UTILITY WEEK | 24TH - 30TH JANUARY 2020 |
7
Interview
S
arah McMath was in no doubt about the challenge
facing her when she took on the role of MOSL chief
executive in June last year.
At that point the non-domestic water retail market
had just passed its second birthday but the phrase that
continued to dog it was "friction points".
At the centre of it all the market operator has strug-
gled to keep everyone – at times it seemed like any-
one – happy. It has already seen four chief executives
(including one interim) come and go. Meanwhile, a move
from the capital to Southampton saw MOSL lose 90 per
cent of its staff.
Around it, the newly created sector – the largest com-
petitive water retail market in the world – has been strug-
gling with legacy issues from market opening. These are
varied but key themes include a lack of good quality data
and an uneasy relationship between retailers and whole-
salers. Meanwhile, customer satisfaction has suffered,
particularly among SMEs.
To cap it all, MOSL was given a humiliating -52 NPS
score by its members when quizzed at a CEO Forum in
November.
McMath, who spent 24 years with Thames Water and
was tasked with preparing the company for market open-
ing, has worked quickly to reassure the industry that she
understands its concerns and is working towards tangi-
ble change.
This month MOSL launched its business plan for
2020/21, which acknowledges the "healthy impatience"
for legacy issues to be resolved once and for all.
This includes work to build bridges between retailers
and wholesalers and to tackle one of the thorniest issues
between those two pillars of the market – metering.
MOSL has also committed to reduce complexity and
worked through concerns about an initial suggestion of a
10 per cent increase in its budget, to settle on a final rise
of 4.7 per cent.
The profit motive
McMath says: "The hard truth is that none of the com-
panies in this market are currently turning a profit. We
need to move away from the view that the water retail
market is just too hard to do business in. We have opera-
tors who work across utilities and across nations. We
