• Consulting, system integration, powerApp development
• powerApps such as the market communication switch, market partner Syn App, tenant power and many more bolster powerApp portfolio

(powercloud, Offenburg, 5/25/2021) CONUTI GmbH and powercloud expand their long-standing cooperation. CONUTI has been working for powercloud as a consulting, system integration and powerApp partner since 2016. The Karlsruhe-based company has implemented or supervised over 20 powercloud implementation, migration and development projects under its own responsibility to date.

CONUTI provides powercloud support with the rapid further development of the cloud solution. For example, the market processes for power feed-in (MPES) were recently integrated into powercloud in collaboration with Sonnen. CONUTI has also already developed five powerApps for the powercloud:

The CONUTI Mako switch enables utilities fast entry into powercloud by allowing “temporary” parallel operation to a legacy system. Utilities can thus quickly test the advantages of powercloud in live operation without having to migrate their data from the legacy system. ​ For example, you can launch a new product via powercloud or process all new customers via powercloud on a certain date, while all other products or existing customers are still processed via the legacy system. The Mako switch “monitors” the whole market communication process and ensures the market messages are correctly assigned.​ Customers can thus use the CONUTI Mako switch for fast entry into powercloud and migrate the data from the legacy system to powercloud at a later date.

The CONUTI Tenant Power APP offers providers of tenant power fast entry into the commercial processing and billing of their district concepts. ​ The solution provides all relevant system components: master data, billing, sub-ledger and general ledger accounting, market communication, and, if desired, portal connection. The CONUTI powercloud Tenant Power APP handles the registration of customers and summation meters, the metering concepts, the setup of tariffs as well as the market communication processes and billing based on the respective direct purchase factors. The application is fully integrated into the powercloud following activation.​ ​

The CONUTI Market Partner Sync APP allows powercloud users to initially load the system with all market partners and certificates. Regularly expired certificates are also automatically updated in the background. Rather than having to manage each individual market partner certificate, powercloud users can let the automatic market partner synchronization take care of that. Tedious manual certificate maintenance is eliminated thanks to the positive effects of smoother market communication, faster process handling and thus reduced process costs.

The CONUTI Master Data Replication APP provides parallel data replication from a productive powercloud application. Master and transaction data is quickly made available from the production systems for analyses, simulations and, above all, for testing purposes. Powercloud users thus have the option of filling their test environment with productive real data (anonymized in compliance with GDPR) at any time and immediately initiating test scenarios. The time saved is immense and quickly delivers value compared to a time-consuming manual setup of test data.

The CONUTI general ledger is integrated into powercloud as a fully functional general ledger solution with no media discontinuity.The already implemented standard interface eliminates cost-intensive programming and the ongoing need to adapt an individual interface to an external general ledger. The CONUTI general ledger comes with a preconfigured chart of accounts and standard reports for the utilities industry. Balance sheet, P+L account, business assessment, preliminary VAT return are available and freely configurable if required.

“powercloud has revolutionized the market for billing and process solutions in the energy industry,” says Daniel Heinemann, CEO of CONUTI. “Gone are the days when implementation projects consumed untold amounts of time and vast budgets. IT operation from the cloud is more cost-effective and also more secure than operating systems in small data centers. Existing IT departments will in future concentrate on the further development of your business model rather than on standard processes. The options that powercloud offers for this purpose are almost unlimited thanks to the API technology,” says Daniel Heinemann. “We will also pave the way for small and medium-sized utilities to benefit from powercloud. Our team of experts will provide such customers with competent and, above all, pragmatic support from kick-off to go-live and even after that if requested.”

“CONUTI brought its many years of experience as an IT consulting company in the energy industry to the partnership at a very early stage and our cooperation has now developed into a strategic partnership. We are happy to have CONUTI on board our partner network and thus to be in a position to provide utilities optimal support with our platform,” says Thayabaran Thanabalasingham, Head of Partner Sales at powercloud. Next Friday, May 28, the two partners will present the functionality of the “Mako switch” powerApp via live web demo: based on the example of a powercloud in parallel operation to an SAP IS-U system, participants will learn how to quickly bring the powercloud into parallel operation with their legacy system in order to launch a new brand or specific products in the energy market. The Mako switch “monitors” the whole market communication process and ensures the market messages are correctly assigned.

About CONUTI GmbH

CONUTI is an innovative IT consulting company with many years of experience in the utility industry.

CONUTI has been working closely with powercloud on a number of implementation, migration and development projects since 2016. 30 CONUTI consultants from the overall team of 50 provide support and development services directly at powercloud’s premises. CONUTI also offers apps and solutions for powercloud such as the Mako switch, tenant power, and automated market partner synchronization. CONUTI provides powercloud customers with end-to-end projects from the initial workshop, introduction, migration and training to the go-live with subsequent 24/7 technical and business support.

