05 Jan 2019
3 MIN READ

Enabling the energy and water revolution: A commitment to our customers in uncertain times.

Saul Nurtman (UK Country Manager) shares his commitments to customers at the start of this new year.

Each January, it’s time to plan our goals for the year ahead.  It’s a chance to make commitments to any changes needed to deliver achievements. We’ve got big plans in 2019, so it’s a good time for me to make a few commitments of my own.

First, a quick look back.  2018 was a successful year for me personally, and for the fantastic team I lead at Gentrack in the UK.  We recruited 60+ new staff members in mainly technical roles; supporting the embedding of more agile working practices. We also welcomed Evolve Analytics to the Gentrack group.  More energy suppliers adopted our platform in the UK and we delivered successful events such as our 3rd UK customer conference, the subject of my last article on LinkedIn.  This gave us great insight on what our customers want from us, which included a clearer view of our development pipeline.  

New products update and launch commitments

At that conference, we shared our product pipeline and made commitments to the continued introduction of innovations for our customers.  Those included SMETS2 pre-pay, on track for delivery in Q2 2019. 

It was a defining moment to announce the launch of our new market interaction platform, Market Connector.  It’s our first cloud-native product that helps you to drive down your cost to serve. We’ve committed to deliver Market Connector in April and will communicate updates on this as they happen.  

I’m also pleased that we will be replacing our current help desk system with a comprehensive solution; delivering greater reporting and improved user experience for our customers.

You can read about some of these developments in more detail in our 2018 annual report including our continued people and system investments in cyber security. 

Our commitments for the year ahead

2019 starts with a new approach from Ofgem for consumers. No post about plans for the year ahead in 2019 would be complete without at least a mention of the price cap, in effect since January 1st.  There are lots of opinions about what the impact of the cap will be, but we’ll need to wait some time to see which ones are right.   

And of course, Brexit, one of the greatest uncertainties facing British businesses, unprecedented in its potential and far-reaching impact.   The vote in Parliament on the Brexit deal is still due for mid January, when we’ll have a clearer view of what the next steps could be.  I’m sure we’ll all be relieved when it is all over.  At Gentrack, we have plans in place to respond as part of our business contingency planning, but we’re standing by to see how else we may need to react to support our customers.  If you have specific questions, please get in touch and we’ll be happy to discuss how we can support you.

And in this context, I make my first commitment to our customers; to have an open dialogue. We’re planning a series of face to face and digital communications throughout the year when I hope to meet with many of our customers and partners, but I’d like the chance for on-going conversations.   

Let’s talk.

I want to hear from you and how you’d like to communicate with Gentrack in the UK. 

Please take our veryshort survey (it takes 5 minutes, I promise) and help us understand the best way to share information and news with you. And if you have a specific suggestion, or something you’d like us to change, get in touch with me directly or with a member of the team.

And finally, if you don’t already, please follow us at Gentrack (Global) on LinkedIn and Twitter as this is where we’ll share many of our updates.  Let’s make 2019 our most communicative yet; we have a lot to discuss and you have my commitment to listen.

Saul Nurtman is Gentrack UK Country Manager.

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