Capgemini is supporting SP Group, an energy utilities company in Asia Pacific, to transform its systems in preparation for the complete rollout of Singapore’s Open Electricity Market, later this year. The digital transformation will see Capgemini modernize SP Group’s technological landscape to enable more flexibility and provide an enhanced customer experience, in the lead up to the opening up of the electricity market across the nation.
Capgemini worked with SP Group to identify, improve and transform its digital infrastructure, ahead of the complete liberalization of the electricity market.
SP Group’s major upgrade of its infrastructure and processes means more benefits for customers in the Open Electricity Market, including:
- Core customer management systems customized to allow customers to switch easily and choose electricity providers based on individual consumption needs and preferences
- Seamless switching of electricity providers
- The option for retailers to use SP Group’s billing services, enabling a single, consolidated billing of all utilities irrespective of electricity provider of choice
- Hardware and software upgrades to deliver greater efficiency and reliable operations
Commenting on the collaboration, Jeanne Cheng, chairman of the Open Electricity Market Steering Committee and chief risk officer, SP Group, said: “Our new and enhanced systems enable customers to compare prices and switch between retailers for the best deals. Working with Capgemini, we look forward to delivering the benefits to all consumers nationwide with the full rollout of the Open Electricity Market later this year.”
With Southeast Asia’s energy market on the cusp of change, powered by surging demand, SP Group began engaging Capgemini’s expertise in 2015 to fully modernize its systems. This included expanding its capacity and processes to better manage transactions, support seamless customer-switching, and offering more effective billing methods.
To help customers understand their options and switch between retailers or return to the regulated tariff, SP Group and Capgemini built a new Price Comparison Website. It provides customers with access to all information relating to energy retailer options, allowing them to view and compare all plans in the market.
Additionally, SP Group created a new interactive SP Utility Portal to allow customers to buy electricity at regulated and non-regulated (spot) prices from SP Group, and view both accounts on a single platform. Within this transformation project, Capgemini has helped SP Group introduce enhancements to its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and SAP for Utilities solutions, as well as implement a Business Data Lake solution.
“Digitalization of SP Group’s operations is instrumental in driving efficiency gains and Capgemini’s key objective was to create a whole new customer experience by offering flexibility and convenience, while setting in place resilient and robust processes for the marketplace,” said Gaurav Modi, managing director, Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan, Capgemini.
The Philippines is also headed in the same direction as the ultimate objective of the Electric Power Industry Reform Act (EPIRA) is to give back the power of choice to end-users. The Energy Regulatory Commission has begun implementation of Retail Competition and Open Access (RCOA), which allows electricity end-users with a monthly average peak demand of at least 1,000 kilowatts (KW) the power to choose their electricity supplier.
“The Open Electricity Market is a step towards offering consumer choice in a market where energy demand is rising, and Capgemini is positioned to support local energy players in this journey,” Gaurav ended.
