Suppliers that perform strongly over the next few years are unlikely to be those competing on price alone.
Instead, they’ll be the ones running disciplined commercial engines today, supported by operating models designed for a more flexible, service-led future.
The business energy market is entering one of its most transformative phases in over a decade. The direction of travel is clear, shifting from pure commodity supply towards solutions, flexibility and optimisation. At the same time, margin pressure in core supply is continuing, with established suppliers refining their existing models, while new entrants and alternative propositions test different ways of creating value.
This creates a two-fold challenge for suppliers. In the near term, commercial execution needs to tighten, protecting value through pricing accuracy, product clarity, channel discipline and operational efficiency. This includes preparing for the practical impacts of MHHS going live, particularly the move to a four-month settlement window, which brings increased exposure and a greater need for control and understanding across portfolios.
In parallel, suppliers need to build capability for the next two to three years, as richer market data through MHHS enables more service-led propositions, bundled offerings and smarter margin intelligence. In this environment, operational performance has become a core commercial differentiator.
These priorities also can’t be treated in isolation. The ability to invest in flexibility, services and new propositions depends on how well the core supply business performs today. Equally, suppliers that focus only on near-term execution risk being structurally unprepared for where value is moving next.
This article sets the context for what’s changing, where commercial performance is now won or lost, and how today’s operating decisions connect directly to tomorrow’s value. Over the coming months, we’ll build on this with deeper dives into each theme, and a webinar exploring what good looks like in practice.
What’s changing in business energy?
Regulatory change
Reforms such as MHHS and broader REMA-driven market evolution are raising expectations around transparency, data quality and control. At the same time, expanding carbon reporting and tighter consumer and TPI standards are increasing cost-to-serve.
Together, these changes reduce the margin for pricing error. Forecasting accuracy, documentation and control are no longer supporting activities, but central to commercial performance. As complexity increases, compliance increasingly needs to be embedded into day-to-day processes rather than treated separately.
NCC/NEC volatility and product complexity
Non-commodity costs now account for more than half of many business energy bills and are often more volatile than commodity itself. As regulatory frameworks evolve, the gap between forecast and actual costs can widen quickly, increasing uncertainty across the value chain.
This volatility is changing behaviour in important ways. Customers are paying closer attention to where risk sits within their contracts. TPIs are becoming more selective in how they evaluate suppliers, placing greater weight on transparency and consistency. For suppliers, margin protection is increasingly tied to how well non-commodity exposure is understood, priced and explained, particularly where ‘fixed’ products continue to carry future reconciliation risk.
As a result, pricing strategy, customer trust and commercial risk are now tightly linked. Small forecasting errors or unclear product logic can quickly translate into margin erosion or damaged relationships.
System migration and platform modernisation
Many suppliers are moving away from ageing IT estates and bespoke legacy platforms as part of broader transformation programmes. Where migrations focus narrowly on technology change, there can be knock-on effects on pricing speed, billing accuracy, sales confidence and product governance, which may surface as reconciliation issues or inconsistent customer experiences.
When approached as more than a technology replacement, system transformation creates real opportunity. The shift is from building around legacy constraints to enabling flexible products and processes that can adapt over time. This enables greater standardisation, improves customer experience, reduces long-term cost and risk, and supports a move away from one-off change programmes towards continuous improvement.
Increasingly, we’re seeing system migration used deliberately as a lever to stabilise sales performance, protect margin and enable future growth, not simply to replace technology.
Where commercial performance is now won or lost
Channel strategy and disciplined partner management
TPI partnerships remain critical across SME and I&C segments, but they’re not the route to market for every supplier. Some are strengthening direct channels, others are refining TPI-led growth, and many are adopting hybrid models. The common denominator is clarity of channel strategy and disciplined partner management.
What we see consistently is that friction moves volume. Multiple hand-offs, slow turnaround times, unclear product logic, rigid commission structures and inconsistent relationship management all erode confidence and push business elsewhere.
Suppliers making progress are defining clear channel strategies across direct, TPI and hybrid routes, with explicit rules of engagement. Transparent product logic, consistent pricing SLAs, structured account discipline and shared pipeline visibility all improve ease of doing business and reduce over reliance on any single route to market.
Sales capability - Moving from transactional to advisory
For much of the past five years, selling business energy became increasingly transactional. Market exits and volatility shaped behaviours across the market, with greater emphasis placed on perceived stability, speed and headline price.
That environment has changed. Customers now want guidance on risk, contract structure and longer-term exposure, not just a rate. Across the market, we continue to see sales teams struggling to explain NEC volatility and reconciliation, often due to limited insight or unclear product logic. This reduces confidence and makes margin harder to defend.
What good increasingly looks like is advisory-led selling. Sales teams supported by clear playbooks for risk positioning, better market insight and tools that enable scenario modelling are more confident in product selection, objection handling and outcome-based conversations.
Product clarity and proposition logic
Fixed, hybrid, pass-through, REGO variants and bespoke structures create significant scope for misalignment between a customer’s risk appetite and the product they select.
Where product logic is unclear, the risks are well known: unpriced exposure, TPI disputes, customer mistrust and unexpected margin leakage. Over time, this erodes both commercial performance and partner confidence.
Suppliers making progress are simplifying how products are structured and explained. Clear segmentation, consistent explanations of cost treatment, scenario views of NEC behaviour and practical rules of thumb help align product choice with customer risk appetite, building trust while protecting value.
Operational efficiency and cost-to-serve
Operational performance is now a commercial differentiator. Pricing queues, manual validation, inefficient handling of bespoke quotes, reconciliation disputes and slow onboarding or renewals all create margin leakage.
Without clear cost-to-serve visibility, this leakage often goes unnoticed, particularly by segment, product or channel. Suppliers investing in automated quoting and price matrix’, digital onboarding, integrated pricing and data-led exception management are gaining greater control.
Cost-to-serve insight, combined with margin intelligence by product, segment and deal type, is becoming critical to informed pricing, portfolio strategy and sustainable growth.
Turning change into commercial advantage
The business energy market is changing structurally, commercially and operationally. Suppliers that thrive in 2026 are unlikely to be those competing on price alone, but those with clear operating models, strong partnerships, confident sales teams and disciplined product strategies.
The opportunity lies in translating regulatory change, cost volatility and system modernisation into commercial advantage. This could be through sharper forecasting, clearer product alignment, stronger channel discipline and operating models that improve both performance and experience.
Over the coming months, we’ll explore each of these themes in more depth as part of a wider B2B commercial performance series. This will include insight on:
- Commercial margin discipline and portfolio strategy
- TPI engagement models and channel design
- Cost-to-serve, automation and operating efficiency
- Sales capability and solution-based selling
- Preparing for flexibility and more service-led propositions
We’ll be sharing a practical, joined-up view of where value is moving in the B2B market and what suppliers are doing to stay ahead.
If you’d like to discuss any of the topics covered here, contact Hannah Sword.
