TECHNOLOGY

CIO role is all about making sure that technology was never a barrier to what the company wanted to do from a business perspective . “ When you go from nothing to a million households and from 30 employees to 1,400 employees , the scalability of the platform is a

very important factor in how quickly you can grow . So the CIO part of my role is all about delivering that robust , secure , scale , fit-for-purpose business . The CTO part of my role is about positively evolving the way our customers engage with their energy consumption and also with us . So that it ’ s more convenient for them , they get a better service experience and ultimately they end up staying longer with us ,” Wilkins adds .

Research and development And a pivotal part of this technology delivery is First Utility ’ s preference for investing in developing its own solutions . It has a Business Technology Group – carefully named by Wilkins to highlight that technology is at the core of the company and not just an internal service provider – that works collaboratively with and as peers of the other departments . “ We have 203 technologists that work in the Business Technology Group so we invest quite heavily in building our own solutions rather than buying shrink-wrapped products from the marketplace .”

This focus on developing solutions in-house is partly the result of necessity , Wilkins says , as eight years ago there wasn ’ t much out there already for the relatively new independent energy sector . “ There aren ’ t many specialist software vendors that deal with how

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