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8 www.utilityweek.co.uk/fLeX App aims to cut the energy bills of small businesses By Adam John U P F R O N T // "Lots of switching services ask you how much you spend but that is less of an indicator for switching. You can be spending lots of money because you have a terrible deal but not be using a lot of energy. // W hile domestic consumers are all too familiar with energy switching services, small business consumers may not realise they represent a growing commercial market. Energy Bill Kill is one such service, which hopes to take advantage of an ever-increasing small business energy retail market. Founded in April 2017, the London- based company has launched an app that is designed to help small business owners reduce their energy bills, as well as offering customers tailored tariffs such as green energy only, for example. Michael Rossman, co-founder of Energy Bill Kill, claims it is the only app that enables businesses to switch their energy provider end-to-end. e app was created in an environment of rising UK energy prices and, according to the company, "combines the latest technology with decades of experience to provide the quickest and easiest energy switches for business owners and managers". Recently industry regulator Ofgem announced it would be conducting a strategic review of the microbusiness retail market in 2019 to "understand market challenges and consumer experience". " e review will identify the case for short and medium-term actions," a spokesperson said. Yet the Energy Bill Kill app seeks to allay industry concerns; it even claims to save customers 50 per cent on broker fees. Rossman says the app was launched in response to two opportunities in the UK business market – namely, it is a time-consuming process to get a business service, and using energy brokers means paying a large commission so the customer won't' always get the best price. " e background is to make life easier, for people to lower their costs and to make it as simple and as friendly as possible so you don't have to spend too much time doing it", he says. A key feature of this app, Rossman says, is the fact it only asks for essential information and is not interested in retaining extra details for marketing purposes. Instead the app asks for energy usage, as opposed to the current price being paid. He explains: "We show the prices immediately to the users so we don't collect data up front. What you see in a lot of business switching services is they want to know your name, your email, your phone so they can bombard you with cold calling. From a business owner perspective it is very painful. "Lots of switching services ask you how much you spend but that is less of an indicator for switching. You can be spending lots of money because you have a terrible deal but not be using a lot of energy." While Energy Bill Kill's business service is not currently automated, Rossman says the company plans to go down the auto-route. "We have an automatic reminder in the background which we intend to roll out. When the fixed deal expires we will ping the user," Rossman explains. "In due course and as we build trust with our customers, we will have a function for auto-switching." S outhern Water is aiming to improve the efficiency of its maintenance operations by bar-coding its equipment and assets. "If people need to report an issue with a piece of equipment, it's more onerous than we'd like to identify the asset, raise the request, and get someone along to fix it," explains Hazel Maxwell, Southern Water's innovation manager (pictured). "When you scan the QR code, it automatically pre-populates the form that they need to fill in to raise a work order, which reduces the time it takes to raise a work order from 15 minutes to about two," she says. e innovation is currently being trialed as part of the water company's drive to digitalise field force operations. New digital processes are being devised by its Bluewave team, which is helping to deliver £50 million-worth of efficiency savings through innovation. e trial is being done as cost effectively as possible with off- the-shelf technology. "We're running a test in one wastewater plant. We've deployed QR codes to 10 per cent of the site, they went live last month and we ran it through to the end of January. So it was quite a long test, but we can go through the way this was being used with lots of different users on site, and optimise the process in a very small scale way, to de-risk it. " en once we know that it works, then we're in a position where we've got a really good business case to scale up," she says. QUICK FIX HERE'S AN IDEA... HOW DO YOU INVEST IN INNOVATION? PAGE 26