Portsmouth Water is close to becoming the first water supplier to licence Octopus Energy’s Kraken platform, Utility Week understands.
Industry insiders have confirmed that talks on the deal, which would see the customer service platform manage all of Portsmouth’s c.300,000 customers, are ongoing.
Last year Portsmouth put out a £14 million tender for a six-year contract for a replacement Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and billing system. This, it said, “will revolutionise our relationship with our customers, providing the capability to present insightful data to customers and deliver superior service levels”.
It added: “Most importantly, the delivery of the new CRM system capable of leveraging smart metering capabilities, is a critical enabler for realising the benefits of rolling out smart metering in Portsmouth Water’s supply area to meet our water resources challenges.”
The tender closed in December.
A successful deal with Portsmouth would mark a significant moment for Kraken, which already manages more than 40% of UK energy customers via Octopus, Eon, EDF and Good Energy. It has also been licenced in Japan and Australia.
Both Kraken and Portsmouth Water declined to comment on the matter when approached by Utility Week.
It comes following Kraken’s announcement last year that it would be expanding into other utility sectors such as water and broadband.
As part of the expansion, the company formed a new business, Kraken Utilities, led by Deepak Ravindran who was previously a senior partner and managing director at Boston Consulting Group.
Speaking at the time Greg Jackson, founder of Octopus Energy Group, said: “We’ve increasingly been approached by water companies, telcos and other utilities who saw the way that Kraken has transformed customer and employee experience in energy, whilst driving down costs and opening up whole new opportunities through technology and customer engagement.
“With forward-thinking utilities and regulators seeking to benefit from lower operating costs, better customer experience and exploiting whole new efficiencies through machine learning and big data, we’ve been working hard to expand Kraken from its revolutionary position in energy to offer these advantages across all utilities.”