Joe's Bar and Gril
But first, you and
That turned dark q
Once considered th
Joe's Bar and Gril
Once considered th
Quitetly, Quiggly
Chapter 1. Once
But first, you and
Joe's Bar and GrilOnce considered the most complex solution, we are now driven by
our customer focus, as well as the need to minimize costs, to look at simplifying
our value proposition and the underlying solutions to meet their needs at
a lower cost.
To that end, we are moving our solutions through the following stages of
simplification:
Continuous Capacity, Pricing & Invoicing -- We have combined the pipeline
capacity release component of our Transportation Management and Commodity
Management solutions, and we now offer continuous capacity, pricing, and
invoicing. This approach is similar to the capacity auction and transportation
rate components of our Transportation and Commodity Management solutions,
respectively, and it is much simpler. Customers are able to release or bid
on capacity for bundled, long-term periods; as a result, pipeline shippers
and marketers can better predict future availability and pricing as a
single entity. All pricing occurs at the bundle level, greatly simplifying
our processes, and making it easier to compare apples to apples in our
commodity rates and tariffs. The new Auction component has been renamed
the Spot component.
In our early discussions with customers, many were receptive to the
simplification of our Capacity and Rate offerings, however, their adoption
of these simplifications has been slow. However, with their buy-in to the
Socal Window, they are beginning to see how this simplification will help
them through the year and with our new continuous auction, it is anticipated
that we can achieve at least 75% adoption within three months.
Commodity Product Standardization -- Based on a comprehensive evaluation of
the Gas Industry, coupled with extensive customer feedback, we are in the
process of simplifying the physical products that comprise our Commodity
Management and Transportation Management solutions. This has been a time
consuming process, but one of the most important we have performed since
our inception. In the end, we will be able to offer standardized physical
product, which will result in more accurate commodity exposure and a simplified
commodity invoice format.
As an example of a commodity product, our Physical Gas will be offered as
a single product for both a fixed and variable rate, with a simplified,
single commodity rate and commodity invoice format. This type of simplicity
was not previously possible, as the commodity component of our fixed-variable
rates have been broken out line-by-line, using the volume submitted in our
Transportation Management and Commodity management solutions. Now, under
our simplified approach, the customer is only required to submit one rate,
one invoice, and one commodity rate component.
Pipeline Shippers -- To comply with our global bid process, we had to allow
our customers to bid into and release capacity in a seamless fashion. To
accommodate this, we developed a global capacity block function which allows
our shippers to bid on specific capacity releases rather than a month or
a rate period. With this functionality, a shipper can bid on the capacity
that they want and not have to watch an auction, nor do they need to keep
track of the various releases of capacity that may occur.
The Gas Industry has standardized capacity blocks. As an example, a shipper
will bid on a capacity release that is for a fixed and variable period of
time. In addition, there is a bid and release component. Based on this
example, a new rate will be created for the shipper, and the capacity release
will be for a particular period of time.
The release component is a function of the fixed and variable components
of the capacity block and the bid component also defines the capacity block.
The result is a set of capacity releases that are seamless with the global
bidding process.
In the end, these capabilities will not only simplify our processes, but will
be an important component to the success of our customer's wholesale
business.
As always, I welcome your thoughts and ideas on how we can improve this
process.
Thanks!
Randy