Setting a Benchmark for Contract Savings

Under a shared savings working arrangement, our fees are derived from the additional financial benefit our involvement brings to a business. As such, it is vital that our clients are clear they are receiving a genuine benefit from the service that we provide.

How do I know the saving is genuine?

We will always seek to establish a working framework with you, which will ensure we tailor our services to the needs of your business. By setting an agreed benchmark in advance of any work we undertake, we can ensure that there are no grey areas which could lead to confusion and you can be clear on the genuine benefit our advice brings.

To ensure any new supply contract reflects the needs of your business, it is essential you keep us advised of any significant changes to your usage (planned or otherwise), which could impact on your overall energy expenditure.

I would like to set my own benchmark?

For contract renewals, you could opt to test the market yourself and put forward an offer you would otherwise accept as the benchmark. In doing so, it would be important to acknowledge that your own activity should cease at that point and any cost improvements secured thereafter would quite correctly be considered a result of our advice. To avoid duplication of effort, it would also be sensible for you advise us of suppliers you intend to approach directly.

Although you are at liberty to do so, our advice would be not to use a third party to test the market for you, as it could result in a higher benchmark if a broker commission has been built into the offer.

I don't have time to set my own benchmark?

Many of our clients want a fully managed service, neither having the time, resources or expertise to deal with such matters. If you do not have time to undertake work on an Energy supply contract renewal, the only realistic option would be to continue with the incumbent supplier at their renewal offer or be charged at out of contract rates.

For this reason, in the absence of a client derived benchmark, we would use a theoretical one, the most logical source being the renewal offer from the incumbent supplier. The renewal offer used will always be relevant to the point of concluding your contract, unless of course you specifically set a deadline and we advise you against this to your financial benefit.

We will never take advantage of huge variations in market prices when determining a benchmark (e.g. obtaining a renewal offer one month and finalising a contract several months later) and the benchmark set would always be agreed by you.

I would rather not work on a shared savings basis?

We work for a number of our existing clients on a fixed fee basis to deal with contract renewals and these are available on request. However, shared savings remains the most common and preferred method for the vast majority of our clients.