Utility Week

26 | 9TH - 15TH NOVEMBER 2018 | UTILITY WEEK Customers Utility Week Awards winner case study Best Customer Facing Team Award winner: SP Energy Networks • Annual company turnover: £1 billion • Number of directly employed staff: 2,500 • Number of business and domestic customers: 3.5 million Entry criteria: 1. Quality of entry (clear, evidence- based) 2. Evidence of how the team brought about measurable benefits for the business 3. Evidence of how the team brought about measurable benefits for customers 4. Evidence of teamwork 5. Evidence of how the team brought in input from customers and stakeholders 6. Evidence of going beyond business as usual The 2017 Utility Week Awards were held in association with CGI and Capgemini. Sponsorship opportunities are available for the 2018 Utility Week Awards. For more information, contact Utility Week business development manager Ben Hammond on benhammond@fav-house.com or call 01342 332116. What the judges said… Judges said the winning team "came together to truly capture the story of community and stakeholder engagement". T he aim of the SP Energy Networks stakeholder engagement team was to improve the performance of the busi- ness by gathering, analysing and acting on stakeholder feedback to lower costs and raise outputs during the RIIO-ED1 price control. Specific tasks included: identifying engagement opportunities; building rela- tionships and being the face of the business; producing and maintaining engagement plans and identifying strategic issues; and, most importantly, setting the overall engage- ment strategy for SP Energy Networks. The team sought to bring together best practice from across the industry and ensure that all parts of the business benefited from stakeholder engagement. What was the scale of the task? SP Energy Networks serves 3.5 million homes and businesses across the cities of Liverpool, Glasgow and Edinburgh as well as three large rural areas – North Wales, the Scottish Borders, and Dumfries and Galloway. The distribution networks that it operates feature 30,000 substations, 40,000 kilome- tres of overhead lines, and 65,000 kilometres of underground cables. How did the team pursue its aims? The whole of SP Energy Networks underwent reorganisation for the RIIO ED1 price control starting in April 2015. This included the crea- tion of the stakeholder engagement team. The number of personnel working solely on stakeholder engagement was quadrupled from three to 12. Dedicated management roles were created for each of SP Energy Net- works' three distribution licence areas. Rather than engaging with a small num- ber of stakeholders as a central team, they took a more holistic approach, involving all staff across the entirety of the business from top to bottom. A new stakeholder engagement system called Tractivity was rolled out to provide full visibility over the engagement activities undertaken by the business. Purposefully engaged SP Energy Networks' stakeholder engagement team triumphed in the best customer facing team category at last year's Utility Week Awards. Here's why the judges were so impressed. Winner's comments "It's amazing for us to be recognised at such a high-profile industry event, and I know it means a huge amount to every member of the team to see their hard work acknowledged by their peers." TRACY JOYCE, HEAD OF STAKEHOLDER ENGAGEMENT AND COMMUNICATIONS, SP ENERGY NETWORKS SP Energy Networks on the night

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