The Product methods reshaping the energy industry

  • Updated: 03 February 2025
  • 5 minutes
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Environment, economy, and energy: three pivotal battlegrounds of our century. Today, digital solutions are no longer optional but an essential lever. What if Product methods could revolutionize how energy players navigate that ultra-competitive and heavily regulated sector? Discover exclusive feedback from our experts at Suez, Engie, Datanumia, Altsis, and Lite.

"The regulations in the energy sector are a huge business opportunity. Market players sometimes need support to comply with them." This insight comes from Charlotte Dauchez, Product Marketing Manager at Thiga, on assignment at Altsis. The company’s role is "to build digital solutions to help energy stakeholders streamline the development and monitoring of business processes, as well as leverage the explosion of data."

The same sentiment is shared at Datanumia, where Product Designer Leonardo Ernst arrived in 2023. The digital tools and connected devices sold by the company make it possible to monitor and optimize energy consumption: "The price hikes during the winter of 2023 caused their use to skyrocket!" he says. After all, the cheapest and greenest energy is the one you don’t consume.

It’s true that energy management challenges have never been more relevant! Post-COVID economic recovery, war in Ukraine: recent events have caused prices to soar. "The concern just keeps growing. From the interviews we’ve conducted, we can feel this is becoming an increasingly anxiety-inducing topic for many households…" says Hector Playoust, a Thiga consultant on assignment at Lite, a startup specializing in energy optimization. Playoust works as a Product Manager (PM) on the company’s latest tool, Economee, designed to show its users how much they’re actually saving after energy renovation work. Not to mention the ecological stake, which pushes governments to make resource conservation—electricity in winter and water in summer—a requirement. In this tense and extremely volatile context, managing energy resources offers enormous growth opportunities for players in the sector.

Besides, traditional energy players have sensed an opportunity to capitalize on. But they aren’t the only ones, highlights Clément Guéret, Product Marketing Manager assigned to Suez, a flagship of French industry, which he has since permanently joined. "There were only a few competitors when it came to building and managing infrastructures. However, since it’s not a prerequisite to know how to build factories to engage in data management, we’re seeing new players enter the market—often more agile, smaller, and therefore cheaper—offering these data analysis and optimization services. It’s disrupting the way things are done," he says. "Suez has to adapt and is working hard to develop a more customer-focused approach. But also to improve its marketing strategy and its offerings in line with the evolution of this market and its competition."

Moving from survival mode to Product mode

The problem for many companies in the sector? A lack of agility, which penalizes them against competitors that are more comfortable with the digital ecosystem. "Large players often operate in project mode, which allows for planning, securing, and accountability, since these are enormous groups that need to process everything to function," says Élodie Dufour, a Thiga expert in Product organization. "But today, the market has changed. All these smaller competitors don’t manage energy itself and don’t own physical assets. But they excel in mastering the digital services surrounding it"

On assignment at Engie, she sees a solution to survive in this highly current market: shifting the business to Product mode. "On topics closely or loosely related to energy management, you have to be able to adjust prices almost daily to stay competitive in bidding processes. You can’t arrive with a rigid, overly packaged formula but instead adapt to your partner, your clients… Not to mention the fact that the sector is heavily regulated and changes at lightning speed. But if you’re agile, you can integrate all this into your prioritization matrix, while taking into account usage metrics, adoption rates… In short, clear customer data."

By adopting Product mode, energy players are making a bold but rewarding bet. Provided it’s done the right way.

Prioritization is therefore the best way to navigate calmly through a fickle market. Élodie Dufour observes this daily in her mission: "In discovery, the first step is to frame problems and prioritize them based on ROI for users and the company. Rather than jumping quickly into solutions without establishing what the main problem to solve is, we base ourselves on hypotheses supported by data, which we test to know which topic is a priority." By adopting Product mode, energy players are making a bold but rewarding bet. Provided it’s done the right way.

Embracing Product mode without falling into dogmatism

It’s easy to say that Product mode is a miracle solution that would magically allow any company to shine in its market. The reality is more nuanced. In the energy sector, some external constraints cannot be brushed aside in favor of an ideal model. "We have very project-based imperatives that mean doing Product by the book won’t work. You have to be truly agile. And that’s precisely what’s being asked of us at Thiga!" argues Hector Playoust, PM on assignment at Lite. "You shouldn’t be arrogant and say, ‘We do Product this way,’ but adapt to the context and see where we can bring the most value."

For Élodie Dufour, this is the very heart of Product Management. At least when it’s done well: "In highly volatile, competitive, and dynamic markets, having PMs is worthwhile. But you have to stay measured because these companies also have very long-term, highly industrial projects that must remain as projects. When managing construction sites or installing pipelines, who cares about doing Product Management? You can draw inspiration from certain practices, but that’s it," insists the Product coach assigned to Engie. "Something you always keep in mind when you’re in a Product organization is the law of triple impact: addressing user needs while considering the company’s needs and putting teams in the best conditions. A good PM can find the right balance."

The need for a mindset shift

More than an organizational transformation, it’s a philosophical change that’s needed to succeed in the energy market. "Customer centricity is one of the main challenges. Product Management is based on a problem that these customers are facing," continues Élodie Dufour. "You base yourself, ideally, on hypotheses supported by data that you test. Large groups tend to jump very quickly into solutions without really establishing what the main problem to solve is at a given moment, corresponding to market needs."

Why such an approach? According to Clément Guéret, it’s a cultural bias: "In these engineering-driven companies, Product value has historically been based on the technical perfection of the solution, with the idea that customers will necessarily prefer the most technologically advanced product. However, in the context of selling digital solutions, we know that’s not always the case. Even if Suez has very high-performing technological solutions, the teams are working hard to adapt their offerings to better meet client needs. Clients don’t always need complex products; they might want lighter, easier-to-integrate products that meet simple needs."

Beyond that, it seems that energy players sometimes struggle to take a step back. Charlotte Dauchez stands her ground: to sell solutions, it’s essential to study the market well: "You need to have a clear understanding of the competition. You can’t succeed in standing out in your market if you don’t know exactly what others are doing. Even with amazing solutions, it’s hard to sell them without a clear positioning," says the Product Marketing Manager on assignment at Altsis. "Within Thiga’s PMM Tribe, we believe companies like Altsis have enormous potential. Their digital solutions address real problems. The challenge lies in highlighting the value they generate and how they better or differently meet business needs compared to competitors." Current challenges, high-performance products… Energy players have all the cards to seize the opportunity before them. They just need to play them right.

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