Utilities Trend Report 2018: Power to the People

We are in the midst of the fourth industrial revolution and it is the unprecedented speed of change that particularly differentiates this revolution from the other three. Challenger brands, market disrupters and game changers are now commonly used terms and reflect the new and hypercompetitive environment that is the new reality for many industries forcing legacy brands to change the way they do business. What make them stay or switch? Who do they trust and why? What turns them on and or switches them off?

It’s who you know, not what you know (or is it?)

The “Big Six” have dominated the UK energy market for many decades but their market share is reducing. To set the scene, we wanted to find out who current energy providers are for our sample. And there was a mixed bag of results. Not surprising is the “Big Six” were all represented in the top 6 position (with nPower and SSE tied as 5th most popular provider. Notably, but not necessarily surprising is that, in second spot is “Other” used to categorise any provider stated outside of the 11 providers listed.

And the Utilities sector is no different. With the dawn of smart metering, green energy, distributed generation, modern automation systems, Big Data and the Internet of Things (IOT) – brands need to be data driven, technology savvy and agile. It is against this backdrop of change and challenge that we have conducted research to identify the key motivators for modern consumers when it comes to energy providers.