Software Consolidation Enables Natural Gas Business Growth and Cost Reduction
One of nGenue’s newest users serves as testimony to the business value of consolidating [retiring] multiple disparate software applications and spreadsheets in favor of a single, fully integrated software solution designed specifically for Natural Gas operations. At the start of our engagement with this natural gas Marketer, its COO described business operations as “too manual, too costly and growth constrained.” Having a sizeable C&I and Residential book, its operational staff is like many, comprised of headcount with responsibilities for Sales, Billing, Accounting, Forecasting / Scheduling, Trading & Risk. Its business users’ tools were a combination of spreadsheets, homegrown and off-the-shelf, single-functionality software applications. Customer and customer-related data was separately housed within each of the applications and spreadsheets – there was no central repository of data – no “single version of the truth” so to speak and staff spent an excessive amount of time working to reconcile the data. “It was frustrating, time-consuming, impacting customer experience and the ability to grow our book”, the COO bemoaned.
Across my own and our team’s numerous engagements, this is the common scenario. Natural Gas businesses tend to start with spreadsheet-managed operations, over time add 3rd party applications and possibly develop some software functionality in-house to plug holes. Decentralized “software sprawl” takes control of operations and the business suffers from unproductive and costly operations.
While it’s understandable how it found itself in these circumstances, data reconciliation weighed so heavily on day-to day activities that it was identified as the leading impediment to growth; simply, it had become impossible to make confident decisions based on accurate information, fast enough. “Having all the data in one place and tied together” became the priority and “consolidating disparate software applications” became the means to:
- Streamline operations and speed decision-making
- Eliminate time and cost of maintaining alignment across several software applications
- Eliminate multiple software annual maintenance fees
- Establish a central repository for all data, eliminating reconciliation efforts
- Once and for all, eliminate spreadsheets
The desired outcome was higher productivity and efficiency at a lower operational cost. Sound like Nirvana? Definitely. Sound impossible? Not so. nGenue was the answer to resolving this Marketer’s challenges, enabling the retirement of multiple software applications and spreadsheets, in favor of a single, cohesive system supporting both enhanced and new business processes. Today, nGenue houses all operations data in a central repository, simultaneously accessible by all business users via a common user interface. This Marketer is benefiting from nGenue and so can you!
End Users, LDCs, Marketers, Pipelines, Producers and Utilities face increasing competitive pressures, requiring increased operational efficiency, data integrity and process improvement. Their operational systems must support this, but most don’t. Engage us and we’ll show you how to make a breakthrough. It’s what we do for natural gas companies, and we are experts in our field.
~Ken
