Tag: Energy and Utilities

With rising energy costs and hospitals becoming overwhelmed during the winter months, vulnerable NHS out-patients are at risk of severe illness through poorly heated homes Energy Systems Catapult worked with Performa IT to develop a product to identify vulnerable patients, provide them with energy credits and link them up with installers of energy efficiency measures in their homes. After trials in Gloucestershire, North East England and Scotland the Salesforce-based product is ready to be offered to NHS trusts nationwide.

 Real results. Real partnership.
 Powered by Performa and Salesforce.

Energy innovation hub deploys Salesforce Partner Portal to prescribe Warm Homes for vulnerable UK patients.

Executive Summary

With rising energy costs and hospitals becoming overwhelmed during the winter months, vulnerable NHS out-patients are at risk of severe illness through poorly heated homes Energy Systems Catapult worked with Performa IT to develop a product to identify vulnerable patients, provide them with energy credits and link them up with installers of energy efficiency measures in their homes. After trials in Gloucestershire, North East England and Scotland the Salesforce-based product is ready to be offered to NHS trusts nationwide.

Challenge

1. 1. Energy Systems Catapult (ESC) is a not-for-profit organisation bringing together stakeholders from industry, government and academia to collaborate on projects and developments in the energy sector. Its remit is to respond to society’s most pressing energy needs by harnessing technology, knowledge, financial resources and practical skills to improve energy provision for the UK population.

2. Meeting the energy needs of vulnerable people

3. Recognising the health risks of poorly heated homes to afflicted and vulnerable individuals in low- income households, ESC identified an opportunity to assist NHS Trusts in providing energy-related support to patients prone to respiratory infection through chronic pulmonary disorders.

“This is a preventative approach, identifying vulnerable patients and offering them energy credits orenergy efficiency measures for their homes.

“It requires joining up numerous stakeholders, including NHS trusts, patients, energy providers and local networks of trades businesses to install or carry out efficiency measures in low-income homes.”

Given their track record of mediation between a wide cross-section of stakeholder groups, ESC were ideally placed to lead the Warm Homes Prescription initiative.

A transformative journey

Nevertheless, as Venkat explains, ESC had to overcome some significant challenges of its own to get the initiative off the ground.

“Not only did we have to identify and deploy the most accessible and cost-effective platform for maximum scalability, we also had to shift our way of working,” he says.

“Historically ESC is more project- than product development-focused. We had a very top-down approach to requirements analysis, but Warm Homes Prescription required much more careful consideration of the problems and blockages to be faced.”

Since ESC is an established Salesforce licence-holder, Venkat and his team advocated for this to be the digital tool of choice.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)

ESC’s SMEs and technical leads are highly in demand, juggling lots of different applications, projects and research programmes.

“We did not have any dedicated SME resource for Warm Homes. Given their busy schedule our SMEs had limited time to contribute to our programme and provide feedback,” Venkat explains.

“We had to devise mutually beneficial ways to engage their support most productively, without causing them any onerous work,” says Venkat.

Warm Homes Prescription Solution

Venkat and his team seemed to have an uphill battle on their hands.

“We really did start from quite a negative place within our organisation,” admits Venkat. “So it’s all credit to Performa IT as our Salesforce implementation partner that we have achieved as much as we have,” says Venkat.

“Warm Homes Prescription is an innovative B2B2C digital platform that unites NHS trusts, their vulnerable patients, energy providers and local installers.

“It is an important way of safe-guarding chronically ill patients, and ensuring acute NHS services are protected.”

Describing the three key pillars for success of the Warm Homes solution Venkat says:

“With Performa IT we had the right people to do this job.

“Not only did they bring a lot of clarity to the required customisations within the Salesforce platform, they were also adaptable enough to meet some unreasonable expectations and conduct build activities to pre-empt bureaucratic time-scales.

“Performa proved themselves to have all the right levers within the team to anticipate design and process definitions and objections. They are also highly proficient in acknowledging cultural differences across different stakeholder groups and doing what it takes to get work approved and completed.”

Process

Commenting on Performa IT’s role in helping ESC shift their project approach Venkat says:

“We needed quicker interactions between the developers and the stakeholders to define the business case, analyse requirements, and get approvals. Performa IT helped us work within extremely tight timescales to deliver a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) that NHS trusts could start using as simply and inexpensively as possible.”

“As well as clearly defining the solution processes, Performa IT were extremely helpful in creating the right product development processes,” says Venkat.

“Using collaboration tools such as Confluence and JIRA, and daily stand-up meetings, Performa took the lead in defining and implementing process management.

“Respecting our SMEs’ time and availability and anticipating what they needed in order to guide and advise us, Performa were proactive in providing as much up-front information, pre-reads and recommendations as possible to them.

“Performa are adept at visualising processes based on discussions and are also able to provide informed estimates for Statements of Work.”

