Businesses, the media, trade associations and intermediaries representing businesses have all been moaning (justifiably most would agree) about the increasing power of the Big Six energy companies. In practice, against the background of fairly arduous economic situation for all, suppliers have been ‘digging in their heels’ and now their strategic positioning; it’s no longer about acquiring new customers, rather squeezing increasing margins out of the ones that they already have and of course dumping customers where the required margins are missing.

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[/caption]British Gas have canceled their annual conference. This may well have been an excellent opportunity to hear BGB extolling their Smart meter successes, or reassuring businesses that slashing more than £100 million out of back Office Staff wouldn’t impact on Service Levels.

Businesses were probably as keen to try and understand how BGB’s current focus on increasing the value extracted from Business users would sit with a professed intention to offer high levels of service to SME groups.
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Looks like some good news to come out of The Queen’s Presentation to the Nation. Further to some of our comments last month (see Pirates & Energy Companies) about legislation appearing on the horizon, sailing to the rescue of not only Consumers but Business as well, looks like there will be real regulations in place. Not only that, finally, maybe OFGEM will get some teeth. The general contempt with which much of the supplier base treats businesses may be about to change.

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The lawlessness and lack of Government commitment has allowed pirates to flourish and regularly hijack sensible businesses already battling against the downturn – and I don’t mean off the Somalian coast. Not unreasonably many businesses today can scarcely comprehend the disingenuous and underhand behaviour of the UK’s Energy Companies. Against a background of wholesale energy costs much lower than the peaks of last year, do we see these reduced costs passed onto businesses? No.

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