The rolling lush green fields of Worcestershire are rarely associated with world beating innovative industrial designs and products. But it is the home of Grey Technology Ltd. and Nick Grey, its founder and owner. It’s quite likely the name Nick Grey rings a bell but it’s a certainty that the trading name used by Grey Technology ‘Gtech’, is a household name for many people.

Based in Worcester where he grew up as one of seven children, Nick Grey is the founder/owner of Gtech and it is very much a bleeding edge innovator in its field. His background lies not in the rarified climes of academia and theoretical research but very much in practical problem solving design.

When Grey left Ludlow College, the local sixth form college, he took a job with VAX, the then thriving vacuum cleaner company. Crucially it was in their design department where he was to thrive and develop as a designer. The next step was
to break away and set up his own company.

Initially based in his own home, Grey was to design and develop the world’s first cordless floor sweeper, the SW01 cordless floor sweeper, in 2002. Before long and after a considerable amount of hard work the SW01 went on to be a massive success in both the domestic and European markets.

In the years since Gtech has expanded its range of products adding popular floor sweepers such as the Multi, Pro and HyLite, a range of gardening products such as hedge trimmers and more surprisingly an automated massage bed! More
recently the AirRAM, AirRAM K9, AirRAM Platinum and AirRAM 3 cordless floor sweepers have been added. As well as a range of eBikes aimed at the growing market for similar products.

Not only have Gtech won a number of awards for the innovative designs of their own products they have also designed white gods for other companies. Chances are that you have used a Gtech design even if you do not yet own one of their
own products.

From the start Gtech were also pioneering in direct marketing their products combining strategically placed television advertising and a dedicated website.

Unlike many rival companies their customer care is first class and the availability of spare parts and accessories is taken seriously by the company.

The marketplace is however fickle and its locus changes from time to time. Not one to fall behind current trends Nick and Gtech are now placing a growing emphasis on marketing in partnership with influencers. In conversation with us
Nick remarked that very often today the shopping experience is completely on line often beginning with a recommendation from a trusted influencer.

Speaking of influencers Nick told us ‘the first thing is just how bright and intelligent they are. And people with good social media following are no different. Bright, super intelligent, and very creative.’ And that Gtech’s approach to working
with influencers is ‘pretty like we go about everything. What we always say is we want your honest opinion. Any known problem, even if it’s only ever happened once, if we can fix it, we’ll fix it. So we say to influencers, say whatever you want about the product, people like your style, they trust you, whatever occurs to you, do that’.

He continued by telling us that, ‘over recent years the way people choose and buy household appliances has changed at an incredible speed. They trust independent reviews and opinions, even though those are often sponsored. Their
entire purchase journey could be on a social media platform. We’ve realised this game has changed and we don't know anything about these new channels. We’re trying to establish ourselves in what is called a digital first approach and
finding out what being good at it looks like.’

Having conquered the British and European markets, Gtech is now expanding into the gigantic American market hence in part the turn to partnering with influencers. For Nick; ‘It’s a different world and in some ways, we don’t suit the modern world. There’s lots of hype and lots of kind of, wow, this is amazing. That’s not my way. I don’t really like my company overselling. I think learning to use other people, influencers in the modern world to test our products and give honest opinions on them is probably the way to go. I see some companies, and I read their claims about their products, and it just makes me laugh because I’ve tried their products and I know what I think of them as a consumer.’

Gtech and its owner understand that America is unusual in that they buy a lot of corded upright vacuums at a time when most of the developed world has gone to cordless stick vacuums. As a result of this insight Gtech have designed products which will run for a very long time. They are rightly of the opinion that their Air Arm 3 is a pretty good product for America, but have adapted it so that it will be even better for Americans.

Although a company with a growing international profile and reputation, Gtech has deep roots and strong core values. Values which Nick describes, in his typically pithy fashion, in relation to Gtech’s first product. ‘Modern vacuum cleaners have gotten worse in the last 15 years.. It astonishes me that people put up with it, but it’s almost become accepted that vacuum cleaners are disposable within a relatively short time. I don’t think they should be like that. I think they should be usable. The Air Arm 3, we address trying to make it the opposite, that you never need to do any maintenance. That’s what we try to do with our products rather than add things which might sound good, but aren’t that useful to the consumer, we make our products to do their job.’

Gtech makes it a habit to keep attacking, to keep moving forwards. Much like Brentford FC which has entered into a partnership with Gtech which now sponsors their stadium. Nick’s description of Brentford and its values sounds remarkably similar to the terms in which his own company is often described. We can then take Nick seriously when he tells us that Brentford are ‘Down-to-earth, hard-working, they work as a team, they make a big effort to do things properly and being associated with them is a great honour.’