Transform
and Automate Sales Proposal and Order
Management Activities
Retail Electricity Providers (REPs)
delivering service in states where
commercial customers
have a choice of power providers are
experiencing rapid business growth but this
expansion also creates a number of sales and
operational challenges. Given the very
competitive market conditions in these
deregulated states, REPs have to manage a
high volume of daily price quotes for
prospective commercial customers with
typically low proposal-to-contract
conversion ratios. From securing historical
usage data to calculating price offers and
eventually processing service orders, REPs
must utilize
technology to minimize costs
and create a sustainable long-term
competitive position in the commercial
market. Further, given volatile energy
market pricing and bad debt exposure, REPs
must be carefully manage business risk by
eliminating errors and implementing tools
for most effective decision-making.
To address the sales and operational
challenges facing REPs in today's market, IntelliSite™
PowerPlay was developed to help REPs transform and
automate sales proposal and order management
activities. With IntelliSite™ PowerPlay,
REPs can effectively navigate complex energy
markets with a robust web-based platform to
improve business performance:
Lower Costs and Improve Worker
Productivity.
Automating the high-volume,
repetitive proposal and order
management activities significantly
reduces labor cost and helps REPs
more profitably scale commercial
market operations. IntelliSite™ PowerPlay
offers a paperless solution
that automates traditional manual
activities of managing sales
personnel, generating and processing
Letters of Authorization (LOAs),
performing credit checks,
calculating price quotes, generating
and delivering proposals, and
processing service orders. Real-time
dashboard reporting provides
management with the ability to
monitor key metrics throughout the
process for optimum management
control.
Improve Risk Management.
With IntelliSite™ PowerPlay,
REPs are able to significantly
reduce the time from proposal
acceptance to contract,
automatically perform credit checks
on each prospective customer early
in the proposal process, reduce
service order processing errors that
negatively impact profits and create
legal exposure, and securely manage
all information with full disaster
recovery capabilities.
Increase Customer Satisfaction.
REPs have both end-user customers
and sales channel partners to
acquire and service. For end-users, IntelliSite™
PowerPlay enables REPs to maintain
accurate and timely communications
throughout the
proposal and service
order process. For sales channel
partners, many REPs work with
brokers as part of their customer
acquisition strategies and most
brokers sell electricity services
for multiple REPs. As a result,
programs that build loyalty with
brokers represent an important
component in building broker
satisfaction and maximizing sales
performance. IntelliSite™ PowerPlay
provides brokers with easy ways to
electronically submit information on
new opportunities, request price
quotes and proposals, and track
service order processing.
A Complete Electricity Order Lifecycle
Management Solution
IntelliSite™ PowerPlay offers REPs a
complete electricity order lifecycle
management solution from authorizing setting
up authorized sales personnel through
processing service orders and paying sales
commissions:
Sales Rep/Broker Management.
Only sales representatives and
brokers authorized by the REP have
the ability to input new
opportunities in the system. To
establish authorized sales
personnel, the REP can generate,
receive, and process sales
agreements in a paperless
environment. After initial setup,
the REP can easily manage and change
sales representative and broker
information, including commission
structures, through paperless
contract amendment processing.
Opportunity Management.
Authorized sales personnel are
able to securely establish new
opportunities through an easy-to-use
interface accessible anytime and
anywhere with only a web connection.
REPs can provide direct system
access to brokers or elect to
process new opportunities with
internal broker representatives.
Sales personnel can electronically
generate LOAs as necessary and
specify parameters for price quotes
including customer types, product
types, term plan lengths, start
dates, and other variables. Meter
ID's are also entered and
automatically validated by the
system. In addition, automated
credit checks are performed by the
system to ensure proper opportunity
validation before resources are
expended in developing proposals.
Proposal Management.
Upon full completion and validation
by the REP of an opportunity, IntelliSite™
PowerPlay automatically obtains
historical usage information,
calculates price quotes using
pricing engine configurations set by
the REP, automatically generates a
proposal along with associated
service contracts, and
electronically distributes proposal
and contract information to sales
personnel. The REP can also
configure the system preferences to
perform automatic price refreshes
for each opportunity for a specified
period of time.
Order Management. Upon
contract execution by the customer, IntelliSite™
PowerPlay enables the REP to receive
executed contracts in a paperless
fashion. Service orders are
electronically routed through
back-office workflow steps as
specified by the REP with a complete
audit trail of processing activity.
The REP can set service level
agreements for each processing step
with automatic escalations to ensure
that work is completed in the
timeframe specified. Upon processing
completion, all customer information
is electronically delivered to the
REP billing system and customer
fulfillment systems as required.
Commissions Management.
Optionally, REPs can utilize IntelliSite™
PowerPlay to calculate and pay
commissions on sales. The system has
flexible commission structures that
are easily configured for the
specific requirements of each REP.
Client Case Study: StarTex Power
StarTex Power (www.startexpower.com) is a Texas-based REP providing service to
residential and commercial customers. StarTex Power selected IntelliSite™ PowerPlay to automate
the management of sales brokers and to
automate the creation and
processing of the company’s commercial
market customer
proposals and sales contracts. IntelliSite™
PowerPlay enables StarTex Power to
automatically generate and
distribute thousands of customer proposals
on a daily basis to manage the complex
pricing challenges of dynamic energy
markets. Proposals that result in contracts
for the company are processed
electronically through automated workflow across multiple
departments prior to customer activation in
the company’s core billing system.
Real-time dashboard reporting provides
management with the ability to monitor a
range of key metrics including order volume,
order value, SLA performance, order
rejections, and broker performance.
