The challenge
ElectrAssure Limited, founded in 2004, has been delivering electric vehicle charging solutions for the past nine years. Loyd Davies, Service Development Director, and found of the company, said ElectrAssure has successfully delivered large-scale projects to major, national and multinational corporations as well as small businesses.
The business has worked with a variety of companies including Volkswagen, British Car Auctions and Western Power Distribution. ElectrAssure’s current long-term project with the National Grid will provide 1500 electric vehicle charging points in almost 300 of their UK sites.
The company has developed a structure to manage significant projects which have secured very positive comments from clients. As ElectrAssure increasingly work on larger projects with well-known and established companies, it doubled in size in each of the past two years and this was beginning to create challenges for a relatively small business.
Loyd felt that as the company was growing too quickly, some external assistance was required to enable it to continue growing by better illustrating the capabilities of the company to the wider market. This required a more structured marketing strategy, raising the profile of the company and helping to attract new businesses but at the same time projecting a more professional operation.
The solutions
Loyd found out about the Get Growing 2 (GG2) programme after searching online for business support in the region. The Get Growing 2 Programme is funded through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The company had not been involved in any funding programmes previously but found that joining GG2 was a straightforward process. There was a fair amount of paperwork involved in the application, but help was always at hand from the Growth Manager. The actual help from GG2 on the project was a mixture of remote and face-to-face interactions which were both smooth and effective in its delivery.
As part of the GG2 programme, ElectrAssure were referred to a marketing organisation. The company engaged Gain Momentum to update their website and produce new brochures as part of a marketing campaign and was financed by GG2.
“The company’s website was improved significantly in comparison to how it looked and functioned before the programme.”
The development of the marketing campaign helped increase the ability of ElectrAssure to present itself as a more authoritative and reliable business. It helped the company realise its value, articulating its capabilities to the customer.
The result
As a result, Loyd says that the positioning of ElectrAssure in the business world is now better thought out and their ability to promote themselves to potential customers has developed substantially.
The website helped to promote their work by showcasing previous projects. This ultimately helped ElectrAssure continue to secure projects with large companies such as the Keolis Amey (Docklands Light Railway) and National Grid. The most significant part of the support was believed to be the input of the Growth Account Manager who Loyd is still in contact with.
“The Growth Account Manager proved to be very effective as a sounding board. They listened to what we had to say, who we are and what we do as a company and provided us with some valid proposals as to what options were available for us.”
Loyd was also referred to a consultancy, Eastern New Energy, by his Growth Account Manager to assist in the development of a new product line.
Overall, Loyd found the programme to be really useful and said he would definitely recommend it to other businesses. The support received on the programme allowed ElectrAssure to present themselves more strongly to future customers and to potential employees as well as providing expertise on the sustainability and environment side of the company.
For the future, ElectrAssure’s priorities include contributing to grow the businesses in the right way providing security for the company and its staff.