Technology

Despite initial objections to the use of Salesforce as the digital tool, the benefits of the platform could not be overlooked.

Explaining these, Venkat says: “Salesforce provided us with a secure and scalable data model, a high user base, powerful dashboards and strong compliance with data security regulations.

“NHS trusts and energy advisors already work on Salesforce, so familiarity is an additional benefit,” Venkat adds.

To tackle the licensing problem Performa IT recommended Salesforce’s Partner Portal as the main engine of the solution. Commenting on this choice Performa IT’s Business Analyst Charles Pourieux says:

“Partner Portal does have some limitations, but it is a more cost-effective approach to licensing and is beneficial in the not-for-profit sector.

“Working closely with Venkat we were able to identify the correct permissions for different end users, making sure they had the level of functionality they needed and were not overwhelmed. This is important in on-boarding.”

Charles adds: “We were also able to find an efficient approach to data-sharing by region rather than setting up lots of rules for public groups. This reduces onboarding time by 75%.”

Another important factor in choosing Salesforce lay in ESC’s long-term relationship with Performa IT since 2018.

“Performa knew our business and its complexity,” says Venkat. “They are also a very flexible and capable group of Salesforce professionals. They quickly understood what the Warm Homes initiative demanded and were keen to help us solve the associated problems and challenges.

“Performa IT’s knowledge of Salesforce, its architecture, licensing and customisation potential provided critical input to the value proposition we needed to present to our stakeholders,” he adds.

With the right people, processes and technology in place ESC delivered working MVP trials in Gloucestershire, the Tees Valley and in Aberdeenshire between 2021 and 2023.

Looking into the Future

Venkat is proud to announce that following stakeholder demos, feedback and additional improvements Warm Homes Prescription is ready to be rolled out to NHS trusts nationwide.

“With Performa’s help we are looking at integrating more systems and automating processes as much as possible,” he says.

Additionally with interest from the Treasury and government policy makers, there is a strong possibility that Warm Homes Prescription will be enfolded in nationwide policy.

Recommendation

Recommending Performa IT Venkat says: “For such a complex and constrained project Performa IT demonstrated keen situational awareness, leadership and a strong ability to apply their knowledge and expertise.

“They certainly rose to the challenge and played a crucial part in delivering a solution that could help thousands of vulnerable people.”

Performa IT says

“It is a privilege to play a part in delivering such an important solution for the National Health Service and vulnerable people.

“It is also a fabulous showcase for the adaptability and potential of the Salesforce platform to deliver digital solutions outside the sponsor’s enterprise.”

More on the warm homes project here.

Energy Systems Catapult Statistics

• Independent, not-for-profit bid and grant-awarding body
• Connecting industry, government, academia, research
• 170+ staff at offices in Birmingham and Derby
• Champions of innovation in the clean energy sector
• 115 full access Salesforce licences and 8 platform licences

Value added by Performa IT

• Engaged in 2018
• Rebuild and relaunch Salesforce platform
• On-going BAU support, maintenance and customisation
• App integrations for streamlined process management

ESC’s Background with Salesforce

Energy Systems Catapult brings together numerous stakeholders from industry, government and academia to collaborate on projects and developments in the clean energy sector. Their main objective is to open new markets for green and renewable energy innovations.

As a Salesforce customer since 2017 Energy Systems Catapult worked historically with an incumbent consultant to embed the platform into the operation. However, with the onslaught of pandemic-triggered remote working, and the arrival of new members of staff, the opportunity to optimise Salesforce deployment became more urgent.

Here ESC’s Commercial Support Officer Charlotte Adkins describes how Performa IT are transforming the organisation’s use of Salesforce, and the important benefits this is delivering.

ESC’s Challenge: stakeholder duplication and process inefficiencies

“With multiple teams serving a variety of stakeholders there was a quite a lot of duplication of account and contact information held locally on spreadsheets,” Charlotte explains.

“This meant that it was difficult to determine who was talking to who about what, and there was some confusion with communication crossing over.

“The picture became more complicated once the information necessary for the opportunity pipeline was added to the mix. It was difficult to keep track of the different stages of the bid and tendering process.

“Either opportunities were being tackled from different angles at the same time, or we were running the risk of missing them altogether,” says Charlotte.

ESC’s requirement: ‘Single source of the truth’

ESC’s key requirement was to close the gap between implementing Salesforce and driving value from such a powerful platform.

As Charlotte explains: “Our best-case scenario is to get everyone using it every day, and interacting with contact, opportunities and project records held in one place.

“Ideally we want everyone to be able to run reports from the platform, and to identify common engagements and opportunities,” says Charlotte.

“Getting away from the information silos is crucial to improve efficiency and enhance collaboration.

“We are a new team right at the very beginning of this journey, learning together how best to use Salesforce and promote it to the rest of the business.

