See how Bourne Leisure’s insights have helped to shape and enhance the Hub.
It’s not quite having its Uber moment (yet) but our energy world is changing. Todays’ energy managers have much to take in – increasing third party charges, rapidly declining solar power costs, battery storage and demand side response programs to name but a few. And whichever of these opportunities you look at, they all offer the potential to alter the way you reduce costs, or increase revenue in your energy estate.
But most importantly, in amongst all this change, is you – the customer. And perhaps what’s most exciting is that you now have the ability to capture a range of value, for the companies you work for. We want to help you do that, by empowering new possibilities in your energy world. To put you front and centre in control.
This was very much the starting point for our journey with Bourne Leisure. We worked very closely with the highly experienced team at Bourne from the outset to help them overcome the challenges they faced. And their knowledge and insight has been instrumental in helping us develop the Utilidex Hub to the fully fledged product it is today.
Scott Armstrong, Bourne Leisure, Head of Energy and Sustainability
Bourne Leisure is one of the largest providers of holidays and holiday home ownership in the UK, with 55 operational sites and over 15,000 team members. Ranked 5th in The Sunday Times 30 Best Big Companies to Work For 2017, the company operates leisure assets across 6,800 acres of British coastlines and has a combined utility spend of £45m per annum.
Wanted. A simple solution to a complex problem.
Like many industrial and commercial energy users, Bourne Leisure was facing a number of challenges when they began working with Utilidex. Finding a solution with the capacity to manage large amounts of complex data was at the top of their list. The company was dealing with over 400 paper utility invoices a month and around 2.6 million meter readings a year from fiscal meters alone. With their bill validation services outsourced to a third-party company, getting a complete picture of their energy costs was a challenge. The existing process was resource intensive, it was difficult to establish whether bills had been correctly validated and query resolution times were variable and difficult to predict.
Going digital opens up a whole new way of working.
With an innovative approach to managing their energy use, Bourne Leisure were looking for a solution to simplify all their energy data into one place, bringing powerful capability in-house and ultimately giving them more control of their energy costs. The Utilidex Hub offered Bourne a higher degree of automation for their energy management needs. After working closely with Utilidex over the past couple of years to develop the product, Bourne Leisure are now able to manage and maintain all their energy data – including site information, metering, billing, flexible purchases and some market data – in one system.
Automated bill validation. Bourne Leisure now benefits from a fully-automated digital billing system for gas and electricity that seamlessly integrates with their financial systems. Using the Utilidex Hub, bills are instantly and accurately validated on receipt of the supplier’s electronic invoice file. And this includes complex non-commodity charges.
Meaningful Meter Data. At the core of the whole process is meaningful, accurate meter data. This shows where data is missing and exceptions have been raised. And the beauty of it being a ‘hub’ is that Bourne Leisure can let their supplier and meter agent see this data too. So everybody can be involved in getting it right.
Integration with accounting software. Further software development with Utilidex has enabled the integration of authorised invoices directly into their accounts payable platform; thus eliminating the need for any manual intervention and speeding up the process of payment.
“Being able to manage our risks in one service platform is beginning to deliver the efficiencies we had hoped. We are now able to validate our gas and electricity bills, including pass through charges, quickly on receipt of the supplier’s edi invoice file and the newly developed interface with our supplier means we can raise, track and resolve any billing issues directly. The Utilidex development team understand our needs and are working well with us as we build and integrate the system into our business operation.”
Scott Armstrong, Bourne Leisure, Head of Energy and Sustainability
Find out what digital can do for you.
We want to help you do more, by making your complex energy world simple.
Our Hub puts all your data in one place, so you have a clearer, more transparent view of your energy costs. We help automate lots of complex manual processes, we make sharing your energy data easy, and we help with those all-important optimization opportunities that allow you to capture new value in your energy estates.
“It doesn’t matter where you start the journey with us, whether it’s bill validation, energy management or procurement. But as our industry changes, having an integrated approach to how you manage your energy estate, is going to be key to future success” commented Richard Lewin, Utilidex, “And we want to put our customers in complete control with some very clever, powerful technology that is simple to use.”
To find out how we can help your business, please contact Richard Lewin
