Efficient market and sales processes in the energy market
Competitive sales require efficient customer and market processes from the time of first contact to billing and service. In terms of quality and costs, business processes and IT must be geared towards best practice while fulfilling regulation requirements throughout the company. How can customers (customer segments) benefit from a differentiated service?
The market tolerates inefficient processes for a short time only. Make-or-buy options, like outsourcing billing, must be viewed individually with regard to the strategy selected and the time schedule. The challenges of a fast, efficient market start facing a newcomer differ from those posed by the billing IT and process landscape of a Stadtwerk that has evolved over time. A detailed service description with a process model is the key to a functioning customer/client relationship between sales and the internal and/or external service provider.
Sales must be able to cut the cost-to-serve and, at the same time, improve service quality. On an internal level, standardisation and automation lead to process excellence - on an external level, customer needs are fulfilled by customised products and service: efficiency and service quality increasingly become unique selling propositions.
A high degree of business-process and IT integration as well as true customer orientation that is controlled via coordinated service level agreements are the key prerequisites for efficient sales.
At the same time, information flows must be integrated and decision-relevant market information generated in a uniform manner from a data warehouse. This creates the basis for customer segmentation and value-orientated sales control.
