Reflecting on our 2021-22 success: Managing Director Gregory Addison-Smyth

As the new financial year begins, our Managing Director Gregory Addison-Smyth reflects on all we’ve achieved in 2021-22:

Delivering innovative solutions

We’re all about creating long-term, transparent partnerships with our developer and ICP clients. We pride ourselves on making the connections process seamless and we want to keep on making life as easy as possible for you the longer we work together.

That’s why we’ve introduced a streamlined design process in the past year where our partners can self-approve designs once we’ve worked on more than three projects together. We still maintain our high standards by periodically auditing both the designs and the design team, but it helps speed up the design stage of your project.

When it comes to design, we’re always open to innovative solutions to meet your needs. In the past year, we’ve been able to implement a reduced footprint using smaller-sized components with the same power output for one client, while approving different equipment specifications to make the project more cost-effective and reduce lead times for another client.

Our mission is to deliver value to our customers and society through connected thinking. This year, we’ve connected some of our Independent Connection Providers (ICP) clients to Utility Infrastructure Provider (UIP) clients so together they can create multi-utility bids for developers covering both electricity and gas connections. Connecting our clients and helping them reach their goals, helps us reach ours.

Investing in people and processes

We’ve introduced a new online asset value portal, which you can use to get an instant quote for your project. You don’t have to wait for our team to review your project details before coming back to you with a quote – you’ll get your quote within seconds.

We want to get your developments connected in the smartest, fastest and greenest way possible. We know to do that, we need lean and agile processes and systems. And these systems need to work for you and make your life easier, too.

We’re putting this into action as we develop our online asset management portal. We’ve turned to our customers to help us co-design the portal, so it’s tailored to your needs and ours.

One of the things that makes me most proud to work at mua is our team. Our talented and dedicated colleagues are genuinely committed to achieving our vision of being the first-choice multi-utility network operator.

In the past 12 months, we’ve celebrated promotions and new colleagues joining the team, including our very first apprentice. Don’t forget to follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter to keep up to date with all our news and team achievements.

Helping our clients in challenging financial times

We launched our business during COVID-19 and while the worst of the pandemic thankfully seems to be behind us, we’re still in tough economic times. In fact, according to the Office of National Statistics, the UK is facing economic pressures not seen since the 1970s in terms of inflationary pressures. Supply costs are increasing, lead times are increasing and businesses up and down the country are experiencing resourcing challenges.

We know the pressure this is putting our Independent Connection Provider clients under, and we want to help. We’re accelerating payments to help get cash to our established ICP partners quicker. While traditionally, you wouldn’t receive your asset payment until the development is complete, we’re able to accelerate our payment schedule so you can receive some of your payment sooner to help with your cash flow.

Looking ahead

We marked the start of a new chapter with our rebrand to mua Group earlier this year. I’m incredibly proud of how our organisation has gone from strength to strength in 2021-22, delivering real value for our independent connection provider, utility infrastructure provider, housebuilder and land developer clients, securing an order book that now exceeds 115,000 connections.

Looking ahead to the next 12 months, it’s safe to say 2022 is going to be another huge year for us. We will do even more, and develop even more innovative solutions, to make your life easier.

Our focus will be on delivering digital solutions that work for our clients, improving the collection of construction data, minimising back-office paperwork and simplifying the adoption process to deliver safe, sustainable networks and enable payment.

We will continue to support the transition to net-zero by focusing on EV charging infrastructure, battery storage and renewable energy. We’re also looking to expand into heat networks later this year, so watch this space for more news on that!