Published on the 29/08/2024 | Written by Heather Wright

Finance and wholesale trading to follow + more AI…

Genesis Energy is gearing up to begin migrating customers of its Frank Energy brand to a new ‘future fit’ $70 million billing and CRM platform.

The billing and CRM project, with Salesforce for CRM and Gentrack for billing, is one of three key upgrades planned as the energy generator and retailer seeks ‘a more focused and simplified business’. A finance management platform and wholesale trading ‘toolkit’ are the remaining two projects, with early work on both now underway.

“Our new platform will enable us to provide improved CX and EX from a cost-effective base, and explore interesting adjacencies over the coming years.”

Genesis says the cloud-enabled billing and CRM re-platforming will deliver a future fit retail platform through modernisation, simplification and automation of core operations, with an aim of reducing cost to serve, and increasing core and adjacent revenue.

“Our new billing and CRM platform will enable us to streamline our retail operations to provide improved customer and employee experience from a cost-effective base, and explore interesting adjacencies over the coming years,” Genesis says.

Last year, Ed Hyde, Genesis chief transformation and technology officer, described the re-platform as ‘world leading, cloud enabled capability’ and said the Salesforce/Gentrack combination provided 90 percent out of the box requirements.

The focus on streamlining around the core would lead to less opex, Genesis said, and enable the reduction of around 200 retail-orientated roles.

The company acknowledged that the role of technology previously hadn’t been clearly defined, but said it would be a key enabler for ‘Gen35’ strategy reset, with a strategic focus on platform, delivery and data.

Frank customers will be the first to move to the new billing and CRM platform, which is currently ‘progressing towards the end of build and into system test phases’.

It’s expected that the first customers will go live on the new platform in late FY25, with subsequent releases for the Genesis brand following and full completion expected in FY27.

Work is also underway on a general ledger update, which will see Genesis upgrade its core system ‘to ensure stability, modernisation and improved productivity’.

A shortlist of potential ERP vendors and system integrators has been whittled down to the final two combinations, with contracting expected to be completed in the first half of financial 2025 and the project due for completion in FY26.

Rounding out the projects is a trading and risk platform implementation, which is expected to allow Genesis to better model and forecast scenarios and trade into the market ‘even more effectively than we do today’.

It will begin with the replacement of its existing risk management system. An RFP has been issued, with contracting expected to be completed in FY25. A plan for the wider suite of wholesale trading tools and capability is expected to be completed during the first half of financial 2025.

The company’s annual report shows investment in digital projects for the financial year was down $8 million due to accounting treatment of SaaS costs.

Technology spend hit $55.2 million, with digital projects spend coming in at $15.4 million.

The annual plan also notes Genesis’ involvement in trialling Microsoft Copilot Pro earlier this year and says initial research has found that 70 percent of people in the trial were saving at least an hour a week through using Copilot, with some saving as much as five hours a week.

Thirty staff initially trailed the offering to ‘flush out any challenges or ethical risks’.

By the end of FY24, around 300 employees were involved in the trial.

“We’ve been using Copilot to transcribe and summarise meetings, removing the need for note-taking, review drafts, set the right tone for communications, summarise long email chains and run a diversity audit on our website’s content and imagery,” Genesis says.

The company has also created its own in-house AI tools, including one to analyse call centre transcripts and identify common themes.

A second tool has created a knowledge base for Genesis’ power generation sites, while a third is designed to help the company work with data across a range of sources.

“The next phase of our AI strategy will be to assess large value opportunities and consider the AI applications.”

Genesis says it has continued its cybersecurity investment, expanding security monitoring and visibility across its landscape in the past year, and investing in information and cybersecurity capabilities and controls.