• End-to-end solution in powercloud’s powerApp Store
• All utility processes included in the analysis
• Detect potentials for in-company optimization efficiently
• Expense and cost reductions enabled in billing

(powercloud, Offenburg, May 3, 2021) powercloud GmbH, a market leader in open SaaS solutions for the energy sector in Germany, and Lana Labs, one of the world’s leading process mining companies, are now technology partners. They are collaborating on a solution, available from powercloud via its powerApp Store, that will enable customers to directly visualize, analyze and optimize their entire processes.

Perfect, automated processes within the company are a prerequisite for the future success of energy utilities. They result in a reduction in internal costs, while service is faster and new products can be custom-developed at a brisk tempo. As the level of digitization increases, however, the complexity and lack of transparency of many back-office processes also increases. The difficult question then arises: where are the potentials for optimization to be found? An effective answer is now offered by Lana Labs, together with the energy utility digitization specialists at powercloud. The two companies are cooperating to develop a new process mining solution for the utility platform’s powerApp Store.

“We are already active in the energy market in multiple ways and are helping major municipal utilities in Berlin and Bonn and also suppliers and producers to optimize their processes and to release their entrepreneurial capacities for further growth. With the aid of our solution they are now able to effectively recognize their optimization potentials,” says Dan Wucherpfennig, CEO Lana Labs. “This expertise is now flowing directly into the new app. We are beginning with a solution for the meter-to-cash process and the process of changing suppliers, and after this we will add in all the other processes of the energy sector.” The focus is always the AI-assisted analysis of the incoming data. LANA Process Mining creates a process model in a matter of seconds that indicates, say, the number of different ways in which everyday business processes are in fact being carried out. This reveals bottlenecks, long process times and long idle times and indicates the causes of inefficient processes. Changes in the processes can also be monitored simply via a dashboard.

“We are delighted to be bringing this expertise to the powerApp Store. The process mining approach offers enormous possibilities, particularly for the energy market, because the business processes are often highly complex, opaque and thus unnecessarily cost-intensive. Lana Labs is aiming to disperse this complexity. This suits powercloud perfectly, as we already do something similar for the billing and the energy industry machine room of the suppliers,” says Marco Beicht, CEO of powercloud. Additionally, powercloud is continuing its long-term strategy of helping companies make comprehensive use of the open and extensive data pool of the platform. Tailored, ready-made solutions are available for this in the powerApp Store – that also make use of AI, data science and similar technologies.

About Lana Labs

Berlin-based software company Lana Labs specializes in the automated analysis of business and production processes. A specially developed machine learning algorithm provides data-based transparency and points automatically to savings or optimization potentials. In this way Lana Labs makes businesses more intelligent, more efficient and faster.

LANA software makes it possible, in the form of an industry-specific solution for, say, the energy industry or manufacturing, to understand and optimize the exact key processes that can make the difference in a competitive environment. Customers that already use LANA include major municipal utilities and energy utilities such as Stadtwerke Bonn and Berliner Wasserbetriebe, as well as international brands such as Teléfonica and renowned German automobile manufacturers.

• prego services is expanding its partnership with powercloud in the fields of apps, system integration, consulting and solutions
• services to process customer loyalty rewards and incentives for new customers

(Saarbrücken/Ludwigshafen, 4/14/2021) New-customer incentives made easy! In the future, private and municipal utilities will be able to effortlessly make use of the services provided by prego services GmbH via powercloud to process customer loyalty rewards and incentives for new customers. Utilities can use the solution to offer their customer rewards entirely online via an interface on their own website and to implement various marketing campaigns to acquire and retain customers – without having to use their own resources. The Connector within powercloud imitates the entire ordering process. prego services will take care of all the necessary processing in the background, from procurement to storage to delivery of the incentives to consumers.

This outsourced and fully automated solution helps utilities significantly reduce their internal complexity because the ordering process, procurement, warehousing and logistics are all handled by prego services. Utilities can also cut down their resource consumption and risks because they no longer have to bear inventory risks, enter into purchase commitments, or pay any upfront costs for the incentives. The solution gives utilities complete control over the status of the incentive processing and the ability to track various process steps online. Billing for completed transactions can be linked directly to the ERP systems used by the utilities. Reports and analyses are available to facilitate planning of marketing campaigns.

The high amount of traffic on powercloud is a testimony to the solution’s popularity. A growing number of utilities are driving forward their digital transformation and improving the reliability and efficiency of their customer-related processes with the help of digital process outsourcing.

