How digital can give utilities a competitive edge in a commoditised market

In a sector where price drives behaviour, how can utility brands leverage digital and deliver innovation that truly engages with customers?

About this Event
Over the past few months, as the new COVID-19 reality has slowly settled in, brands across all sectors have worked extremely hard to stay afloat. Many were forced to expedite their digital innovation efforts and move their entire businesses to the online realm. But where do utility brands sit in all this? Are energy suppliers doing what customers need? And how can utility brands use digital technology to battle the upheavals set to disrupt the supplier industry in the medium- to long-term?

Join our insightful virtual panel session on Thursday 6th August. Brought to you by Somo, fuelled by the industry’s leading experts.

Why you should join:
Findings from Somo’s newest consumer research
We recently asked over 2000 homeowners how they choose their utility suppliers, what are their attitudes to switching to greener energy solutions, and what products and services they’d like to see from their energy supplier. We’ll discuss the results and explore how utility providers can use digital technologies to serve customers better.

Views of the leading industry experts
Featuring leading utility industry experts, we’ll talk about the challenges and opportunities that lie ahead of the energy and utility providers – and how digital can help.

 Actionable insight from Somo’s Chief Strategy Officer
We’ll delve deeper into our recent white paper findings (available to download here), the best strategies to resolve blockers, and how brands can succeed with radical digital differentiation in a commoditised, price-sensitive market.

Our speakers:
1. Philip Steel, Future Technologies Evangelist at Octopus Energy
As the Future Technologies Evangelist at Octopus Energy, Philip is instrumental in driving innovation in areas such as time-of-use tariffs, export tariffs, Smart Energy connected products & services and grant funded R&D projects. Previously, he ran his own Smart Home company which has now also been acquired by Octopus.

2. Sarah Merrick, Chief Executive at Ripple Energy
Sarah is Founder and CEO of Ripple, the UK’s first clean energy ownership platform. She wants to create an easy way for people to make a genuine impact on climate change and empower consumers to realise value across the whole energy value chain.

Sarah has worked in the wind energy industry for 20 years. Prior to setting up Ripple in 2017, she was Head of Public Affairs for Vestas, the world’s largest wind turbine manufacturer and prior to that an Economist in the global strategy team at RES, one of the world’s largest independent wind farm developers. Alongside her role at Vestas, she was vice-chair of RenewableUK, the UK’s trade body for wind energy and chaired its Markets and Regulation Strategy Group.

3. Philip Clayson, Chief Digital Information Officer (formerly at SSE Energy Service and TalkTalk)
Philip is an award-winning transformational CIO, passionate about inspiring technology teams to engage quickly to create and deliver effective customer-centric transformation in business-critical turnarounds, complex digital transformations, post cyber-attack recovery, and high growth environments, including all forms of digital acceleration and M&A.

Philip operates across all phases of the business lifecycle including investment planning and early-stage funding, M&A, product and service launch, growth acceleration, and scaling to worldwide 24×7 operations. His experience spans large private and public organisations, in the UK, and internationally, and across sectors including Retail, Telco, Energy, Utilities, Broadcast and Media, in both B2C and B2B.

4. Chairman: Ross Sleight, Chief Strategy Officer at Somo
Ross is a Chief Strategy Officer at Somo and a true digital strategist. He’s fascinated by the relationship between the exponential growth of digital technology, the adoption and evolution of customer behaviour and the transformation of business to adapt to these new landscapes. He has spent 25 years immersed in digital as the world has evolved from desktop to social to mobile to AR, VR, AI and beyond.

Ross has been a founding member of six influential digital businesses including Somo, Virgin Games and Tribal DDB. He helped develop the first digital property for 10 Downing Street and has advised the Department for Culture, Media and Sport on interactive media development. He’s won numerous creative and effectiveness awards for digital strategy and been repeatedly voted in the top 100 digerati and top 50 in mobile by The Drum.

 
Who should attend:
This insightful virtual event will be most valuable to C-suite and senior professionals working in the energy, utilities, and other heavily commoditised, price-driven industries.

To join us for the event, please register here.