Tell us about your role and what you enjoy about it
The main aspect of my role is energy procurement, which involves talking to clients, helping them to understand the industry and making them savings. This also involves building good relationships with suppliers so we can negotiate the best rates possible during the tender process and ensure a good point of contact for any account queries when the contract is live. Another aspect is the account management and Bill Validation services we offer our customers. These relatively new services are proving incredibly popular and almost a necessity in the current market where margins are tight and savings can be made against incorrect bills.
Seeing the additional services become so successful is why I enjoyed helping create and update the Bill Validation dashboards and improve the Client Portal. The thing I enjoy most is talking to clients and the diversity in my role means no day is ever the same.
What are the big challenges and opportunities the industry is facing at the moment
One of the biggest challenges at the moment is the ever increasing non-commodity costs, which now represent over 55% of the overall unit rate, and ensuring they are all included and fixed or forecast in any offers we receive. This is important to us as we like to be as transparent as possible with our clients and ensure the estimated annual costs seen in the summaries are as accurate as possible.
In terms of opportunities, we are approaching one year since the deregulation of the water market and are hoping that the savings in 2018 will be greater than they have been so far. Another exciting new opportunity for Apollo Energy is our entrance into the telecoms market which increases the amount of services we are able to offer our clients and should hopefully prove equally as popular.
Advice to clients
My advice to our clients would be to keep an eye on our daily market reports, especially on the run up to renewals. Take note of our recommendations when we send the renewal summaries and think long term sustainability rather than short term 'quick wins'.
Most often quoted to clients
“Unfortunately I don’t have a crystal ball.”
Best Holiday Destination
New Zealand and South Africa.
Greatest Sporting Achievement
Winning a junior golf championship with a score of +1 Gross (not sure I could do that now!) and thrashing my colleague Ben Crawley in the half marathon last year.
Name three things you can’t live without
Good food and drink, gym and golf.