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The T and D Executive Committee was concerned about the impact of deregulation on the T and D Conference and Exhibition. An outside consulting firm was commissioned to help assess the future of the T and D. This information is of value to the ICC and the purpose of this report is to assess the impact on ICC of industry churn.
A Market Study for 1999 Marketing Plans was conducted by The Allegheny Marketing Group and presented by Pete Cronyn on May 21, 1998 to the Executive Committee. The market study was designed to identify and assess industry changes that may affect the IEEE/PES show in the 21st Century, to identify new participants, to increase attendance at the 1999 show and provide market intelligence for a market plan.
Likely future changes in the industry that will affect the show were:
In actual fact, the statistics for the show indicated that 1 and 2 were realities with the potential impact also in line with 4. No data on 3 were readily evident but the realities of the industry indicate this could have impact on future shows.
The survey included power marketers and gas marketers. For the power marketers, 94% attended other trade shows. For the gas marketers, 57% were selling electric power and 38% were planning to sell electric power in the future. There was a major contrast between the utility engineers and the power marketers relative to attending trade shows. The engineers go to learn about the application of new technologies (29%) and review new products introduced by manufacturers (45%). In contrast, power marketers go to discuss business with others (35%) and to look for new customers (17%). Thus they have different needs from a trade show. Manufacturers attend trade shows primarily to find new customers and increase brand name awareness. Electrical utility engineers like large shows; manufacturers prefer smaller shows so they can target customers better. The bottom line is that the manufacturers are most interested in one thing – finding good, qualified leads.
In contrast, the manufacturers are not as sensitive on the cost of attending the trade show as the utility engineers. The price of attending a trade show was most important to 47% of the engineers surveyed. Manufacturers are more concerned about scheduling and attendance.
Generally utility engineers know who they want to see at a trade show while power marketers, because they are new to the business, don’t know who they want to see at a trade show until they get there. Continuing education is important to utility engineers (84%) and power marketers (68%). However, utility engineers are interested in technical subjects and power marketers are interested in non-technical subjects.
Traditionally, utilities have shown electrons towards customers and they have reciprocated with money. The traditional utility monopoly consisted of generation transmission and distribution. The customers were residential, industrial and commercial in nature. With the Energy Policy Act of 1992, and the FERC rulings of March 1995, major changes begin to drive energy towards a competitive market. The utilities start to focus on costs and services to customers. As a result, new companies are formed and new buyers of electricity emerge. These buyers are multi-location enterprises, such as, retail chains like Home Depot or multi-location industries, such as, the chemical or food processing industries. New methods of marketing and selling energy services emerge using power marketers. The new way of selling energy includes multiple-site users of electricity served by power marketers, electric utilities and independent power producers (IPP). Engineering service companies serve these customers with a broad range of equipment and problem solving services.
As a result of the new competitive environment, profound changes in power delivery occurred and are continuing. Foremost were utility mergers, acquisitions and joint ventures. There will be an increase in the market for equipment upgrades, power measurement and monitoring equipment as the industry positions itself in a new competitive environment.
What are the implications to the ICC of these industry changes? The Electric Utility Industry is changing faster than the ICC. There are new companies and industry segments that the ICC needs to communicate with. Power delivery is being driven by new issues and trends with the emergence of DISCO’s, Distribution Service Companies, distributed generation, and ESCO’s, Energy Service Companies. In the short term the value of transmission and distribution is being short changed by focus on costs by the utilities in favor of emphasis on services to customers and merger activities.
For the ICC to survive, it will need to market its value to the utilities. The market study for the T and D identified 2000 companies interested in the transmission and distribution show. Also, 10 new industry segments were identified. Some of these segments that may need the ICC services are the non-regulated utility subsidiaries, the ESCO’s, the DISCO’s, new industry associations, international utilities and large industrials. To effectively accommodate the needs of new attendees to the ICC, these segments must be screened by the ICC. Those with a potential need for the ICC products will need to be communicated with (the ICC needs to be marketed to them) and their needs must be accommodated for by the ICC.
As the ICC identifies the new industry needs and provides a way to market its services, it must also take a look at itself. It will need a strong and clear focus to market the values it adds to energy delivery. This means looking at our current ‘customers’ and attendees – looking at the potentially new customers – and coming up with a "business" or marketing plan. (It is obvious that the work of the "On to 100" committee is not finished).
It was obvious from the T and D market study that the main product of the T and D show and conference is technology. Technology leadership distinguishes the T and D show from all other competing events. The same is true of the ICC. ICC is the technology leader for power delivery through cable systems. The message we need to carry to the power delivery industry is that technology will be a major factor in the future of a deregulated, highly competitive energy market. The ICC technology base must be viewed by the utilities as a competitive weapon. What we have to offer at ICC meetings will be the substance that will differentiate "winners and losers" in the power delivery industry.
As we look at our technology role, we should also consider the softer issues of power delivery. These issues and a discussion of them may be needed in our program to expand our services to current and new members.
The foremost recommendation for the future direction of the ICC is that we should continue to position the ICC from its base of technology leadership for power delivery. This means we continue to provide a base for technology standards, guides, practices for the current and future attendees. We continue to provide education and training. We need to streamline our document activities by use of electronic methods.
To grow the value of the ICC we will need to look at some specific actions. There is a need to identify which segments of the industry have an interest in our technology base. We will need to develop a way to communicate with these segments and market our services. We should have a plan to continually market the value of the ICC to the segments and members we already have so our technology base remains strong. We need to be flexible to respond to the rapid changes in the power delivery industry. We should consider what soft issues there are that can be addressed with technology - those issues that may appeal to the commercial side of our customer base (these folks are often the influencers and decision makers on technology). The power industry is facing numerous challenges. We as an ICC need to be positioned as the organization to be involved with to meet those challenges. The ICC theme should be that your organization and the ICC are a "win-win" combination.
