Ready to Win New Customers: Copenhagen Energy's Head Start in a Deregulated Market Thanks to mySAP® CRM
Copenhagen Energy is the second largest provider of utility services in Denmark. Pending the deregulation of the Danish electricity market Copenhagen Energy faced the challenge of retaining their current customer base and winning new customers.
Client Profile
Founded in 1857, Copenhagen Energy originally supplied gas for street lighting in the capital of Denmark. Today Copenhagen Energy is a multi-utility company owned by the municipality of Copenhagen, Denmark and aninnovative partner in environmental energy. The company delivers electricity, water, gas and handles sewage for approximately 400,000 residential and commercial customers throughout the Copenhagen metropolitan area.
The staff of more than 1.500 people generate a total annual revenue of €675 million.
Business Issues
Faced with the total deregulation of the Danish electricity market Copenhagen Energy had to focus on retaining its large customer base and develop ways of winning new customers in both the B2B and B2C consumer markets.
The strategy was to change from a “monopolistic” company to a customer driven and innovative company.
Copenhagen Energy had already implemented SAP’s Industry Solution-Utilities/Customer Care & Service (IS-U/CCS), but lacked solid system support for its “customer facing” processes like marketing, sales and customer service. One of the key requirements was to have an integrated view of customers. The integrated functionality of mySAP CRM was a logical solution to meet this requirement.
The objectives for this mySAP CRM project were to:
- achieve operational efficiencies
- develop inter-connected business processes for marketing, sales and service in order to improve customer analysis and reporting
- reduce overall IT-costs.
Copenhagen Energy chose Capgemini based on:
- Speed to Value. After a one week pre-scope, the implementation was completed in only 12 weeks using an innovative project approach .
- An internationally staffed project team with documented experience with mySAP CRM for Utilities.
- Capgemini joint development work at SAP AG in Walldorf, Germany for Utilities, integrated with SAP IS-U/CCS.
- A tight, manageable scope and extensive use of accelerators, like the Utility Process Model+ (UPM+).
- A network of consultants with direct access to the highest qualified resources at SAP AG.
Solution
A 12 week timeframe was set to implement the standard functionality of mySAP CRM for Utilities for the full business cycle:
- Marketing – set-up and execute marketing campaigns for the defined target groups
- Sales – support both the sales cycle for commercial and residential customers, including quotation and order management
- Service – Customer Interaction Centre for both inbound and outbound call support.
SAP Business Warehouse (BW) was implemented to enable reporting capabilities for all processes. Integration with SAP IS-U/CCS Additionally, the BW interface allows for data exchange between mySAP CRM for Utilities and SAP IS-U/CCS.
This first phase provided the essential functionality needed to manage customers during the initial launch of a deregulated electricity market. The remaining functionality was scheduled for a later phase.
In order to achieve exceptional results within only 12 weeks, Capgemini introduced a new accelerated implementation approach.
A pilot was developed based on the expertise of Capgemini’s use of standard processes, best practices within mySAP CRM for Utilities and Capgemini’s UPM +.
The accelerated implementation required very close co-operation between Copenhagen Energy and Capgemini and a commitment to dedicate the required resources for the full phase of this project.
The core project team consisted of 6 consultants, some of them assigned on a part-time basis.
The project received solid top-management focus with the Market Director of Copenhagen Energy as the chairman and members of the Capgemini management as members of the steering committee. This guaranteed clear commitment and ownership from both sides.
Benefits
The solution allows Copenhagen Energy to use mySAP CRM best practices for Utilities to enhance existing business processes in the transition to a deregulated electricity market.
Using the accelerated implementation approach Copenhagen Energy was ready for the deregulated market opening, 4 months in advance. This permits Copenhagen Energy to start realizing immediate value from its investment.
With mySAP CRM for Utilities Copenhagen Energy can shut down the old stand-alone systems. It has gained the ability to execute targeted marketing campaigns which was not possible earlier.
Copenhagen Energy has now moved to a fully integrated system that is ready for future expansion as the business grows.
The system allows more focussed marketing, efficient customer handling and improved reporting and information management. This will provide an immediately higher customer retention rate and help Copenhagen Energy win new customers in the deregulated electricity market.
Written in co-operation with Copenhagen Energy