Ovo completes SSE migration four years after takeover

Ovo Energy has finally completed the migration of 3.5 million customers from SSE, almost four years after the deal was completed, Utility Week has learnt.

The energy retailer announced in September 2019 that it had agreed a deal to purchase the domestic arm of SSE, at the time one of the big six, for £500 million.

It subsequently completed the deal in January 2020, with Ovo having license to use the SSE brand until the end of 2023.

Following completion of the deal Ovo now serves 4 million customers across 6 million meters on its Kaluza platform, up from 1.5 million customers.

It is not the only large customer transfer to have completed this year, with Octopus Energy acquiring around 1.5 million customers from failed rival Bulb. This however was completed within a matter of months.

Utility Week questioned Ovo and Kaluza why the SSE migration took several years to complete.

A Kaluza spokesperson insisted the migration has been completed on time and pointed to a white paper which explained some of the complexities of the acquisition, namely highlighting how the migration is just one part of a much wider integration of Ovo and SSE across operations and technology.

The white paper, Crossing the chasm: OVO’s technology-driven transformation, said: “A deal of this scale, however, was not just a case of re-platforming customer accounts – it was the convergence of the retail arm of an eighty-year old energy giant with a ten-year old, tech-first retailer who had a quarter of the number of staff.

“Success of this project, therefore, would result in a single, cohesive organisation which could benefit from economies of scale in becoming the third-largest retailer in the market, whilst retaining the agility, efficiency and pace of a challenger.

“As well as software, this project would comprise reformed processes, operating models and culture – a truly holistic endeavour.”

It added that the two foremost challenges for Ovo were migrating SSE’s customers from the “legacy tech stack to Kaluza, without any drop in performance or triggering excessive customer churn” and transforming SSE Energy Services “from a fundamentally siloed organisational structure into one centred around the customer, using agile methods to develop and launch propositions at pace”.

Commenting on the news Melissa Gander, chief operating officer at Kaluza, said: “We’re thrilled that the migration onto Kaluza’s platform is complete.

“This has been a wide-reaching technical programme during a time of immense market volatility and we’re proud to be enabling Ovo to focus on innovating low-carbon solutions for millions more customers.”