The challenge

When local energy monopolies in the UK were opened up for competition, the attractive London region came under intense, deep cut competition. Business customers were lost to northern raiders with generating capacity. The capital’s utility London Electricity (LE) lost half of its business customers. LE needed an injection of expertise in competitive trading and a proposition to rise above a generic commodity ‘kilowatt’ marketplace.

What did we do?

The board appointed Quadrant to work with a team eager for the fight back but yet to try out the marketing and sales toolkit. For the Quadrant team, with classic fmcg campaign medals, the route back to market leadership was clear. Within two months, we had created a customer base segmentation, sales reorganisation, job descriptions, volume targets and advertising campaign management.

Within two years, LE had doubled its market share, hence regaining a leading role that continues today through EdF, the national market leader, with generating capacity.

What was the breakthrough for London Electricity?

Apart from installing a working Sales and Marketing regime within weeks, the Quadrant team delivered a breakthrough in three parts:

• Ensure the Board believed that energy could be marketed for values, not just discounts
• Generate pride in the LONDON proposition, with internal communications
• Transfer in a mechanism for aligning all future efforts around customers’ needs