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APRI

L 20

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W W W. F U T U R E - P R O C E S S I N G . C O M

CASE

STU

DY

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A B O U T T H E C L I E N T UK Power is an Ofgem accredited energy comparison site, which allows people to compare gas & electricity prices between energy suppliers within the UK.

Customers can compare deals through their website, where the

information is freely available. The company earns revenue from

switching service to providers (who pay a  small commission to

UK Power).

UK Power gathers all its data from the suppliers, using a developed

calculator that extracts figures relevant to its customers’ needs and

shows comparisons between all energy suppliers.

The company does the hard work of collecting the details and doing

the calculations, enabling customers to easily see the real compar-

isons between utility suppliers’ offers and save money on their bills.

Originally accredited by Ofgem in 2001, later by EnergyWatch, UK

Power is today accredited to the Ofgem Confidence Code.

C O N T E N T S

1 . A B O U T T H E C L I E N T 2

2 . F U T U R E P R O C E S S I N G ’ S R O L E 3

3 . R E S U LT S O F T H E PA RT N E R S H I P 3

4 . B U S I N E S S P R O B L E M T H AT WA S S O LV E D 4

5 . I N N O VAT I O N 4

6 . U K P O W E R A B O U T U S 5

U K P O W E R

www.ukpower.co.uk

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F U T U R E P R O C E S S I N G ’ S R O L EUK Power entered into the cooperation with Future Processing at the beginning of 2013. Our Client needed additional resources to speed up their development process.

At the beginning, we were simply writing code according to specifications. However, with time, we have proven our exper-tise and our role has changed. Our assignments became more complex.

Currently, we are responsible for the whole software devel-opment process. From gathering requirements and coding, through adding new functionalities, to testing and support-ing UK Power’s software architecture. This is crucial to run-ning our Client’s core business.

Thanks to personal visits and frequent communication through, emails and skype, among others, our cooperation grew closer.

R E S U LT S O F T H E PA RT N E R S H I PWhen we first started working with UK Power, we put a lot of effort into upgrading existing software stacks. We developed their product further, by adding more functionalities.

It is now possible, for example, for internal staff to easily test all prices across all regions of the country. It can be done on one single page, without having to do comparisons for differ-ent usages and regions to check if the prices are correct. This makes the whole process easier, faster and more intui-tive – but most importantly, it ensures that the quality of the data is spot on!

Another feature we developed was My Account portal which allows UK Power’s customers to set up a personal account for an automated market monitor service. Customers auto-matically receive notifications if there is a better deal on the market or when their deal is due to expire, enabling them to stay on top of their bills.

In addition, we helped simplify and automate daily tasks done by UK Power’s employees – for example, all switches were previously being downloaded into batchfiles and then sent off to each supplier via an encrypted email or SFTP transfers. This was replaced by an automated process and right now everything happens at a click of a button.

Since UK Power operates in the e-commerce industry, we had to quickly acquire the domain knowledge, learn about law regulations and the internal tools that UK Power uses. Once all these issues were clear to us and we knew our Cli-ent’s business, we were able to help them obtain the best possible result.

B E N E F I T S

faster and more intuitive process of testing prices across all regions of the country

automated market monitor service

simplified and automated daily tasks done by UK Power’s employees

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B U S I N E S S P R O B L E M T H AT WA S S O LV E D The business solution that Future Processing brought can be summarised in one word: automation.

First of all – testing processes. Before implementing them, testing had to be done manually, which is why it was a tedi-ous and time-consuming task. We have streamlined it and UK Power saw potential in that. Therefore, we are currently working on a solution that will automate the whole process. It will greatly reduce time spend on testing and allow our Cli-ent to focus on more pressing matters.

Secondly, we have automated the process of sending files to energy providers. Since batch files are generated and sent automatically, it reduces the need of constant supervision, once again allowing significant time and money savings.

My Account functionality greatly increases user experience. Thanks to the fact that UK Power’s clients receive notifications, it is no longer necessary to remember every single date, as the system reminds them when their agreement ends. Also, the comparison service allows clients to see, on a daily basis, how they can save money on gas and electricity bills.

