Centrica looks to the cloud to support collaboration with global teams and third parties. Centrica selected Huddle as it was the only collaboration platform that was able to offer the security measures the company required.

1. Case Study
Centrica
Centrica looks to the cloud to support collaboration with
global teams and third parties.
About Centrica
Centrica is an integrated energy company, operating predominately in the UK and North America.
Upstream, it sources, generates, processes, trades and stores energy. Downstream, it supplies
gas and electricity to millions of homes and businesses, offering a distinctive range of home energy
solutions and low carbon products and services.
Location UK Challenge Centrica works with a large number
Sector Private sector of third parties and needed a dynamic
Industry Energy platform that would enable people
working on projects to collaborate.
Centrica has hundreds of projects taking place across the UK at any one time. To help the company “Huddle has given us a one stop shop to
implement these ventures successfully, it works with a variety of third parties. The type of third party manage our communication. From finance
and skills required are dictated by the project, but each has one thing in common; a constant stream and project management through to HR,
of communication. This communication is vital to ensure that projects continue to move forward, Huddle has made us much more focused
everyone is kept up-to-date on the latest developments and that work is completed within the and efficient.”
designated timeframe. - Kiffey Dalvi, Senior Project Manager
Kiffey Dalvi, Senior Project Manager, Centrica explains: “Depending on the project, we might have
teams in the US, Glasgow, India and Germany all working together. The teams are remote – if they
have a question, they can’t just walk across the office and ask a colleague. Previously, these teams
were collaborating over email and it wasn’t proving productive in terms of fostering and supporting a
workforce. When you have people working together over four different time zones, all inputting into one
document, it is easy to get confused about the status of activities.”
Relying on email, made keeping track of approvals and amendments for auditing purposes overly
complex. Centrica was also faced with the issue of sharing large files. The files that teams need to
collaborate on, such as property catalogues, are exceptionally large and exceeded mailbox limits.
Although the content could be sent via ‘YouSendIt’, it was impossible to know if the file had been
received, successfully downloaded and that the recipient was clear about next steps.
“Email is in no way intuitive. You need to sift through your inbox and pick out what you believe to be
the latest version. It’s unproductive and frustrating for all concerned. We wanted to give our partners a
more interactive and user friendly platform to swap ideas and collaborate on,” Dalvi continued.
Centrica selected Huddle as it was the only collaboration platform that was able to offer the security
measures the company required. Centrica often gives third parties access to commercially sensitive
information. For example, it shares its interim results with PricewaterhouseCoopers via Huddle so
that the consultancy can write its market report. The organization needed to ensure that the data
would not be compromised or viewed by someone who does not have the right level of authorisation.
Using Huddle, Centrica can create secure workspaces specific to each project and they can be only
accessed by the individuals working on it.
Since implementing Huddle, Centrica and the third parties it works with no longer experience the
administrative burdens previously associated with managing projects.

2. Dalvi explains: “Everything is now streamlined. If you make a change to the document, all you need to
do is upload it and notify the rest of the team. They can then go in, add their thoughts and notify you
that the document has been reviewed. Rather than trawling through email, everyone knows that the
document is on Huddle and as there is only one copy, it’s the correct one. We now have more than
300 active users using Huddle.”
“The adoption of Huddle has grown organically across the organization as people in different teams
work together and see how it could benefit their department. For example, their HR department now
interacts with our debt recovery agency using Huddle as it makes more sense then going back and
forth over email.”
The audit trail capabilities of Huddle have also proven to be exceptionally useful. At the click of a
button, project managers can now access information about amendments and authorizations, which is
particularly important as Centrica operates in a heavily regulated industry.
“Huddle has given us a one stop shop to manage our communication. From finance and project
management through to HR, Huddle has made us much more focused and efficient.”