How to Level Up an Energy Company With Technology?

Generally speaking, the energy industry is a traditional sector governed by local, national, and international regulations. The industry is developing relatively slowly because it values stability and security above innovation, which is entirely understandable considering the potential safety threats.

At the same time, the world is rushing forward, and the profile of the average energy customer differs from that of 20 years ago. Energy customers are used to the standard of service they know from social platforms, online shopping, or even mobile banking. The user wants to settle energy matters remotely, quickly, in one place, on an intuitive panel.

Consumers' energy awareness is also growing. For example, local energy intermediaries have been developing for years in Norway, France, and the UK, encouraging conscious energy use. To stay relevant in the market and compete with energy corporations, they offer modern platforms and apps that, for example, calculate when it's most affordable to use energy.

Energy services, like any other, are becoming personalized and digital because modern users want both a personal touch and a digital solution.

So how do you win them? With modern technology, of course.

On the one hand, you must tailor your solution to the user's individual needs. At the same time, the tool must fit in with general, current technological, and design trends.

If you release an app that resembles the times of Windows 95, your customers will probably choose your competitor with a modern, functional, intuitive app whenever they get a chance. We all would.

To avoid a scenario where your users leave you for the competition, you need to release software that keeps up with consumer trends. In other words, you need Agile Methodologies. They come down to 4 main principles:

1. People and interactions over processes and tools,
2. Working software over extensive documentation,
3. Customer collaboration over contract negotiation,
4. Responding to change over strictly following a plan.

How do these rules relate to the process in your company?

Unfortunately, many energy companies are still operating the old way. Especially their IT teams.

Every month I talk to CEOs of energy companies who sense their company's business potential and are eager to conquer the market, but are frustrated by the feeling that they're not using this potential to the full.

Their business assumptions are on point, but the company's technology isn't keeping up.

At Order Group, we see at least three reasons for this:

1. Corporate IT teams work in Waterfall Methodologies, i.e., they assume a specific business scenario and create a technology tailored to it for several months.
2. IT teams are agile, but only partially; they add elements of agile management to the waterfall.
3. Nobody specific really owns the IT project.

Consequently, products are created late, don't match customers' current needs, and must be improved almost immediately after release (at a high cost).

At the same time, it's impossible to find a person responsible for this state of affairs (no specific project leader), and the Management Board is frustrated because the company doesn't grow as fast as they would like.

And this is where companies like us come in handy. :)

How good the technology you release into the world is comes down to how it's being created:

• Do the programmers understand the business context of the project, and do they cooperate with the business daily?
• Is the technology team complete?
• Are team roles clearly divided?
• Does the team set deadlines and meet them?
• Is there one specific person assigned to each project who manages it and, taking responsibility for it, reports to the Management Board?
• Does the team monitor the progress of its work?

Sometimes in-house development teams do a tremendous job but simply lack the manpower, and we definitely see value in taking on projects where we're an extension of what works well.

However, most often, and this is where I feel we're the real difference makers, companies choose us because their internal IT departments work on outdated standards, resulting in slow and sloppy product releases.

Having us consult their IT process is what unlocks their technological and, thus, business potential.

We've worked on several energy projects, including building an industrial IoT system for Thermal Energy Storage and dedicated software for V2G systems. In all these cases, our work complemented the work of internal programmers well.

We get the necessary knowledge about the project and the industry's technological and business nuances from internal developers. At the same time, we bring a specialized view of product delivery, such as current project management trends or the latest and proven technology.

We enter such cooperation as an external R&D department. On the one hand, we consult on the current processes and help release better products faster. On the other, we create the software ourselves, especially prototypes of business ideas meant to explore the market need ASAP. Such a job is almost impossible for a team that doesn't follow what's cooking in the tech world.

Seeing our clients' business results, we know that unblocking the technological process and improving operational efficiency is key to unlocking business potential. This is especially visible in the energy industry, where operational standards and beliefs about project management are often not adjusted to the current reality.

Sometimes even I'm shocked by how much you can speed up the developers' work and improve the company business-wise just by appointing a Product Owner responsible for the project.

Ah, the good, ole' responsibility. :)