Market changes are opportunities!

Either you regard the ongoing market changes as threats and challenges or you deal with them and grasp the opportunities. Innovation within billing is important key component to take advantage of the opportunities! The ongoing market development does not only require changes of the infrastructure but also within the IT environment.

Change or be left behind

TailorMade has delivered billing solution for the telecom industry over the last twelve years. The telecom industry has changed from managing traditional circuit switch services to triple play and all types of IP-services as well as value added services. The changes and development have been continuously ongoing and is still developing. The development of standards has been important but fights to keep up with the market development and opportunities. Other industries with dramatic changes within IT include the banking and travel industries. Utility companies need to address the ongoing changes to grasp the opportunities and not leave the table open for new innovative entrants. Just think about how:

• The Iphone have challenged Nokia and others
• Itunes (and also illegal peer-to-peer) have changed the way of music distribution and consumption
• Southwest, Ryanair changed the competition within the airline industry?

All of the examples above show that the new ideas came from outside the business. Why did the traditional music companies not invent Itunes? All of a sudden a computer manufacturer opens a whole new market place in their backyard while the current actors are chasing illegal downloads.

Now - what strategy do you have to take on the new opportunities? All ongoing changes in the utility industry will create new opportunities are you going to address them?

Sweden first-mover market

In our home market, Sweden, the deregulation was introduced early and just recently all households have received their meters to enable charging of the exact consumption on a monthly basis. Some view the changes as just any infrastructure project but other as a market changing opportunity that can increase customer satisfaction and loyalty. Our customers in Sweden are now implementing totally new solutions to grasp the opportunities of:

• New product and pricing strategies more similar to and also taking advantage of the telecom principles.
• Various prepaid models using prepaid volumes charge in rear or an utility account to enable the consumers to level out their energy costs.
• Instant product creation and launch of new products to stay ahead of the competition.

Even if the requirement is monthly meter values in Sweden many choose to meter the consumption everyday day or every hour. The network and collection technology is in place. Now the change starts within the IT-domain of meter data management, billing and CRM. Unfortunately there was no time for this before the roll-out of the meters in Sweden. In most other European countries there is time for trials and proofs of concept sites before the meters are rolled out.

Ongoing market changes

There are many ongoing changes in parallel, some of the most important include:

• Real competition - whatever you believe about you current competitive landscape - competition will increase! Especially on the retail business.
• The AMR process and smart grids. How can you take usage of all data available to improve your business and the value proposition towards your customers?
• New IT architecture - the old CIS monoliths will not survive. The CIS systems are already falling apart with separate CRM and MDMS systems being implemented. Billing is next. Cost of operation must be lowered within the industry to be comparable with other industries.
• The 20-20-20 directive. How can you take on the challenge with 20% lower consumption?

Opportunities

All the ongoing market changes offers challenges - but most important also opportunities:

• The increased competition will increase the customer acquisition cost with larger marketing budgets. It also mean that the market will increase their willingness to become a customer of you!
• The increased volumes of data will create endless possibilities for innovative Product packaging strategy as well as customer segmentation based on real consumption data i.e. more tailor-made to their needs. The result will be more loyal and satisfied customers
• Learn from other industries and save time and costs! Don't benchmark you billing process towards your competition but towards other industries billing process'. Standards used in Telecom could cut up to 50% development time and cost within the energy industry. If it is not in place already, it is time to create your own blueprint based on the new processes.
• To be able to meet the 20-20-20 directive and especially the 20% lower consumption, clear and valuable incentives must be introduced. With billing in near real time you can communicate costs instead of kwh. Pricing models can include consumption limits where triggers change prices and notifications for the consumers.

Changes create opportunities

It is not easy to change. The everyday operations are often prioritized over strategy and process reviews. All the ongoing changes are causing business process change. Our main point is that change will happen over the coming years whether you like it or not. The question is do you see the potential of a wider scope and business or just focus on trying to keep what you have today? Will you drive changes or let them drive you? Are you a leader or a follower in your market place?

About TailorMade

The fierce competition in the Telecom industry among vendors have demanded new functionalities, modern technologies, higher capacities AND lower prices. The experiences from dramatic changes in an industry can now be very valuable to the Utility market and the retail Energy market in particular.

Now we enter the Utility industry with our best of breed billing instead of CIS. Dare to to meet us and dare to change!