Ian Cragg-HinePartner

I joined Baringa Partners in late 2001 as a senior manager, and was promoted to partner in March 2003 with specific focus on our Retail practice. My day to day work spans a number of retail energy clients where I am responsible for account management as well as specific client delivery projects I have at the time. Within Baringa Partners I look after our training and skills development programme, which is a key component of our company providing the environment in which our people can continue to develop their skills and capabilities to grow their careers.

With the exception of just one brief stint on some Government work, my career since 1995 has been spent entirely working for clients in the UK's retail energy industry. My first consultancy role was in a two year programme to design, build and implement a Customer Information and Billing system for two of the UK's electricity companies as they prepared for deregulation of the domestic electricity and gas markets. Since then I have worked on projects at Seeboard Energy, TXU, British Gas, EDF Energy, British Energy and E.ON UK, all with a common thread of maximising customer and company value through use of efficient and effective processes and systems.

One of my most interesting projects was where I had responsibility for the delivery of a customer value focused project with one of the UK's largest retail energy companies. Each day gave me the opportunity to work with all levels of the company, from customer service advisors who work the phones to the senior management team. It offered a unique insight into the running of such a company, something which remains a key part of the interest and job satisfaction I obtain.

The project itself involved defining the client's current retail proposition, then quantifying it in terms of costs, efficiency and effectiveness of process delivery. We also worked to understand the levels of customer satisfaction associated with these processes - not an easy step, but one that can be done via the analysis of customer comments in cases where customers have opted to leave. All this information, gathered via stakeholder interviews, workshops and detailed analysis of comments captured in the customer service application, helped us to build a baseline, analysis of which pointed to opportunities to increase value both by revising customer satisfaction related processes and also by identifying improvements to the cost to serve.

Finally, I have to point out though that my colleagues do sometimes question my transport options for commuting to work, which whenever possible involve the use of a bicycle, usually irrespective of the weather. I have been a keen road and sometime racing cyclist for over 20 years and take every opportunity to put the miles in, though I think any dreams of yellow jersey success in Le Tour are just that...dreams! But hey, you need something to aim at...