Building CxO Relationships - Smart Metering
DO YOU WANT A SHARE OF THE $50-100 BILLION SMART METERING OPPORTUNITY?
Building the Compelling Benefits Proposition for Smart Metering
The Opportunity 
The Global market for smart metering, comprising:
- Supply of the metering infrastructure
- Communications technology
- IT systems
- Changes to industry and company processes needed to make the smart system work, is expected to grow to between $50-100 billion a year over the next ten years.
Much of this will be front-loaded as the communications, IT infrastructure/processes, need to be in place to enable roll-out of the technology. Smart metering will radically change the way the Energy companies will operate in the future, especially relating to billing queries which take up over 50% of their current call centre activity.
All of the players will be claiming that they offer the optimum technology and a cost effective roll-out option.
Our experience of the IT and Telecommunications world is that companies are focused on the merits of their own technology and the costs of delivery (not standing in the shoes of their customer) – and all will be able to make a similar case for why they should be chosen.
However, that is the entry ticket to the game – not the winning ticket.
Becoming a winner
The winners will be the suppliers who can convince the CxO’s in their target prospects that they offer the maximum business benefits to their customers, be they Suppliers, Distribution Network Operators (DNO’s), or a central communications organisation.
If you are selling to Suppliers you will need to be able to demonstrate how your offering positively impacts on their business performance. This could comprise the following Benefits Propositions:
- Our solution will enable you to create additional revenues from energy, security and medical services of more than £200 per household within the next three years
- Our solution will enable you to cut the cost of debt management (bad debt write-off, working capital costs, and credit and collections costs) by over 35% within 5 years
- Our solution will cut churn in half, cutting your customer acquisition spend by over £100 million a year
- Our solution will let you reap the benefits of removing meter reading costs and estimated meter reading enquiries much faster enabling you to dramatically reduce your cost to serve by 50% within 3 years.
If you are selling to DNO’s the business benefits will be in the areas of:
- Our solution will reduce your lost time minutes (outages) by 35%
- Our solution will enable you to continuously outperform your regulatory contract by delivering improved asset data driven improvements to both CAPEX and OPEX programmes increasing your rate of return to shareholders by over 20%
- Our solution will deliver the improvements in asset information which will enable you to optimise across the capital and operational expenditure programmes saving over £200 Million over a distribution price control review period
- Our solution will enable you to handle all envisaged scenarios of supply availability (nuclear, CCGT, Coal, photo-voltaics, wind, tidal, electric car batteries, micro-generation, CHP etc) and demand management at minimum cost.
So how are you going to differentiate yourself from the pack to ensure you are a winner not just a player (or loser)?
Standing out from the competition
To win you need to give your sales teams the opportunity to participate in the Youd-Andrews programme: “Smart Metering – Building a Compelling Benefits Proposition in the Boardroom”.
This programme uses highly experienced business CxO’s from the energy/utilities market, who know exactly what your sales teams need to do to win high-value, long-term business at their level in the smart metering environment. Just selling to the IT department will make you just another player, selling to the business will allow you to stand out in the crowd.
Their direct feedback via business meetings and Value Proposition workshops will make your team a winning team by:
- Giving them industry-experienced CxO input on their current “Value Proposition”, enabling them to craft and tailor their proposition in “compelling benefits” terms, as seen through the eyes of a purchasing CxO
- Giving them effective delivery of the “Compelling Benefits Proposition” by enabling the team to practice delivering their “compelling proposition” to real CxOs. Making their performance with a real customer much more effective in driving through the sale
- Enhancing their capability to build the CxO relationships needed to win, by learning and practicing how to establish strong personal relationships at CxO level
- And, if you are bidding as a consortium it allows your combined team to learn and practice how to act as a single cohesive and effective sales unit.
The three day investment in the programme will make a step change in the ability of your sales team to capitalise on the smart metering opportunity, and to understand the wider opportunities that CxO’s will want to exploit for their organisations.
The smart metering programme is an Enstra and Youd-Andrews collaborative initiative combining Youd-Andrews' capabilities and extensive experience in the delivery of training/experience programmes focused on building robust and productive relationships at CxO level and Enstra's knowledge of the energy and utilities markets and network of experienced CxO level practitioners.
For more details on the programme please ring Peter Franklin on +44 (20) 8780 3313 or email peter.franklin@enstra..com