Looking across industries for inspired innovations
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Looking across industries for inspired innovations WRITTEN BY
OLLIE MULKERRINS
PRODUCED BY
BEN MALTBY
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INNOGY SE
innogy is using digital innovations to speed up the green energy transition and help 23mn customers become more sustainable
I 04
nnogy is a large-scale energy provider based in Essen, Germany, currently serving 22 million clients across Europe. The com-
pany spans three major industry demographics: retail, grid infrastructure and renewable energy production. It has also started to expand into the e-mobility market with one of the largest charging point networks in Europe and a worldwide number of 34,000 charging sites. Since innogy was carved out from RWE and listed on the M-DAX separately in October 2016, the business has been driving digital transformation as a key part of its strategy. Kuldip Singh, Digital & Data Director Retail International and part of the Retail Leadership team, sat down with us to elaborate. “We want to play a leading role in the global green energy transition and we believe that digital and disruptive new technologies are going to be at the heart of speeding up this process,” explains Singh. “Digital transformation is really at the heart of our customer facing business. We’re constantly looking for ways
“ Keep this planet a great place to live, not only for the current generation but for many to come” — Kuldip Singh, Digital Director Retail International, Retail Leadership team
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INNOGY SE
2016
Year founded
€36.9bn Approximate revenue
to optimise our end-to-end customer journeys - seeing where we can give our clients a ‘digital delight’ as I like to call it - as well as exploring new business models which are data-driven, platformbased, and highly scalable in nature.” innogy is, next to its core business of supplying electricity and gas to its customers, making services available
42,000
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Approximate number of employees
to help customers install and maintain sustainable energy solutions such as photovoltaic (PV) panels, insulation of houses, smart home devices and e-thermostats, all with a view to “make society more sustainable.” As part of the Retail Digital Program, the focused use of digital innovations such as AI is able to grant customers a seamless and insightful journey into sustainable solutions for their home or business. “A beautiful example is the application of data analytics and artificial intelligence algorithms to make the whole journey of orientating and selecting solar panels easier for customers: Looking at whether your house is able to have solar panels on the roof as well as buying or renting them. What we have done is to bring lots of data points and sources together (through selected partners)
CLICK TO WATCH : ‘HELLO, I AM INNOGY’ 07 and have thereby been able to give the
with their local heads of digital, driving
customer a complete online journey.
a joint roadmap and enabling the delivery
Several years ago, this journey could
of selected digital value pools with
have taken several months due to uncer-
great scaling opportunity across all
tainty. Now, we have narrowed that down
these markets.
to a one-click experience, completely
An important pillar of the Retail Digital
online: enter your ZIP code and house
program is the delivery of a joint Mobile
number and an algorithm calculates how
Strategy across markets, in which innogy
many panels can go on your roof, how
realises smarter and faster app develop-
productive they will be, your payback
ment, improved life-cycle management
time and investment needed including
and best practice sharing in all aspects
a rental option” says Singh.
including a joint asset library for UX and
A key driver of the Retail Digital pro-
design. “We work closely with all our mar-
gram is our Leadership Team Digital that
kets to give customers a seamless and
consists of the key six markets of innogy
consistent mobile experience within all w w w.i nnog y. com
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INNOGY SE
“ Digital transformation is really at the heart of our business” — Kuldip Singh, Digital Director Retail International, Retail Leadership team
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innogy brands” says Sebastian Schmelz,
reinventing the wheel when it comes to
Team Lead Digital Program.
meeting the demands of its business. A
To achieve a comprehensive view of a
successful example is AI-based online
client’s needs, innogy has worked with
experimentation to improve the sales
several partners outside energy sector
funnel for innogy products & services. By
to integrate innovative technology into
testing a multitude of changes in the dif-
its platforms and processes. Through
ferent online pages, innogy can in a short
tried and tested applications, developed
period of time increase sales conversion
in other industry sectors, innogy avoids
significantly, as proven by great impact
achieved by the energiedirect.nl digital
renewables energy industry. Singh
team. This way of working (“testing and
explains: “We should not be bench-
validating customer flows at scale using
marking ourselves against what
AI based tooling”) is now being scaled
energy companies are doing, but
to other innogy markets, too.
