Had a demonstration recently by Access on their latest module which will be offered in Access Dimensions very shortly. Our system integrator Polestar organised a morning at their offices outside Portsmouth to demonstrate the range of new features being launched. Access was one of our first major purchases shortly after setting up the business as we could see how quickly systems can get out of control in our industry. I understand that Cable & Wireless has over twenty billing platforms for example so having a consolidated system in place looked like a good plan.
We have been using the system for a number of years and it has met with our requirement of providing finance, provisioning, sales and support systems all within one system making administration much easier. I don’t think to date we have ever had a billing error or not billed the right products at the right time. This has meant we have won business just on that fact that customers are fed up receiving wrong invoices.
Anyway one of the new features of Access I am quite excited about is that they have launched a Carbon Tracking feature. And before you start emailing me that I have gone soft I have to admit I was quite impressed. What I hadn’t realised (or anyone had explained) was that there are European values for everything that you buy in relation to it’s carbon footprint. Even products that don’t release carbon but let’s say releases methane has an equivalent carbon value meaning everything has one measurement even if it technically should be called pollution.
What this means going forward is Fluidata will be able to properly measure our impact on the environment from a financial perspective and should be pretty accurate. We can then use this data to provide customers with a value on how much pollution has been generated in the provision of their service (important when datacentres use over 1% of all global energy). Going forward I think it will be reasonable to expect government and large organisations only to deal with companies that can put a value on their pollution. I am sure there will also be some kind of tax incentive in the future.
All central government funded organisations now have to produce annual “sustainability” reports detailing our environmental impact.
It’s definitely now a “value added” point if you’re selling to government and can provide carbon footprint details. It may not win you a tender on it’s own, but it would certainly be seen in a very positive light if it came down to a decision between you or another provider.