VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:

So the energy industry, like all industries, is going through some major upheavals. We're seeing greater government regulation. We're seeing the rise of digital native new entrants. We're also seeing climate change focused customers, unafraid to switch supplier. Despite its 200 year heritage, British Gas is not immune to the upheavals. Its parent company Centrica aiming to reposition itself around the customer. With a focus on helping them transition to a lower carbon future, chose Publicis Sapient as its partner for this journey. Their brief was clear, make the most of technology to drive efficiency, product choice and fundamentally transform the experience of British Gas' customers.

We chose Publicis Sapient because they're a trusted brand. We were going to be using new technology in Centrica and Publicis Sapient came with a vision as to how to... how to implement that so that we could bring simple apps for our customers to make their lives easier.

Our collaboration involved bringing together experts from Publicis Sapient and also combining that with subject matter experts from across our business which involved UK home, SAP connected homes and smart data. Effectively what the app does is the customer creates a home profile, we then show them within the app. how their energy is distributed across seven different categories. So they can see actually, well actually I'm using most of my energy in these following areas and they can then start taking corrective action to reduce it.

We started by developing Centrica's existing agile capabilities, by reframing design sprints and addressing more than 200 existing issues, we really put ourselves in the shoes of the British Gas customers to truly understand how they engage with British Gas's products. products and services.

We took a bold decision to fully commit ourselves to the emerging react native technology as our app development framework. This enables our teams to be organized around the customer journeys rather than the platforms. We launched new capabilities on a regular basis based on the data and the user insights to enhance our customer experience. such as the real-time smart meter data visualizations, the ability to change tariffs quickly and simply, Apple and Google Play integrations, which was the first for any app in the UK energy market, and the simple and easy booking and management of your Home Boiler Service appointment.

Centrica and publicist Sapient teams in just 82 days had delivered the first iteration of a fully functioning mobile app. which we took live to market to our customers that has fundamentally revolutionized the way that our customers transact with us but also the way that we transact with our customers.

We now have an app in market that our customers clearly love. We've had over 1.7 million downloads of the app with very little promotion of it. And customers are able to log in, make simple transactions and control their energy and services account from a simple app on their phone.

The business impact has been far-reaching. We successfully delivered 18 consecutive releases. Agile, which publicist sapient effectively educated us within Centrica in its use, has now been adopted and is now being scaled within the organisation to deliver more effective products at a more effective... effective rate.

So the icing on the cake for me was the feedback from the Energy Saving Trust, who rated the app a standout, arguably one of the best energy supplier apps. For the team of Publicis Sapient this was a big win, but it's an even bigger win for British Gas's customers and of course the environment. And that's where the true success of this project lies.