rather look at what other industries
Through adaptation and innovation, innogy is catering to businesses and individuals looking for sustainable
that are ahead of us are doing as also the big tech companies.” Amazon Web Services (AWS) has
energy solutions. As the global industry
been able to provide intricate AI, originally
becomes more interconnected, cus-
used in its online services, to provide an
tomer expectations are founded on
efficient data farming solution. “AWS is
the achievements of disparate sectors.
a partner we are working with very
The Amazons and Googles of the world
closely to see how we can leverage
are setting those expectations and,
advanced analytics and artificial intel-
by looking at them for forward-thinking
ligence in several complex use cases
and rapid innovation, innogy is able
and, by working with them, use algo-
to stay ahead of the curve within the
rithms to be predictive,” Singh explains.
E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE
Kuldip Singh Kuldip Singh is a digital executive with a strong grounding in digital technology adoption and digital business scaling. He has been a digital executive in CXO roles in reputed global media companies and is now leading the digital transformation at innogy in the international retail business.
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Empowering those who power our world Wipro is helping Utilities across the globe move towards a sustainable energy future. Get started on your digital transformation journey today.
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INNOGY SE
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“ We can be more relevant, more personalised, and more real-time in our offering” — Kuldip Singh, Digital Director Retail International, Retail Leadership team
most relevance and impact for a cus-
tomer. The Essent Commercial Director Boudewijn Wildeman is working very closely with Singh’s team on this and states: “I believe we can nurture customer relationships much better with this kind
One of the very impactful use cases is
of technology that can enable us to work
centered around retail energy manage-
in an omnichannel approach. We can be
ment and demand forecasting. “By using
more relevant, more personalized, and
the Amazon Sagemaker DeepAR fore-
more real-time in our offerings, whenever
casting algorithm in a successful pilot,
that needs to be done.”
we were able to develop a clear roadmap
As part of its journey to a digital
to further improve our forecasting, which
workplace, Innogy collaborated with
is a very important aspect of energy
Infosys to introduce new multilingual
management.”, states Carsten Kleewald
capabilities, such as the chat chan-
of the Retail Energy Management team.
nel for service desk interactions and
In addition, innogy uses the AWS data
automated password reset. This set the
analytic solutions for a “Full Household
foundations for workplace digitalisation,
View” platform in the Dutch and Belgium
while also offering its employees and
markets. The platform provides the
partners the choice, convenience and
Essent business with the opportunity
control that they experience with their
to do real-time personalization using
personal technology environment.
customer profile data and actual online
In the Netherlands, Infosys not only
behavior combined with a best-offer
manages innogy’s key IT platforms to
matrix. This allows for accurately advis-
efficiently run its B2C business, but
ing on which products could have the
also helps it in building successful new w w w.i nnog y. com
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INNOGY SE
“ We should not be benchmarking ourselves with what energy companies are doing” — Kuldip Singh, Digital Director Retail International, Retail Leadership team
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business models (e.g. implementing mixed reality for its boiler maintenance business). It is also improving the digital fluency of innogy’s internal IT teams through focused training programmes n its global learning and innovation hubs. Singh adds: “We apply digital innovations to our sustainability products & services with the clear ambition to keep this planet a great place to live and work, not only for the current generation, but for many generations to come.” The acquisition of innogy by E.ON has also given it a much wider scope to expand. “Together with E.ON, innogy is going to be even bigger; we will grow from 11 to 15 countries, in which we service 50+ mn customers with more than 70,000 employees. I believe that we are even better set up for scaling digital in the future,” says Singh. “My intention is to build upon the good things we’ve done in this retail digital transformation and, of course, learn from the great things that E.ON is doing and ensure that together one plus one becomes three.”
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innogy SE Opernplatz 145128 EssenGermany T +49 201 12 02 www.innogy.com