Energy & Utilities Insights
Insights
Actionable insights for the sector's most pressing topics
Challenges like rising debt, sustainability targets, and regulatory reforms are driving suppliers to fundamentally rethink how they operate. At the same time, these shifts present opportunities to differentiate, drive innovation, and enhance customer service. As organisations attempt to balance financial performance with compliance and customer satisfaction, staying ahead of competitors is crucial.
Leveraging the deep expertise of our industry specialists, we help energy and utilities providers to tackle these challenges, and capitalise on opportunities shaping the future of the sector.
INSIGHTS
Energy & Utilities
The new efficiency imperative
Productivity is now part of the regulatory settlement for energy networks. This first article in our series explores what that means in practice, and how leaders can build the capability to keep improving year after year.
MHHS: Turning meter performance visibility into commercial advantage
MHHS is making meter faults more visible and more expensive. We look at how leading suppliers are using that visibility to fix operational gaps, build stronger partnerships and turn metering data into commercial advantage.
Sales Excellence isn’t an accident. Great sales teams run on a framework
This article looks at what that framework can look like in practice, the behaviours it needs to reinforce, and how leaders can use it to build greater consistency across their sales team.
The Future of Multi-Utilities: Yes, We’ve Invested in Digital. And Now What?
Most multi-utilities have already started investing significantly in their digital foundations. Now, the challenge is ensuring those investments are genuinely reducing complexity and improving scalability.
B2B energy suppliers have more data than ever, so why are commercial decisions still so slow?
B2B energy suppliers have more commercial data than ever, yet decisions on margin, retention and pricing still take too long. This article looks at why more dashboards rarely help, the foundations that turn data into commercial intelligence, and how one supplier lifted conversion from 1% to over 5% by focusing on the decisions that matter most.
Domestic energy debt has reached £5bn and needs a structural response
Domestic energy debt reached £5bn in Q2 2026, the 15th consecutive quarterly rise, and three quarters of it has no repayment arrangement in place. We look at why debt now needs to be treated as a long-term affordability problem rather than a collections issue, and what suppliers can do now.
Podcast: Has business energy reached a turning point? with Raghav Singh (EDF)
In our latest expert interview, Raghav Singh, Business Supply Director at EDF Business & Wholesale, shares his perspective on how the market is evolving and what suppliers may need to do to stay ahead.
Shell Energy UK completes MHHS go-live with BFY Group
We're pleased to have collaborated with Shell Energy UK as they successfully completed market-wide half hourly settlement (MHHS) go-live, a major milestone in one of the energy industry's biggest market reforms.
Avoiding the BAU bottleneck of turning innovation into implementation
Networks are funding more innovation than ever, but much of it stalls before it reaches everyday operations. We look at why, and what the new SIF Deployment funding stream signals for networks ready to close that gap.
Why continuous improvement shouldn't stop with operational teams
In this second article in the series, we explore one of the capabilities that consistently separates high-performing leaders from the rest: the ability to think like a continuous improvement leader, regardless of function, role or sector.
MHHS: Where financial performance will be won and lost
As MHHS programmes evolve beyond tech and compliance, suppliers are increasingly focusing on the wider commercial and financial implications. Access our free resource here.
What water can learn from energy's smart meter rollout
As water companies accelerate smart meter rollout, what lessons can they take from energy? Three practical insights to help avoid costly mistakes and deliver lasting value.
Energy & Utilities
Meet the Team
Ian Barker
Managing Partner
Ian shapes the BFY vision and inspires our team to bring it to life, while remaining central to complex client engagements in Strategy, Commercial, and Operations.
Rachel Littlewood
Partner
Rachel leads our operational and financial turnaround engagements, helping to solve complex operational challenges while maximising commercial performance and customer outcomes.
Kelly Payne
Director
Kelly helps clients achieve operational excellence to improve customer outcomes, employee engagement, and optimising cost to serve.
Energy & Utilities
Our Impact
Strategic analysis identifies ~£103m in opportunities for energy retailer
We delivered strategic analysis for a large energy retailer, identifying up to ~£103m in incremental revenue opportunities, through a comprehensive Market Scan Analysis and Sales Channel Maturity Assessment.
Cash recovery initiatives deliver ~£275m benefit for large Energy supplier
Our debt team supported a large Energy supplier with recovering their cash position, achieving a total benefit of ~£275m through collaborative initiatives.
£8.5m cash collection for large energy retailer
We helped a large energy retailer to generate immediate in-year debt benefits through tactical interventions. Our programme delivered ~£4.5m in Bad Debt benefit and ~£8.5m in cash collection, all while maintaining customer and productivity measures within the operation.
Large energy supplier avoids ~£7.5m in complaints costs
We supported a large energy supplier with a transformation programme, looking at how they can manage their complaints inflow and address the growing backlog. The programme transformed their complaints capability and resulted in ~£7.5m in cost avoidance.
Collections improvements deliver ~£5m cash for Water retailer
We supported a B2B Water retailer with a series of collections improvements, achieving a cash uplift of ~£5m in five months.
Tactical debt improvements deliver ~£7m cash for large Energy retailer
A large Energy retailer was facing significant challenges with customer debt, requiring improvements to their collections processes to mitigate this. Their total debt was ~£100m at the time of engaging BFY, with communication gaps present across the customer debt journey.
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