Accompanying Customers onto the Green Path

IF GENERATION Z IS READY WHEN IT COMES TO SUSTAINABILITY, THE CHALLENGE IS TO MAKE THE SAME KIND OF AWARENESS BLOSSOM IN OLDER CONSUMERS, AS TOLD BY ALUMNA AND PRESIDENT OF THE ENERCOM GROUP, CRISTINA CROTTI

An entrepreneurial bet that was born on the use of methane at the end of the nineteenth century and today is a firm of 300 employees with a turnover of about €170 million and areas of activity in the energy market ranging from the production and sale of green energy, to efficiency strategies for business. The Enercom Group, led by Bocconi alumna Cristina Crotti (Degree in Business Administration, 1990) developed attention to innovation and an attitude towards sustainability early in its corporate history. “The challenge is now to convey it to today's customers and prepare for the needs of tomorrow's customers”.

Ms Crotti, your company developed in the Fifties, but its roots lie in the late Nineteenth century.
At that time, methane was produced from coal: there was public gas lighting and this was the only commercial use for methane. Then came the first utility agreements with municipalities and the first large gas works were built. Today we take these infrastructures for granted, but at the time there was nothing and methane represented a real bet for the company. Over time, we have definitely won our bet.

A far-sighted strategy, seen with the eyes of today. Innovation is therefore in your DNA.
Ours is an innovation model that starts from top management; it is not bottom-up, but involves the first and second lines of staff, while being careful to collect ideas and improvements from all employees. We are focusing on spreading the theme of innovation within the company and augmenting the propensity to seize its opportunities. After all, innovation is about mental and cultural openness, and the ability to grasp the evolution of our industry.
 
What are the big bets of innovation today?
The first is the proposition to customers. An energy service can no longer be intended as a mere commodity. However, it is not easy to make this understood in our reference community, which is composed of very traditional customers.  They perhaps are not yet fully ready to look at different uses for our commodity, to fully take into account the green aspects or have a widespread attention to energy saving. It is above all the younger generations who pay attention to these aspects, but they are not yet the main energy consumers. We must therefore accompany today's customers towards acceptance of new concepts and, at the same time, prepare for the challenges of when Generation Z will be our largest demographic of consumers.

And the second challenge?
The other is to find the right investment in green energy. Now it is very fashionable to talk about hydrogen in transport, but in fact R&D there is not yet at the level for large-scale use. The green path is the right one, but we must also distinguish between what is fashionable and what has real weight in terms of the actual possibilities.

How does the theme of digital innovation enter your sector?
It is fundamental. It allows you make analyses and processes that you could not otherwise do. For example, for the commercial part, we are aiming for phygital, an approach which seamlessly mixes physical stores with features enabled by digital innovation.

Innovation is closely linked with sustainability. How do you see the latter?
In a broad sense, not just in terms of environmental sustainability. It is about the optimal and intelligent use of resources. And closeness to the territories where you operate. We have always been close to localities, and not only because historically and logistically we have more points of contact with the local territory, but because we feel part of a community.

What can be done to bring end customers closer to sustainability issues?
We need a lot of content dissemination work. Probably, this is a job for the long haul that requires multiple channels of contact. I see that there is starting to be a stronger awareness about the issue of sustainability, but I also notice that the feeling that an individual’s action is irrelevant is equally widespread. We need to raise awareness about the fact that the actions of each of us have an impact.




Cristina Crotti, president of the Enercom Group, graduated in Business Administration from Bocconi University with a thesis on the energy market: "I am very happy to have studied at Bocconi and I feel very connected to the University", says the alumna. "When I was studying here there were two groups of people: those who did it more for the reputation of the University, those for deep preparation it offered. I did it for the latter". Two pluses in particular Cristina Crotti feels she got from her studies: “A mindset that stimulates reasoning and a method of approaching decisions”.
 

by Andrea Celauro
Translated by Alex Foti