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Enron Mail |
The first phase of the energy.enron.com pilot program was launched earlier
this week. Through this site we will initially offer a one- and two-year fixed-price gas product to small and medium-sized businesses behind four utilities in Ohio and Illinois. We are contacting these customers using a direct mail piece (attached below) that was released Monday. Customers accessing the site can receive real-time quotes for our retail gas products and a contract. The objectives of the pilot are two-fold. First, to learn what small and medium-sized businesses like and dislike about purchasing energy products through the web. Second, to understand the technical and business process challenges we will face in offering these products on a larger scale through the web. We wanted to achieve both these objectives in a low profile manner. Thus we used a limited customer pilot. Our basic philosophy is to quickly try, learn and improve, and then scale up. The team of EES and IBM employees who worked on this initiative did a fantastic job despite some setbacks. We delayed the launch of the site about 8 weeks for two principal reasons. First, we concluded that we needed to add a price comparison feature to the site. This proved more difficult than expected and still requires improvement. Second, we experienced technical problems with the stability of the underlying database application that required a fair amount of time to resolve. Going forward, we have two paths occurring in parallel. First, the design and technical performance of the existing site will be continuously improved over the next weeks and months. We will add the capability to sell power products in a limited number of states in the next 8 weeks or so. A process is in place to learn and document as much as possible throughout this on-going pilot period. In parallel, we have engaged McKinsey & Co. to help with a 4-6 week mid-market strategy development effort that will help define the specific products, target customers, and sales channels necessary to pursue the mid-market in an aggressive way. Out of this effort will also come some high-level requirements for a technology and business process platform that is scaleable and flexible enough to support a large number of transactions and a broad array of products. We envision offering a wider array of power and gas products in more markets nationally, as well as other non-energy products, such as facility services, capital, and insurance. This second generation platform will take advantage of the learning that occurs throughout the pilot period and will integrate with our mid-office billing and customer service systems. We will also try to leverage as much as possible from the success of EnronOnline. A complete post-development assessment is underway and will be completed within about two weeks. Based on our learning during the first phase of the pilot, we will implement specific processes to reduce development cycle time and improve customer response to our offerings. Finally, I'd like to recognize the hard work of the team members that contributed to the development version 1.0 of the site. Thank you all. EES IBM CSC - Suzanne Farrow - Stephen Dodd - Teresa Carroll Childers - Marianne Castano - Regina Newsome - Angie Dixon - Jennifer Hillegonds - Trisha Vo - Mike Garred - Marc Lerro - Becky Merola - Vince Lopez - Sue Landwehr - Roy Boston - Elizabeth Linnell - Chris McCaig - Priya Jaisinghani - Malcolm Adkins - Jeff Stephens - Tracy Adams - Diann Huddleson I will continue to provide updates as we progress. If you have any questions please call me at 3-6091. Mike Harris
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