Making business personal

Three new roles have been created through the local launch of Utility Shopper, a personal service created to meet the needs of SME businesses and more jobs are set to follow.

Andrea Haworth (32) heads up the team of ‘utility shoppers’, offering SME businesses the luxury of a utility buying and management service usually only available to large corporates.

Utility Shopper is the sister company to cost reduction and procurement management company Businesswise Solutions, who felt there was a need to bridge the customer service gap between SME businesses and the larger corporates.

Following a successful start, the business is actively looking to double the team in coming months, employing full academy style training for new recruits.

Director, Dean Cockett, said: “SMEs rarely have the luxury of a utilities manager, whose sole responsibility is to look after their company’s gas, electricity, telecoms and insurance spend.

“In many businesses we visit or speak to over the phone, the telecoms contracts fall to the IT guy while energy spend is the responsibility of accounts or similar.

“There is rarely any formal process in place to purchasing, nor time to fully explore the markets in order to make sure they are paying a fair rate for their utility spend.

“We hope to change all of this with Utility Shopper, providing a fully managed end-to-end service in which we work closely with our suppliers to find the best deals on the market, ensure satisfaction throughout the life of the contract and alert and advise clients about contract end dates to prevent costly roll overs.

“We truly believe it is a winning formula and hope our customers think so too.” Andrea’s team is made up with staff from the Pendle and Burnley area, including Joshua Ryan (20) and Phil Howarth (44).