The business
M. Chapmans & Sons supply a wide range of high-quality cotton fabrics, in many colours and qualities, for all kinds of textile trade work. Their customers include well known premium fashion brands, along with independent manufacturers and sole traders. The fabrics are competitively priced.
Keeping that quality consistent depends on one thing in particular. The production temperature must stay at a steady level, which means the business uses a lot of energy.
The problem
When energy is a big line on your costs, two jobs come with it. Somebody has to keep an eye on what the market is doing, and somebody has to talk to suppliers when a contract is coming to an end. Both take time, and renewals are a hassle.
For a business the size of M. Chapmans & Sons, that is time nobody has spare. It was also a bad stretch to be facing a renewal. The energy market had been difficult for a year and a half, which makes the difference between a good deal and an average one much wider than usual.
There was a second problem too. One of their suppliers had stopped trading, which left open questions about their gas supply that needed sorting out.
The solution
The partner network started with their actual annual usage rather than a rough estimate, then went out for full quotes across a wide range of suppliers, so the numbers could be compared properly against what they were already paying.
British Gas came back with an opening quote. That was not treated as the finish line. It went to a final round of price negotiation and came back better.
The bigger part was the timing. Rather than sign as soon as an acceptable price appeared, the markets were tracked for 7 months so the contract could be agreed at a good moment rather than a convenient one. Alongside that, the open queries from the supplier that had stopped trading were resolved, and the business came away knowing when its own best time to renew would be.
The habit continues. An electricity account review is booked in ahead of the next renewal, so a fresh competitive quote is ready before the contract runs down rather than after.
"This eventually led to us agreeing a contract which was considerably lower in price than any other competing broker we approached."— M. Chapmans & Sons
What this means for your business
If your process has to hold a steady temperature, whether that means ovens, chillers, proving rooms or a production line, the maths is usually the same as it was for M. Chapmans & Sons. Your bill tracks your output rather than your opening hours, so the unit rate you sign is part of your cost of goods rather than an overhead. Having somebody watch the market on your behalf usually pays for itself many times over, because:
- The gap between a good deal and an average one widens when markets are volatile, and it widens fastest for the businesses using the most
- The best price and the best moment are two different questions, and you can only ask the second one if you know your renewal window months ahead rather than weeks
- A first quote is a starting point, not an offer. Even a major supplier's opening number came down after negotiation here
If you run a high consumption site in any of our four target industries, whether that is restaurants, care homes, hotels or bakeries and food production, a Switchgrid audit will tell you within 48 hours where your rate sits, when your renewal window actually opens, and what handing the job over would look like.