“But we are confident that Performa IT will get us to where we want to be.”

Why Performa IT?

In 2018 Performa IT took part in a tender process for an initial one year contract. Three years later ESC have secured Performa IT’s services for a further four years.

Commenting on how well Performa IT work with ESC Charlotte says: “Performa IT have an excellent understanding of ESC and have been very supportive for me as I’ve settled into my role.

“Remote working has been an extra challenge but Performa IT are very friendly and professional. They have given me great guidance in the platform so I can now represent user requirements to them and act as a liaison.

“We have a great working relationship,” asserts Charlotte.

Performa IT implementation approach

“Whenever we have a new requirement Performa IT attend meetings with the users to understand what they wish to achieve,” Charlotte explains.

“They engage with the business all the way through the development process and help with training in new functionality. They also help with skills transfer, and have taught me the on-boarding process to add new users and licences, as well as some custom coding techniques to change page layouts and develop processes within the platform.

“Everyone in ESC is aware of Performa IT and what they do for us, and this helps ensure good engagement from the teams.”

Solutions

Data Wizard

“Performa IT helped us to update our data quickly and efficiently. This was a significant step in developing our ‘single source of the truth’ which is so important to bring teams together,” says Charlotte

Bid Management Customisation

Describing how Performa IT streamlined the bid management process Charlotte says: “We identified a paper form that we wished to integrate into Salesforce using its functionality.

“Performa IT implemented validation rules at different points in the process pipeline. The form now pops up to fill in on screen, and then triggers email alerts for people who need to be involved in the approvals process.

“This has been a good driver for engagement with the platform as the teams have to use Salesforce to progress their workflows.”

Reporting

“Performa IT helped us get to grips with the information we need to report out of Salesforce and to configure the dashboards we needed to deliver the information in the best way,” says Charlotte.

Benefits of Performa IT’s implementations

Greater efficiency

“The whole process of managing and tracking projects through every stage – from investigating, developing, and submitting tenders, and either awarding or rejecting bids – now happens in one place,” says Charlotte.

“Performa IT have helped us streamline and automate the process from start to finish which helps to make us more efficient and accurate.”

Better clarity and communication

“Having a clean and consistent information database in place enhances our confidence in the platform and gives us a good start-point for collaboration,” observes Charlotte.

“We are able to carry out regular spot-checks encouraging business users to ensure the accuracy of their data.”

Improved stakeholder support

“Thanks to Performa IT’s holistic approach to our processes, we have a more complete view of projects all the way through their life-cycle. We can also continue to monitor the progress of a piece of work after the bid is won.

“The increased visibility and monitoring ability that Performa IT’s customisation of Salesforce enables enhances our role as an innovation hub supporting our stakeholders.”

Improved insight

Commenting on how Performa IT have harnessed Salesforce’s reporting capability Charlotte says: “On a monthly basis we can understand the status of bids, projects and revenue by stage and by business group.

“As a result our leadership team can identify patterns and similarities between winning or lost bids. These are powerful insights that help to inform decision-making.”

Improved communication and engagement

“Performa IT are definitely positioning Salesforce as a tool that helps our users do what they need to do. Our teams are staring to see the value and impact of the new functionality.

“We are regularly sharing hints and best practice tips through newsletters and updates. This is helping people to appreciate the potential of the platform within our organisation. It’s no longer perceived as just a place to add accounts and opportunities.”

New Possibilities arising for ESC from Performa IT’s Salesforce expertise

Improved segmentation of information

“We’re looking forward to driving greater value out of Salesforce’s reporting capability by drilling down into record types for opportunities.

“Not all pipeline stages are applicable for all types of opportunities, so introducing record types will help us get greater visibility and insight for different opportunity approaches.”

Recommendation

“Prior to joining ESC I worked with Salesforce as an end user in another organisation that managed the platform in-house.

“It can be a daunting platform at first, especially when the business tries to change its practices to work with Salesforce.

“Performa IT have the knowledge and understanding to help shape the platform around the business, and this makes it more accessible for users. They take their time to get to know their customers and what they are trying to achieve.

“They play a huge role in helping to tailor the system to work for our needs. And they bring an awareness of how other organisations are using the platform, which is not possible for an in-house team.

“The solutions Performa IT propose always have in mind the configurations we’ve already got and how we’re using it. I would definitely recommend working with them to get the most out of Salesforce.”

Performa IT says

“It’s a pleasure to work with an organisation who are dedicated to getting the most out of their investment in the Salesforce platform, and who are constantly delighted with the potential of the tool to help streamline their processes.

“Energy Systems Catapult serves a broad stakeholder audience so it’s vital that their CRM and process management work smoothly and clearly.

“We look forward to continuing to support ESC as they work towards their important energy innovation goals.”