Kraken · Australia
Kraken is now central to Australian energy and the migrations onto it are multiplying. The UK went first and hit the walls first, so the lessons from those programmes are worth having before you start yours.
By Christopher Fagan, Managing Partner, PEF Consulting Partners
Kraken itself is proven. What catches utilities out is the move onto it. The data has to be clean, the cutover has to be planned, the billing has to be right and the customers have to move across without the business falling over. Every hard moment on these programmes sits in the migration, not the software.
On the first water migration onto Kraken in the UK there was no playbook, and the approach left the programme twelve months behind with not a single customer moved. It was recovered by restructuring the delivery and putting control firmly back on the client side. Australian retailers starting now can skip that year of pain by insisting on a controlled, staged migration from the outset.
After one Kraken go live for a major energy supplier a billing imbalance of more than a hundred and sixty million pounds built up, caused by an underlying configuration issue. It was root caused and recovered before it reached customers or the regulator. The lesson for Australia is simple: assure the billing before you flip the switch, because that is where the reputational and regulatory damage lives.
When a migration slips, the easy option offered is a quick fix led by the vendor. The programmes that recover are the ones where the client reasserts control, owns the plan and holds the vendor to it. You are the one accountable to your customers and your regulator, so the plan has to be yours.
An assurer with a reseller agreement has a reason to keep the vendor happy. An independent one does not, which means they can tell you honestly where the programme really is and what it needs. On a migration this exposed, that honesty is worth more than any discount.
Related: Kraken migration and assurance for Australian utilities.
Yes. It is backed by Origin Energy, was valued at close to thirteen billion dollars when it raised as a standalone business, and more retailers and networks are moving onto it.
Trying to move everyone at once. Moving in controlled stages contains the risk and keeps the business running while the migration happens.
Yes. It usually means reasserting client side control, replanning the cutover and rebuilding a plan people actually believe in.
Yes. We support Kraken programmes in the Australian market and work across the time difference, on the ground when it matters.