When the need occurred, Future Processing provided design engineers, who work with our Client on a daily basis, making all the necessary improvements. Being able to fully answer UK Power’s business needs saved them the trouble of look-ing for specialists elsewhere and going through recruitment processes.

I N N O VAT I O N Our cooperation continues to develop, with new assignments appearing continuously.

As for Future Processing, we’d like to take more responsibility for UK Power’s business. We plan to add extra competencies to the teams responsible for User Experience and to extend technological range.

We’ve also helped to redesign UK Power’s website, to make the whole site responsive – ensuring it works well for mobile devices without having to develop a separate mobile-friendly

site. UK Power is now looking to develop a special application, to enhance the mobile experience further, sitting on top of the comparison engine and My account portal.

The responsive design, together with various optimisations, has seen the UK Power conversion rate increase greatly over time, and they are looking to increase this further utilising our design and UX expertise.

P R I M A R Y T E C H N O L O G I E S & T O O L S U S E D :

u CSS

u HTML

u HTML5

u JavaScript

u Linux

u Ruby on Rails

u Web

u GitHub

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U K P O W E R A B O U T U S

J A C O B D U U R S M AHead of DigitalUK Power

W H Y D I D Y O U C H O O S E F U T U R E P R O C E S S I N G ?

The main reason why we, as a group, as a whole, chose to work with Future Processing was because our com-pany values were aligned. We could see the value that Future Processing could add to our company. Also, Future Processing was flexible in how they could work with us to make sure it was a partnership.

W H AT D I S T I N G U I S H E D U S A G A I N S T T H E C O M P E T I T I O N ?

We wanted a team of people who understand that mutual cooperation is very important. Also, we were very taken with Future Processing’s culture and values because they were similar to ours. We chose Future Processing based on the recommendation. However, I am sure that you’d be our choice anyway.

A R E Y O U S AT I S F I E D W I T H O U R C O O P E R AT I O N ?

Yes we are satisfied, we’ve developed a lot of good pro-jects, such as My Account and we’re now rebuilding the front-end of UK Power with a responsive design, which we’re very excited about. We are very happy to have a relation based on partnership, where the cooperation is smooth and people are really open.

W H AT D O Y O U L I K E M O S T I N F U T U R E P R O C E S S I N G ?

The company’s culture and values are a very important thing. We felt like team members all the time, we’ve been let in from the very beginning. The willingness to work in a flexible manner and around our needs were also crucial and suited us. Additionally, we really appreciate people’s hard work and creativity, which is proved buy the fact that the results of our work always meet our expectations.

H O W H A S Y O U R B U S I N E S S G R O W N T H A N K S T O C O O P E R AT I O N W I T H F U T U R E P R O C E S S I N G ?

We’ve doubled the business since we’ve started working with Future Processing, and while this is the accomplish-ment of the whole team at UK Power, the support from Future Processing in the development we’ve done on the website and the back office systems have been a crucial factor in this growth.

H O W D O Y O U S E E T H E F U T U R E O F O U R C O O P E R AT I O N ?

Very much an ongoing partnership, as we’ve currently established. With ongoing technological advancements, we’ll look to develop a mobile app in the near future and we hope Future Processing can help us in its develop-ment process, like they did before.

W H Y D I D Y O U D E C I D E T O O U T S O U R C E ?

We decided to outsource because we needed specific skills that our team was lacking. We chose Poland due to lower costs, compared to in-house development. How-ever, we also wanted to have an ease of getting good people working on our projects and we feel we’ve accom-plished that.

W H Y P O L A N D ?

Poland as a country is more closely aligned in culture, compared with other countries. It really helps to have only an hour difference in the time zones, which makes communication easier. It’s also not too far for the occa-sional face to face visit, which has been good for the ongoing partnership.

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C A N W E H E L P Y O U S O LV E Y O U R B U S I N E S S P R O B L E M ? C O N TA C T U S T O F I N D O U T.

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Future Processingul. Bojkowska 37A44-100 GliwicePOLAND

+48 32 461 23 00 sales@future-processing.comwww.future-processing.com

C O N TA C T U S :