The huge increase in energy data is not news to energy retailers. It’s a vast and valuable resource with the potential for delivering more accurate energy forecasting. When used effectively, retailers can become more customer-focused, creating tailored, greener products that benefit end-users. This data also brings efficiencies and increased profits that benefit retailers’ bottom line.

However, the sheer volume of this data, combined with increasing pressure for near real-time analysis and data sharing, presents an enormous challenge that is only growing with time. The reality is that retailers’ IT infrastructure hasn’t been developed with modern data handling in mind. It struggles to keep pace with today’s pricing teams.

Instead of being a catalyst for business transformation, energy data has become a confusing barrier to innovation and competitiveness.

In this blog, we’ll explore how to convert the confusion into clarity. We’ll also look at some energy retailers who are getting things right, deploying energy data-driven decision-making, streamlining the pricing process, and improving the customer journey.

The Confusing State of Energy Data

Fragmented data is a barrier to visibility

Fragmented data is often at the root of the confusion. And it’s a common issue faced by organizations that rely on legacy tech. Each department has a unique system set up, creating silos and duplicating both data and labor time. It becomes impossible for teams to get a comprehensive, end-to-end view of data, making it difficult to gather accurate customer insights and hindering decision-making.  

Siloed information holds back advanced technologies

AI, machine learning, and advanced analytics can help pricing teams process large amounts of data and deliver the near real-time insights teams now need. But with siloed data, the advanced technologies that could help bring clarity inter-departmentally and cross-functionally can’t be used effectively.

Inconsistent data structures add to the confusion

Energy retailers increasingly rely on external data sources, integrating energy data ecosystems for better insights, leading to more accurate energy forecasting and innovative tariffs. However, while smart metering, customer, and market data offer valuable context, they can also create extra confusion with a mixture of integration problems and interoperability issues.

Outdated systems are slowing pricing teams down

Inaccurate pricing or billing creates confusion and dents trust. Many retailers rely on a combination of spreadsheets, legacy, and custom-built systems as their pricing engine. Manual processes tie up employees in time-consuming workarounds – a world away from the real-time data processing that could give retailers a competitive edge.

They can’t keep pace with regulatory complexity

In a heavily regulated sector, compliance often requires near real-time tracking together with speedy access to customer data. Fragmented and siloed data make compliance more difficult and laborious. Inaccurate records can lead to billing issues and costly fines from regulators.

The Real-World Consequences of Data Chaos

Accurate, but at what cost?

Think back to the last time someone from your sales team was on a call with a potential client. They want to close the deal while the client’s still on the line. With siloed systems and fragmented data, pricing can be relatively accurate, but the process is likely inefficient. Instead of being able to run pricing during the call, they have to generate a quote and then call the prospect back later. The result? A frustrated salesperson and potentially, a lost opportunity.

On a bigger scale, pricing teams can’t react quickly enough to rapidly changing markets. They can’t use the advanced analytics that would help them generate accurate insights for innovative products and competitive pricing.

Inaccurate forecasting and settlement errors put profits at risk, locking retailers into unprofitable contracts and impacting the bottom line.

Retailers risk getting left behind

Legacy systems are getting in the way of competitiveness and scalability. Retailers face unexpected costs and reduced profit margins and risk losing their market position.

Innovation is critical in today’s energy retail market. 78% of energy providers believe that retailers that don’t help customers source energy more responsibly and efficiently with greener products and services will get left behind.

If pricing teams are bogged down in confusing data, they can’t spend their time creating customer-focused products. If they’re tied up with lengthy manual processes, they miss out on the operational efficiencies that automation delivers.

Making Energy Data Work For You (Not Against You)

Returning to our salesperson on the phone to a potential customer. What if the pricing team can get the accurate and fast pricing information they need while the client is still on the line? Instead of a frustrated salesperson, you may have a new customer.

What’s The Solution?

Unified data is the key to streamlining processes. Your pricing team can work faster, automating inputs and outputs to enable sales without needing their oversight. Every new customer provides additional data points that can validate and reinforce your forecasting. For residential and small business customers, more adjustable and flexible pricebooks enable teams to refresh them regularly, bringing new tariffs to the market and enabling a greater level of customization in each tariff. 

With a single source of truth, market and customer information is more visible and easily shared between people working in cross-functional teams, including your sales agent on a call with a prospect.

And integration is at the heart of the fix

If fragmented data, silos, and multiple data sources with inconsistent formats are the source of confusion, integration offers the pathway to unified data, insight, and clarity. It can act as a bridge between legacy systems and modern platforms, enabling new technologies that deliver improved insights and more accurate forecasts.

And retailers don’t need to take a disruptive rip-and-replace approach. Tackling integration incrementally replaces the chaos with comprehension:

1. Human error is reduced

Automating tedious processes improves accuracy and operational efficiencies. It also leads to a more productive and engaged workforce.

2. IT becomes the catalyst, not the blocker

Real-time analytics and AI help sales and pricing teams develop innovative, market-leading products.

3. More Accurate Energy Forecasting and pricing

Vital for keeping pace with changing markets and the competitive retail landscape. As dynamic and flexible tariffs become part of the regulatory framework, AI and automation will be critical to compliance.

4. Improved customer insights

These are increasingly important as customers look for more tailored, bespoke products and tariffs.

The Energy Retailers That Are Getting It Right

Transforming to a data-driven organization may be the end goal, but each retailer has a different starting point and challenges along the way. The common solution is integration. Effective integration enables retailers to streamline processes, boost efficiencies, and get more from their data.

This was the case for Gas South, one of the largest U.S. retail natural gas providers covering 14 states. When they acquired a competitor, their existing systems couldn’t scale, and the company needed a solution to increase pricing efficiency. They worked with the team from Gorilla to rebuild existing pricing models, integrating them with customized Gorilla capabilities.

The integrations enabled Gas South to maintain high accuracy levels while boosting efficiency and delivering faster quote times to Industrial and Commercial customers.

For Gas South and another Gorilla client, Synergy, achieving near real-time pricing was a key objective. Synergy is Western Australia’s largest integrated electricity generator and retailer. In addition to providing tailored offers to their business clients, Synergy wanted to streamline the sales journey for customers, automating the previously manual pricing processes.

Speed was a priority for both the U.S. and Australian companies. Their goal was to enable sales agents to quote and present offers to customers during a phone call without having to call them back with additional information.

By acting as a bridge to modern platforms, Gorilla integrations deliver unified data and more automated processes. The teams at Gas South and Synergy were able to access near-real-time insights and pricing information, streamlining their customers’ journeys. 

These examples demonstrate how an incremental approach to integration leads to faster, more accurate decision-making. Pricing teams are no longer held back by slow, manual processes and have the agility and speed demanded by today’s retail market.

Using integrations is the difference between getting bogged down by data confusion and using this valuable resource to drive strategy and increase profitability.

Discover how to transform energy data into a catalyst for innovation and growth. If energy data is slowing down your business, let’s fix it! Book a call with us to see how we can help.