that to chase an unnecessarily high rate of growth.

"Beyond that, however, the sky’s the limit, and we fully expect to continue growing rapidly for the foreseeable future."

For more information about Cloudfm visit cloudfmgroup.com