“Digital customer solutions offer utilities 24/7 service to help them boost their customer acquisition and retention. By digitizing their business processes, companies are not only making themselves more flexible, but also ensuring they can remain operational even during a crisis.”

Andreas Tzschoppe-Kölling, managing director of prego services GmbH

“powercloud is a flexible and rapidly expandable SaaS billing solution designed to be the machine room for utilities. On our platform, we have a pool of specialist providers offering a wide range of solutions. These help utilities substantially reduce the implementation effort needed to digitize their processes. This opens up all new areas of potential, such as improved customer loyalty through incorporating bundles offered by prego services,” says Tobias Hirning, Head of Sales Consulting at powercloud, describing the company’s business model.

About prego services

prego services helps the energy sector, public administration and medium-size companies become more resilient to sudden changes in the market and IT security risks. As a business bridging the gap between individual customer requirements, and customized IT and business solutions, prego services provides reliable IT environments and processes, thereby allowing users to tap into the potential of digitization to improve productivity. The company’s IT solutions and data centers ensure that customer data is processed and stored exclusively in Germany.

prego services has its roots in the energy sector and understands industry-specific processes from its own experience. Specialists at the company use this knowledge to develop practical digital process solutions for utilities. The company offers a wide range of services that include consultation, on-site implementation of well-established processes in all business units, digital supply chain solutions, and operating entire warehouses on behalf of utilities.

prego services was founded in 2001 and has around 500 employees working at its offices in Ludwigshafen and Saarbrücken.

• A focus on direct-debit payments using the proprietary online platform
• Solution reduces administrative effort and transaction costs
• Global payment network with currency conversion facilitates international transactions

(powercloud, Offenburg, Germany, 1/27/21) To automate and radically simplify payment transactions between utilities and their customers – these are the goals of a new partnership between powercloud and the British fintech company GoCardless, who together have developed an innovative means of making direct debit transactions online. The solution can immediately be integrated into utilities’ websites as a white-label solution and comprehensively dovetails with the innovative powercloud accounting system.

The next steps are as simple as they are effective: End-customers agree to an online direct debit agreement. It is then possible for the utilities to launch, monitor and optimize all payments directly from the powercloud via an API interface. Any reimbursements to the customer at the end of the year can be easily initiated. “The entire transaction process is effectively automated in the blink of an eye, while the associated administrative effort is reduced to a minimum,” explains Mario Boehm, Partner and Alliances Manager at GoCardless. “In concrete terms, the automation covers initiation of the direct debit, real-time examination of the payment status and follow-up attempts for failed postings. Our solution not only minimizes the administrative effort, but also significantly lowers transaction costs. Furthermore, the number of errors that occur during transactions are scaled down massively.”

“We are very excited about the new powerApp, which gives us a basis from which we can offer our customers a new solution for their transaction process,” says Marco Beicht, CEO of powercloud. “The technological know-how provided by GoCardless in the field of direct debit transactions and our accounting expertise fit here like hand in glove.” What’s more, by teaming up with GoCardless, we have established a global payment network for direct debits. That is why the partnership aligns with the powercloud strategy, of bringing the advantages of the comprehensive SaaS solution into international markets in a more intense manner, which will also allow utilities to draw payments in different currencies, and convert them into the desired target currency automatically. “Over 55,000 European businesses are already taking advantage of the solution – from small fitness studios to large tourism companies. Together with powercloud, we now want to use the expertise gained to make further inroads into the European energy market. We are convinced that both large and small utilities stand to benefit greatly in terms of their complex payment transactions,” says Mario Boehm from GoCardless.

GoCardless is the perfect match for the comprehensive powercloud approach aimed at driving digital transformation in the energy industry using innovative solutions. We are focused on developing new products as well as sinking costs through the automation of business processes. Decisive here is that the end-to-end system from powercloud contains all processes involved in the “energy supply utility room” of the utilities – although suppliers can expand its core functions with customized, ready-to-use solutions from the powerApp store to meet their specific needs. Similar to other app stores, users will find ready-to-use and tested extensions for the powercloud, which are connected through certified interfaces. Precisely that is now also possible with GoCardless.

About GoCardless
GoCardless is a leading fintech company in the field of recurring payments. Thanks to its platform and global payment network, it enables companies to draw payments from customers all over the world. More than 55,000 companies globally, from multinational companies through to small and medium-sized enterprises, effect GoCardless transactions to the amount of 18 billion USD in over 30 countries each month. Headquartered in the UK, GoCardless has four further branches in Australia, Germany, France and the USA.