SMART SELLER: REPLY’S SOLUTION FOR
NEGOTIATED OFFERS
PROVIDING OFFER NEGOTIATION SUPPORT TO INDUSTRIAL CUSTOMERS
Retail companies are competing with each other to expand their customer base, retain their
most profitable customers and maximise sales margins.
Competition among energy suppliers is at its most intense when dealing with large industrial
and commercial (LI&C) organisations and small to medium enterprises (SMEs) because of their
revenue and margin potential.
An effective sales force, the capability to forecast consumption for many different types of usage
and the ability to price are key factors in the success of energy suppliers competing against their
rivals.
Reply has developed SMART SELLER, a software solution based on Oracle and Java technologies
designed to support sales campaigns for both gas and electricity suppliers, with a single or dualoffer approach.
Energy suppliers can integrate this solution into their existing systems easily so providing their
internal sales force or external sales agents with a powerful and secure tool that supports sales
campaign planning and tracking
PROCESSES AND FUNCTIONALITY
SMART SELLER supports the main processes
and functionality required to execute sales
> The configuration and simulation
of complex energy offers for LI&C and SMEs
campaigns to sell and/or renew energy contracts,
> Contractual options
including the management of:
> Credit check requests
> Customer and site information
> Authorisation processes
> The sales force
> Offer versions
> The assignment of customers
> Orders
to sales representatives
> Relationships with DCOs
SMART SELLER: REPLY’S SOLUTION FOR NEGOTIATED OFFERS
SMART SELLER allows Marketing and Sales to
track sales/campaign results easily in term of
revenues, margins, sales-side curves, risks, and
so on. Moreover, it allows corrective actions to be
SMART SELLER
ARCHITECTURE
AND TECHNOLOGY
defined and deployed quickly to the entire Sales
SMART SELLER is a client-server software
Force, when necessary.
solution, consisting of two main applications:
> A central system with the functionality needed
The following simplified chart shows the main
to manage integration with other systems,
functionality required by gas and electricity
communications and workflow;
companies.
> A distributed system, capable of operating
stand-alone and running on laptops, to
Client Portfolio
Management
Offers and Prices
Catalogue
Sales Force
Organisation
Management
Prices and Options
Catalogue
Client Portfolio to
Sales Force
Association
Management
Indexes, Curves
FWD and Economic
Parameters
Management
Authorisation
Workflow
Offers and Contract Management
Activation
Process
distribute and make constantly available the
information needed to configure and negotiate
Authorisation
Requests
Management
Activation Requests
Management
Authorisation
Requests
Management
Activation Requests
Management
Offer
Simulation
Offer Calculation
Start Authorisation
Workflow
Actual and FWD
Economic Results
Calculation
Contractual
Documents
Management
> Oracle application server
> Java source code
CEO
SALES DIRECTOR
AREA MANAGERS
The distributed system was built using:
KAM
> Microsoft SQL Server, 2008 Express
Order Activation
> C# source code, Framework 3.5
SMART SELLER Chart
Campaign
Reporting
Ad Hoc
Analysis
Offer
Management
Smart Seller EE+GAS
Offer Configuration
...
...
Business
Logic
Layer
Authorisation
Management
Analysis &
Reporting
Smart Seller EE+GAS
Web Client
Client Management
Business
Logic
Layer
Local Application
Presentation
Layer
Client
Management
Central Web Application
Presentation
Layer
The central system has been developed using:
> Oracle database
Offer Versioning
Management
Offer
Configuration
the offer with the client.
IMPLEMENTATION
APPROACH
Before it can be used by energy suppliers, SMART
SELLER must be configured and integrated with the
existing systems, such as those used for demand
Repository
Layer
Synch
Smart Seller
Central DataBase
Repository
Layer
forecasting/pricing, CRM and order management.
Smart Seller
LOCAL DataBase
The main functionality to be configured includes
Integration Layer
offer types and prices, indexes, details of the sales
Demand
Forecasting
Legacy Systems
SMART SELLER Architecture
CRM
Billing
organisation, authorisation process, and so on.
LOOK AND FEEL
The ‘look and feel’ of the application screens has
been designed to provide an aggregated view of
the main customer information, a user interface
that is intuitive and easy to use, and a graphicsbased display of offer simulation results, for ease
of understanding.
While the typical SMART SELLER user will be
Local Application: Screen to select customer sites to be subject to an offer.
a senior professional (such as a Key Account
Manager, Sales Representative or Sales Agent),
the ease of interaction is designed to streamline
customer-facing activities and allow Key Account
Managers and sales people to discuss and
configure complex offer options in front of the
customer.
The screenshots shown come from Release 1.0.
Reply is currently rolling out Release 2.0.
Local Application: Screen to select offer/price and the contract period
This has been improved dramatically in terms of
look & feel.
Local Application: Screen showing a summary of an offer calculation
Power Reply is a Reply Group company specialised in business consulting and IT services for the Energy
and Utilities sector. With over ten years’ experience behind it, Power Reply supports companies in the core
areas of Marketing and CRM, providing services and solutions that range from Business Portals, Smart
Metering, Master Data Management, Pricing and Forecasting right through to Network Control. Power
Reply helps businesses to optimise their IT investments, through innovative solutions and services that will
boost process efficiency. Reply’s role is that of a key partner that helps clients to use the technology as an
enabler to transform their business.
For further information: www.reply.eu - power@reply.it