Innovation doesn't stop with you!

Our CEO, Sarah Martin, shares her experiences of working in innovation hubs and how, to be truly innovative, you have to look beyond your own four walls

Sarah Bateman, Unify Energy CEO

At Unify Energy, we’re constantly on the lookout for companies that are breaking the mould in their own field of work, and that can also bring something new to the energy market. In recent months, we’ve welcomed on board several new supply chain partners which we know are going to improve the service we’re able to offer, and we’re going to support them to influence other companies to up their game, too.

You’ll often hear of large corporate establishments proclaiming they invest in start-ups. But many don’t actually practice what they preach; instead, innovation becomes a tick box exercise centred more on how a company can market itself, rather than how they can help others. We want to change that, using our own innovation and that of others to transform our business, our supply chain and the industry.

A business built on innovation

My career has centred on scaling up businesses – even though I didn’t realise that was the field of work I was entering into when I took my first job. After university, I joined a start-up business which although small, was offering major disruption and diversification in the telecoms market. I became a core part of the SLT team and played a pivotal role in growing the company to achieve revenues of £56m and multiple rounds of investment. Taking my practical experience of growing and scaling a business, I joined an international technology giant to mobilise a joint venture in Manchester which launched an incubation programme for local start ups. Using this centre as the blueprint this led to a great opportunity as head of innovation programmes across EMEAR for the same organisation. There is a lot of debate about the value of accelerator programmes and there’s been clear evolution since the first UK accelerators were created more than a decade ago.

For corporates it’s an opportunity to learn more about a particular industry or technology and for start-ups it might allow them to access otherwise unattainable resources e.g. office space, skills or open a door for a great commercial opportunity. The worst accelerator programmes are used by both participants and sponsors as ‘marketing activities’. In my experience where the collaboration between corporate and start-up creates an opportunity for co-innovation or to create commercial deals that would not have otherwise been struck then the programme is a success. When I was offered the opportunity to commercialise Unify Energy, I wanted to continue putting everything I’d learnt into practice. For me, it was equally important to grow Unify Energy and ensure our supply chain was filled with partners who could help to revolutionise the wider energy market, using our relationship as an opportunity to grow. I wanted to make sure we took new businesses on that journey with us and even in our short trading time as Unify Energy I am pleased that we have lived by that ambition.

Innovation at every level

Unify Energy is, in itself, a highly innovative and disruptive organisation; for the Bruntwood Group to have developed our offering and launch it to market demonstrates the ambition which is deep rooted in our values, and we plan to harness that same mentality to rapidly transform our sector in the coming years. To ensure we keep moving forward, we’ll continue to look out for suppliers with a mix of experiences, backgrounds, ideas and ambitions which keep us on our toes; those which make us realise we can do even better. This is a conscious strategy – one which we know will see us forge partnerships that have benefits for everyone involved, for many years to come.

A truly innovative energy supply chain

We are constantly on the lookout for companies that are breaking the mould in their own field of work, and that can bring something new to the energy market.

Platforms and algorithms

Hark, an award-winning energy analytics and industrial IOT developer, is one such example. Its platforms and algorithms help us better aggregate and interrogate our customers’ energy usage, automating our backend processes to issue clear, precise and accurate invoices based on accurate energy calculations. This added granularity in our billing helps customers with their own sustainability strategies as they can look to cut down on energy usage, while the crunching of the data will ensure they’re only charged for what they consume. Collectively, this means we can provide them a better service than they’d experience elsewhere.

Batteries

One major challenge in the energy market is batteries – their price, inefficiencies and lack of availability. Not being able to sufficiently store and use solar gains for power means it is injected back into the grid, and no-one benefits from its capture. This comes down to how batteries fundamentally operate, so we’re investing into programmes with start-up companies that are looking to develop better offerings to ensure that this huge hurdle for us and the rest of the industry can be overcome. Doing so will enable us to implement a stronger strategy when it comes to renewable and solar generated power, meaning we can put it to better use and unlock much more potential in the market.

Green energy

Our mission is to be as authentically green a provider as we can be, we’re in talks to secure several Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) as well as direct investment opportunities in off site green energy generation, we also help our clients slieve on site generation such as solar. It’s a real myth that you can readily purchase green energy and it’s unfortunately suspicious how many energy suppliers claim to be ‘green’. OFGEM estimate that it will take until 2035 for two thirds of the UK’s energy to come from resources such as solar and wind. It’s a long road and it’s really important to us that we’re authentic and transparent with customers about our green journey and where that energy is coming from, being transparent about truly green energy sources rather than off setting schemes. Both off setting and green procurement are important steps in a complicated journey to net zero carbon but the industry needs to be honest with customers about what that looks like.

Recruitment

Meanwhile, we’ve recently begun working with Jobseekrs – a company which has developed a recruitment function designed to tackle unconscious bias and discrimination in the hiring process. Its founder having experienced unconscious bias first hand during a recruitment process wanted to disrupt the Industry, hirers will naturally and unconsciously hire people that look and remind them of themselves. Equality, diversity and inclusivity are extraordinarily important to us, the platform anonymises everything about a candidate other than their soft and hard skills, and uses culture fit testing to see if they would be a good match for a company based on their personality, values and principals. Gender, age, race and other demographics are completely hidden. Once the employer is confident that they’re being presented with a candidate who would be a strong fit in their firm, they’re able to ‘reveal’ that person and it’s at this point in the process where they’re charged for the service. Jobseekrs have already been integrated into Unify Energy, so are now a part of our eco system, ensuring we offer fair and equal access to job for everybody.