ENERGY consultancy might well be one sector of business as able as any to withstand the impact of the credit crunch and economic downturn.
In times of trouble, companies need to save money. Making a business more energy efficient is one way to cut down on costs – and get some good PR for doing something of environmental benefit.
And that is where consultancy Enica, based in Treforest, is looking to exploit the market.
With two strands to the business – energy consultancy and supplying energy meters – it has already seen fast growth in the 18 months it has been up and running.
That growth is demonstrated by, in the past month, doubling the number of people it employs.
Enica is run by business partners Bryan Mullen and his son-in-law David Harden and was established in 2006.
Its year one, turnover was £146,000. In the next year the company is looking to turn over £1m.
That hike in turnover is largely down to the development of its “smart metering”, which can be used in tandem with the consultancy the company offers.
When the pair started their business they set out to tie consultancy with metering, providing business with both cost and CO2 savings.
Earlier this year, the company won the opportunity to roll out the Welsh Assembly Government’s Smart Metering Pilot Trial in conjunction with Bridgend County Borough Council and the Carbon Trust.
Mr Harden explained how the business had developed in its short lifespan.
He said: “Enica is a family business. I work with my father-in-law who had been doing this for a long time and we wanted to expand. I was brought in and we built the business together.
“We help business reduce their energy costs and there are two ways we do that. First as a consultancy where go into a business and we tell people how to save energy, and give them plans and activities they can undertake to reduce their costs. We also provide smart metering products.
“We have developed our own smart metering products, manufactured by a company in South Wales, and we think they are the most cost effective meters available in Wales.”
Having developed this product the company is already finding a challenge in finding the right way to market the innovation to the right customers and in the most cost-effective way.
There are also differences in the way different customers want to use the service.
Mr Harden said: “We find that a lot of people have different outlooks in using our service. Some people want their business to be more environmentally friendly and then there are businesses interested in saving money because money is so tight at the moment.
“Whatever, we are bracing ourselves for this to take-off. We can’t really visualise if we are going to sell 1,000, 5,000 or a million. The market is incredibly big.”
Mr Harden puts Enica’s initial success down to the diverse backgrounds of himself and Mr Mullen.
Mr Mullen had been a sole trader in energy consultancy for 10 years and Mr Harden had been working as a project manager in the land remediation industry.
Mr Harden said: “I came from a different industry altogether, and I saw a huge opportunity for energy-saving consultancies as soon as I got myself immersed into the consultancy side of this business.
“I was also able to look at it with a fresh pair of eyes and was able to look at simple problems that have never been resolved and came up with solutions that could resolve those problems.”
Enica is expanding its product range and introducing new inventions to make smart metering easier to implement.
No comments:
Post a Comment