WORDS: COLIN YOUNG
PICTURES: TOM BANKS
LEADING
LIGHT
Business cost-saving firm
Great Annual Savings
continues impressive
growth plan
G
Management – Phil Andrew is associate
customer experience director at Seaham-
based Great Annual Savings.
reat Annual Savings is rewriting the
rule book for the much-maligned
cost-saving utilities industry
to benefit customers, businesses and
communities in the Durham and Wearside
area, and beyond.
The Seaham-based company, which
employs more than 300 people from its
Spectrum Business Park base, is now one of
the leaders in the field following the collapse
of Utilitywise at the beginning of 2019.
Under the leadership of innovative
founder and chief executive Brad Groves, the
company continues to grow from strength-
to-strength, with new premises in the
pipeline and additional staff from Cornwall
to Aberdeen.
That includes some of the 1,000 who lost
their jobs when Newcastle-based Utilitywise
went into administration in February, who
will have noticed GAS’s approach to the
sector is very different.
Great Annual Savings Group has enjoyed
healthy expansion since its launch in 2012,
moving from its original base in South
Shields to Seaham where there are already
plans to move to new offices on the same site,
closer to the coastline.
The company helps businesses minimise
their variable costs and save money in
a number of fields, including energy
procurement, energy and water cost
management, business waste, fire safety,
telecoms, insurance, card payments and
electric vehicle charging.