Big 6 energy company wanted to avoid customer disappointment at the experience of having a smart meter installed. These have been promoted as advanced technology that enables customers to manage their energy consumption and lower bills, but customer research showed they didn’t meet customer expectations and customers resented being told they were getting accurate bills as the only immediate benefit.

Take advantage of smart metering roll-out to position client as the Feel Better energy company, delivering on customer expectations by creating and commercialising a range of Digital and IoT products and services that do deliver on customer expectations.

Additionally, this activity would create an open innovation centre, driving innovation and digital transformation through the entire business.

I set up the Innovation Lab and introduced Design Thinking, Service Design and Agile delivery to the organisation. I also introduced Lean Startup and Innovation Accounting frameworks.

These practices were integrated into an Innovation Toolkit, and a training programme was created in partnership with a top London Business Education University to make the skills and toolkit available to everyone in the organisation, starting with the board.

The lab matched internal innovators (as product owners) with designers, researches, developers, etc to create, test and scale Connected Home products and services. Successful prototypes would be incubated in the lab before being integrated back into the business as they reached maturity.

Additionally, the lab hosted external innovators and startups, and engaged in business model innovation through partnerships with other large organisations.

The lab was a resounding success, with funding and scope increasing year on year and creating a continuous stream of scaled products and services for the business. The lab enabled the client to be Amazon’s only utility partner for the UK launch of the Alexa voice service, the first utility in the world to support meter readings as smartphone photos, the launch of bundled Smart Voice and Smart Heat tariffs and the introduction of realtime consumption monitoring, alerts and usage disaggregation in the cloud, available to all Smart Meter customers.