Viridity Issue Details

Main issue:         

Despite the fact Viridity is helping their customers to be more energy-efficient, they are not maximizing environmental benefits that result from their services. That will make it hard for them to position themselves differently in a competitive market.

Analysis of the main issue:        

Although the company is helping customers lower their energy costs effectively with their VPower interface, they are not promoting any cleaner or renewable sources of energy. VPower does a tremendous job in optimizing energy use by conserving energy and going off grid when prices are high and shifting loads to off peak hours when prices are low. This way they are benefitting the environment by reducing consumer carbon footprint and benefiting the grid by shaving peak load. Viridity’s lack of green energy promotion also aligns it well with their competition that are all primarily focused on promoting efficiency gains over environmental sustainability.

Alternatives:

1. Focus on the existing business of demand side management in order to improve the energy efficiency of their customers and lower their carbon footprint. Viridity should try to capitalize on their software ‘Vpower’ and try to optimize it for economic and environmental gains.

Pros: leverage its current strength; less strain on the current business model; a stable market with less risk.

Cons: stagnant business model; missing the market trend; overlooking societal expectations and the rapid growth of technological revolutions; unawareness of smart grid services and their benefits; sale is complex due to many decision-makers involvement; T Marcellus Shale Effect of potentially lower natural gas prices.

2. Shift some of the focus towards promoting cleaner and greener energy solutions while keeping the current business intact. It will help the company strengthen its foothold in the sustainability business arena as it encourages their customers to move toward a model of ‘less harm’ to a net-positive contribution to their triple bottom line.

Pros: The push toward energy efficiency and clean energy; Customers’ search for new energy solutions driven by sustainability pressures; Rising societal expectations, tougher environmental regulations, and new distributed clean energy technologies; Growing demand for environmental sustainability driven in part by new market pressures for energy independence, less fossil fuel use, a lower carbon footprint, and fewer harmful practices.

Cons:   Shifting away from core strength; financial burden of r&d and initial investment into newer technologies. Higher risk in marketing and promotion.

Implementation:

If Viridity is to hold a competitive advantage they either have to charge their customers lower cost or premium one. Since the market is flush with other companies offering low cost products, it has been decided that Viridity should focus on high quality sustainability-focused services at a premium price. By encouraging customers to become not only efficient consumers by also producers of energy, Viridity can situate itself as a valuable tool to help organizations move from less-harm to net positive contributors to their ecological, economic and social goals. To further justify a premium price, Viridity should attempt to develop and institute strict standards for their selected projects to ensure the highest level of energy efficiency and ecological sustainability. Not only will this differentiate them from their competition but it will allow their customers to promote their sustainability endeavors in a very tangible way. Promoted in conjunction with their user-friendly VPower, their customers will have unparalleled peace of mind that they are performing to the highest level of sustainability. Despite the facts customers will pay extra for the software they will get incentives from two sources, using less power in peak hours and from using clean energy.