Founder’s Spotlight: Josh and Sam Wright of Vital Power Group

This is the first in my new Founder's Spotlight series, which will bring you untold stories from the frontline of the trade industries. Meet two innovators revolutionising an opaque and antiquated industry with the help of cutting-edge technology.

In 10 years, brothers Josh and Sam Wright, along with Alex Rae and original founders, Andy Wright and Nic Rae, have grown Vital Power Group (VPG) from a small family start-up to become an £18m turnover business. Based out of Coventry and Chester, this critical power specialist now operates nationwide, delivering major contracts across the UK.

The business started out providing service and maintenance services for diesel generators but has since diversified into complementary verticals: commercial EV charging, solar panels and battery storage. The business has always been quick to respond to evolving customer needs, not just broadening the range of services offered but delivering new technologies with VPG flair, great customer service, effortless implementation, and complete transparency at every stage.

In a traditional industry that relies on paper and manual processes, VPG is an outlier. In 2019, they modernised all their job management processes using BigChange's Jobwatch. This year, they began using Build Concierge's AI-powered customer engagement tools to ramp up efficiency yet again.

We spoke to Josh and Sam about how they have used technology to build a market leader.

Q: What's the origin story behind the business?

Josh: The company was founded in 2016 by our dad Andy Wright and Nic Rae, two long standing colleagues and friends who had both worked in critical power for 40 years. My brother Sam was the first employee and I joined in 2018. Today we employ more than 90 people. Nic's son Alex also joined the team in 2018 and together the three of us are responsible for running the business.

Sam: The real catalyst for growth came in 2018 when we secured the service and maintenance contract for a major retailer's 600 standby diesel assets. That was when we knew the start-up was a viable business.

What's so different about VPG?

J: A major turning point was in 2019 when we implemented BigChange's JobWatch system. We wanted to set a new benchmark in an old fashioned industry, most of our competitors have been around a long time and were still writing out paper reports and paper schedules. We are a young, forward-thinking team so we decided to use software instead. JobWatch was game-changing for our business, allowing us to go from strength to strength. In 2018, we turned over £400,000. Fast-forward to last year, and we did £18m and this year we will do significantly more than that.

"We have turned a paper-based industry into a digital one, and that was the trigger to having a scalable business."

S: The technology is important, but we are also known for the breadth of services we offer. We have competitors in each of our revenue streams but no one else offers it all under one roof. We position ourselves as an end-to-end critical power solutions business, solving customer problems and delivering world class service.

Where has revenue growth come from?

J: Lots of blood, sweat and tears, hard work and customer recommendations. The diesel generator service and maintenance part of the business is still our bread and butter, but we have leveraged our strong position there to now include equipment sales, high-speed electric vehicle charging for trucks, buses and fleet, and now battery storage. I believe that in this business, if you stand still, you're dead. The traditional generator business is funding our pivot to clean energy, and both areas work in tandem, as our customers have a need for all of what we supply.

S: We recently acquired a service division from a competitor, so we now offer uninterruptible power supply (UPS), which is doing very well and will become a big revenue-generator later this year. This was a missing piece from the range of services that we offer, so we found a solution to fill the gap.

How will technology support future growth?

J: When we found out that Martin Port, founder of BigChange, was back with a new business, we were immediately interested. Build Concierge complements BigChange, adding another layer of automation. Our business is continuing to scale and, amazingly, we will grow by another 70pc this year. Software has underpinned our growth journey over the past few years and will be vital to our future success.

S: It's impossible to continue to scale at this rate without using technology to support the growth. We want to achieve efficiencies and economies of scale so that we can improve our margins, and our systems are critical to achieving that. A profitable business is a sustainable business.

How have you kept customers long-term?

J: We provide an industry-leading customer experience and software is a big part of that. We always hear that competitors leave customers waiting weeks for a response to an enquiry. Build Concierge will help us ensure we respond fast, answering queries and connecting customers to the right specialist. As you scale, it becomes harder to rely on people to do all this, which is why AI will be key.

S: We live in such a digital world now. Customers get in touch via WhatsApp, Teams, email, phone. You have people talking about the same jobs in five different places. Trying to collate all the different communication channels was a real challenge. With Build Concierge, all the conversations are unified into one platform, captured and summarised, reducing the risk of any errors creeping in.

Will AI replace people in your business?

S: No, our people just have more time to focus on valuable and impactful work. Filling out handover notes when jobs move across departments is not a good use of anyone's time! They will now spend that time speaking to customers and generating more revenue for the business instead. It's the combination of world-class technology and great, customer-focused people that has been the difference so far in our journey. It will be the same again during this next phase.

J: We are aiming to reset the benchmarks for customer service yet again. We want to be the best and offer the best possible customer service we can. Technology will be at the heart of the next part of the journey, and AI will help us to do it more profitably than before.

Different industries. Different services. Yet both share the same approach to managing change, technological transformation and staff engagement.

After spending time with both companies, I understood that great leadership comes from a combination of relentless customer focus, operational resilience, empathy and an inherent restlessness. The leaders at TW Drainage and AGS One never stand still, always asking, "How can we get better?"

This is very different from the inverse: "What are we doing wrong?"

Companies that focus on the negative tend to bring out the worst in their teams. These shop floor days reinforced the power of celebrating everything great about your service, team and technology while always looking for small improvements and incremental changes.

The leaders at these businesses roll up their sleeves and find solutions alongside their people.

This is the way I want to support my customers on shop floor days. I don’t want to point out manual processes and say, "You need to fix that." I'm not there to tell people what they're doing wrong. I listen, observe and understand how the business really operates. Only then can we identify opportunities to improve.

Working alongside the teams at TW Drainage and AGS One, we explored ways to remove friction, eliminate unnecessary administration and unlock greater productivity. Every workflow we observe helps us improve Build Concierge, making the platform stronger for every customer that follows.

Some of the improvements will deliver measurable ROI. Others will create benefits that can't easily be measured: less frustration; faster, more confident decision-making; a better customer experience; more time for people to focus on the work that really matters.

It’s hard to record these benefits as numbers on a spreadsheet, but they have a significant long-term impact on the success and resilience of any business.

A huge thank you to everyone at TW Drainage and AGS One for your openness, your willingness to challenge yourselves, and your commitment to continuous improvement. Spending time with businesses like yours reminds me why I love what I do.

I've never just wanted to sell software. I want to help my customers grow their businesses faster and achieve their goals more easily. Whatever you need, I’m ready to roll up my sleeves and help.