You lift 16 tons and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt! Our clients in energy analysis and procurement understood this old Merle Travis expression quite well. They were more than ready to start automating many of their daily tasks and processes.

CHALLENGE

The business of energy analysis is similar to stock brokering, but with commodities instead of company shares. It involves an exorbitant amount of figures calculation such as how much energy has a several hundred-site global company used in past months, how much are they likely to use in the coming months, when should they buy, and how much should they procure to hedge their bets in the most strategic, informed spending manners possible. Pitting these figures against market trends and expert analysis is our client's primary product.

Imagine running these figures for numerous clients, several times a day...on excel spreadsheets. Creating historical snapshots of energy-consuming enterprises becomes as tedious a task as quite literally pinning a bunch of printouts to a wall. Imagine that you inherit this business. How would you know what executive decisions to make without the ability to report across your organization? It’d be pretty tough.

SOLUTION

Using Salesforce’s Force.com platform as a framework, Bluewolf’s technical team led by Ramón Muñoz architected a 99% custom energy forecasting and procurement solution for our client.  The forecasting component gave our client the ability to forecast at account, site, and meter level by entering a few key figures. When they submit, they get a glorious table full of forecast figures laid out by BTU, monthly consumption volume, and all of the other forecasting variables required to best advise their customers. No spreadsheets to fill out or desktops full of folders and files - just a few clicks to get to the finish line and a system full of data on which to run reports when needed. It’s a win-win situation.

Once a recommendation is made, the second step of procuring energy has also been facilitated in the same custom Force.com application. Our client’s energy analysts can now manage hedge strategies, request energy procurements, and allocate energy and funds in a variety of ways--all within the same application.

RESULT

The business value realized that this application goes much deeper than the death of the spreadsheet. They now have a central data repository from which they can report and gain executive insight for the first time. A whole system of quality checks & balances and system security is now a part of the way they conduct business - not an after-thought or potentially dangerous vulnerability. Their ability to forecast for themselves and for their clients in a much shorter time period can only lead to good things.

The lesson that Bluewolf learned here: never underestimate the power of custom. There are far more possibilities than limitations out there. Hats off to the creative thinkers who are able to pave brand new paths and transform businesses to be able to reach new heights. 

Learn more about Bluewolf's custom cloud application development.