Techem Customer Portal: Smart services and transparent energy consumption

​​​​Techem is a leading provider of smart and sustainable building services and market leader in the consumption-based recording and billing of energy consumption.  Its services range from energy management and resource protection, living health and process efficiency in the field of real estate. Employing more than 250 people, the Austrian subsidiary headquartered in Innsbruck serves more than half a million flats with some 3 million metres and recording devices all over Austria. More than 5,000 customers use the company’s metering and billing services.

Techem consistently invests in energy efficiency and climate protection
In order to save on energy and costs, digitally available measuring data and real time information are more important than ever. This is why Techem employs a consistent digitisation strategy, including the quick expansion of its remote reading capabilities using smart metres as well as its digital customer portal. Jonathan Prokop, Head of Digital Business Portal at Techem: “We aim to automate billing, creating maximum energy consumption transparency and make safe management of all relevant information easier for our customers.”

A central service portal with country-specific services
The basic requirement was to create a central service portal that meets the needs of different customer groups and target markets. The new system was to provide tenants with the legally required insight into current consumption data in accordance with the EU's EED Directive and help to reduce energy consumption and costs. As an international company, Techem needed a multi-client capable, multilingual and scalable solution usable to millions of users and additionally capable of mapping the country-specific legal regulations and processes in the energy sector.
Another special request was to rethink existing processes together: Their previous use of paper slips for consumer data recording and billing as well as monthly information updates from building managers via e-mail were enormously time-consuming and prone to error. This administrative effort was supposed to be replaced by a consistently digital process. Prokop: “Due to their comprehensive experience in process digitisation and the implementation of complex portal solutions, we have opted for business solution specialist DCCS as our partner and Liferay as our digital experience platform.”

Agile methods and open communication the key to success
To be able to shoulder this massive project, an agile method and a “design first” approach were chosen for its implementation. To ensure an optimal user experience, selected users were involved in the development and design of the new portal from day one. In the course of workshops, Techem and DCCS analysed and optimised the relevant processes and created the respective user stories. A mere six months later, the first prototype for the new customer portal was presented. Due to the company's many markets and their specific requirements and languages, involving various stakeholders and extensive testing were crucial for the project's success. “DCCS's experience in implementing complex digital solutions, extensive communication and team work helped adapting the customer portal for all international locations to offer our customers the best possible service,” Jonathan Prokop puts it in a nutshell.