www.wwtonline.co.uk | WWT | december 2014 | 11
Industry leader
Alan Munro,
Thames Water
Commercial
Services
"The biggest
challenge really is a
lack of awareness
in the market… I
think every licensed
provider now has a
responsibility to raise
that awareness."
W
hen Scotland opened its water
retail market for competition
in 2008, it was something of a
pioneer: with 130,000 non-
household customers able to
choose their water and wastewater supplier for
the first time, it was the first water market of
its kind in the world. Now that England is set
to adopt a similar model from 2017, it's little
surprise that many of the country's water com-
panies are casting their eyes north of the border
to see what has been learned from the Scottish
experience.
It's that context which makes the fortunes
of Thames Water Commercial Services (TWCS),
which has just brought up a year of operation in
Scotland, an interesting test case.
Could a company whose name is synony-
mous with the south of England make meaning-
ful inroads into a market at the other end of the
UK, where Scottish Water subsidiary Business
Stream holds a dominant position?
So far, the firm has made steady progress,
with 600 Scottish sites on its books, spanning
finance, retail, leisure, education and com-
mercial sectors. Of course, this represents a
relatively small slice of the £330M market in
Scotland, but Alan Munro, who heads TWCS's
Scottish operation from its office in Edinburgh,
believes it can double its customer base again
in the next 12 months.
"It's been a very successful year," Munro
says. "Part of our plan for the year was mak-
ing sure we grew our internal ability to serve
customers, in terms of systems and people. We
are not using a lot of Thames Water systems.
Of course, we've got that expertise within the
business, which we can call on as and when we
require it - but at a cost, because it's a regulated
side of the business. We are effectively working
as a start-up business in Scotland."
