Stuart Pearce
Tim Barfoot and Mark Buscombe founders of new firm Novia Recruitment
IN PROFILE
Stuart Pearce
Managing Director, SMARTech Energy
Stuart Pearce is founder and managing director of Corsham based SMARTech energy, energy management and reduction specialists.
SMARTech energy works with local businesses to help reduce their energy bills. Since the company launched 22 months ago it has identified thousands of pounds worth of savings for local companies. The firm’ s success hasn’ t gone unnoticed and they were recently crowned Business of the Year and Green Business of the Year at the Enterprising Wiltshire Awards.
We met with Stuart to find out more about him and SMARTech.
What ' s your career history?
I started my career in the army as a Royal Engineer and worked as both a plant engineer and air conditioning and refrigeration engineer. I completed nine years of service before deciding I wanted to leave and become an entrepreneur.
My first venture into the world of entrepreneurship was in Antrim, Northern Ireland importing off road mechanical bikes, quads and go-karts, sourced from manufacturers in China, where we operated two retail shops with motorcycle servicing and a distribution side to the business.
I learnt a lot from this especially in the area of distribution. Don’ t be flattered if a distributor comes to you and wants you to commit to a large amount of stock, it puts all the risk on you! This company was an expensive education and when I saw we were losing money I wrapped it up and moved back to the UK.
When I first moved back I went to work for a company called Celtic Tuning as a business development manager for eight months, but having had a taste of being my own boss I knew I had to get back to my plan.
How did the idea for launching SMARTech come about?
I’ ve always had an interest in the green issue and my past career gave me a great basis of knowledge in understanding how electrical and mechanical processes work. It ' s helped to quickly advance my business into the energy management area.
Do you think your military background has helped you as a business owner?
The mentality definitely has; never giving up. There’ s 24 hours in a day and I don’ t need a huge amount of sleep. I work as hard as possible from Monday- Friday and the weekend is my family time.
I also received excellent training as a plant machinery mechanic and training in heating and cooling, plus electrics which has been instrumental in starting SMARTech energy.
The military background also helps with lateral thinking. If it doesn’ t work, how else can we get this done? I stop, assess and come up with a new approach, if something hasn ' t worked first time.
What tips would you offer anyone trying to grow a team?
In just under two years SMARTech energy has grown from a one-man band to a team of eight and we’ re currently recruiting more electricians, a maintenance engineer, a part-time labourer and two new sales people.
Building the right team is important. We’ ve just written our team values. They include, quality, passion, accountability and integrity.
By writing them collaboratively you gain commitment from the team and they achieve much more than a group of‘ compliant’ employees.
I’ m also passionate about nurturing new talent. We have two apprentices in the business, an apprentice electrical technician, a business administrator apprentice plus one junior energy manager who is being internally trained to develop as an energy manager.
What are your ambitions for the business?
The target is to achieve a £ 5 million turnover by 2018. One way we’ re going to do this is by diversifying. We’ re in the process of launching mobile micro Combined Heating Power systems. A new technology taking over from Solar PV and bio-mass. The new solution runs on waste fuels to supply electricity and heating 24 / 7. There are some great government incentives to embrace this technology with pay back on investment over a six-year period. This is quicker than usual with the average time being seven years.
Many of our key clients such as Dorothy House Hospice and Wiltshire College among another 20 companies are in talks to take on the new technology so far.
What do you think is your unique selling point?
Our competitiors’ don’ t offer such a holistic approach to energy management and review all energy sources form electricity, gas, heating oil, LPG and renewable options. This is why it’ s so hard to get quotes from other firms that are like-for-like. We use fact not guesstimation too; by installing energy monitoring equipment, carrying out detailed sites surveys which are part of our bespoke nine step methodology to help our client reduce their energy consumption by at least 30 – 50 %.
62 % of our clients go forwards with projects as we present the pure facts. And we specify, supply, install, commission and maintain all of our jobs. We also commit to a full post-project monitoring analysis to prove the savings achieved. Doing this to date our client on average have achieved 10 % more savings than predicted in our energy management report.
If you would like to reduce your energy consumption by 30 – 50 % or generate your own heat and power, get in touch and we can arrange a free energy consultation.
Visit us online to find out more: www. SMARTech-energy. co. uk
Next edition we interview:
Tim Barfoot and Mark Buscombe founders of new firm Novia Recruitment
30 THE BUSINESS EXCHANGE 2016