Doubts over wholesaler readiness for market opening

Doubt has been cast over the readiness of wholesalers for the opening of the non-domestic water market by Business Stream chief executive Johanna Dow.

Speaking at the Utility Week Water Customer Conference in Birmingham today, Dow questioned whether wholesalers “really know what’s coming?”. She added: “Do they understand the amount of change that is going to be driven into their part of the business” as a result of retail competition.

Dow insisted that the readiness of all participants in the non-domestic water market is “very important”.

“That applies to all market participants,” she said. “It won’t be enough to say 10 out of 12 are showing a really high state of readiness, what about the other two? If we’re switching a multi-site customer which has got sites in every region across the UK we need to make sure that everybody is ready. That readiness isn’t just about retailers, it’s got to be about wholesalers as well.”

Dow added that: “With the huge variations that we’ve already got across the different market participants, this is an area that, if we don’t get it right, will be quite quickly exposed.”

She said wholesalers have been used to being part of a much larger organisation without the spotlight on them from a service perspective, but they will find that this changes as retailers force them to drive down prices.

From 1 April 2017 around 1.2 million businesses and public bodies in England will be able to choose their water supplier, an option only currently available to the largest users.

In Scotland, where Business Stream currently operates, non-domestic water competition was introduced in 2008. Dow told delegates at Utility Week’s conference that lessons could be learned from the Scottish market – both in terms of what went well and what did not following market opening.

Complete transparency about the readiness of all market participants was paramount to the success of the market, she observed.