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Lost sheep content:

Performance Management
& Improvement

Using our benchmarking and operational processes expertise, we will partner with you to better measure and understand business performance and support the implementation of improvements.
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Benchmarking 

 Our benchmarking program is a tool for assessing, comparing, and sharing performance among a community of top-performing organizations in order to achieve continuous improvement.
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Electric Transmission & Distribution

Climbing on Power Pole

An annual benchmarking program that provides comparisons across the key elements of Transmission Lines, Distribution Lines, and Substations: 

Performance:

O&M expenditures and capital investments, reliability and safety;

 

Service Levels:

Understanding and measuring work volumes and drivers of work; and 

 

Enabling Practices:

Initiatives, Staffing, and Supporting functions

Customer Service

Person Talking On Phone

An annual benchmarking program evaluating the performance in traditional areas of Customer Service (Metering, Billing, Customer Contact Channels, Payment Handling, Field Service and Credit and Collections)

Performance:

O&M expenditures- functional and unit cost, digital experience;

 

Service Levels:

Customer Contact, Self Service, Billing Accuracy, Arrears Management; and

 

Enabling Practices:

Initiatives, Staffing, Technology and Supporting functions

In regulated markets, First Quartile Consulting helps our clients collaborate with policymakers to create effective market choices.

Services include:

  • Rate case support

  • Customer service and operational practices and measures evaluation

  • Development of regulatory filings

  • Provision of oral and written testimony

Rate Case Support: Transmission and Distribution and Customer Service practices and measures evaluation; development of regulatory filings and provision of oral and written testimony

Benchmarking – Making Data Driven Decisions

First Quartile Consulting has a large and expanding community of North American utilities that is involved in helping to shape and focus our benchmarking programs.

 

As a member of our benchmarking community, you will have

  • A set of measures that identify gaps and opportunities for your company

  • A community of utilities who have interest in sharing information

  • A benchmarking process that promotes data driven decisions

  • A dedicated team of benchmarking professionals who know the utility business and have been benchmarking for over 30 years

 

Benchmarking can be used to continuously improve operations through:

  • Performance assessment

  • Goal setting

  • Change effort support

  • Best practice identification

  • Long-term progress tracking

  • Regulatory filing support

 

Utilities with a continuous benchmarking program in place have successfully:

  • Set realistic goals that are achievable and sustainable

  • Changed performance through tracking and management

  • Modified practices to improve performance

  • Influenced regulatory decisions

 

Benchmarking community members value First Quartile's:

  • Responsiveness

  • Integrity

  • Consistency

  • Knowledge

Electric Transmission & Distribution

Customer Service

Regulatory Services

An annual benchmarking program that provides comparisons across the key elements of Transmission Lines, Distribution Lines, and Substations: 

  • Service Levels
    Understanding and measuring work volumes and drivers of work
  • Performance
    O&M expenditures and capital investments, reliability and safety;
  • Enabling Practices
    Initiatives, Staffing, and Supporting functions
  • Implementation Support:
    For both process and technological improvements, including solution development, implementation planning, mobilization, team management
  • Operational Assessments
    Analyze performance against benchmarks to identify opportunities and define potential solutions
  • Continuous Measurement and Tracking:
    Supplement our standard benchmarking services to help companies get the most out of their benchmarking efforts.
  • Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Development
    Identify and develop KPIs using benchmarks to tailor the measures and understand performance.
  • Contact Center Assessment and Implementation
    Contact Center Assessment and Implementation for a North American gas distribution utility. Executed a benchmarking-based performance assessment, a detailed practice analysis, and solution development for improvement of service, call handling quality, call flow, training, supervisory roles, and technology integration resulting in programs to improved service levels and move contacts to self-service
  • Field Service Operations Improvement
    Field Service Operations Improvement for a Midwestern electric utility. Conducted a diagnostic assessment of the existing processes, management approaches, and technology, and moved to redesign of the supervision, scheduling, routing, and execution processes for field orders. After implementation of the renewed management processes, the company was able to increase its completed field orders by over 20% while maintaining the existing staff complement.
  • Executive-Level Dashboard Development
    We offer Executive-Level Dashboard Development linking key benchmarking indicators used by a large southern municipal utility. - First Quartile created a dashboard allowing the Customer Service leadership to understand and improve performance. - Additionally developed process-based scorecards measuring core processes and their influence on the afore-mentioned top-level performance indicators. - Additionally developed process-based scorecards measuring core processes and their influence on the afore-mentioned top-level performance indicators.
  • Distribution Benchmarking
    Distribution Benchmarking for a major North American electric and gas utility operating across multiple states. The benchmarking required developing benchmarks and trend analysis findings to identify areas of opportunity, summarizing insights into cost and performance gaps relative to a selected peer group, and highlighting key opportunity areas for the utility to focus on. Areas of benchmarking included transmission and distribution operations and costs, reliability, and safety.
  • Analysis of Outage Response
    Analysis of Outage Response for a large mid-western utility. The company sought to evaluate and improve their customer experience during outages. The study covered all aspects of the response plan, preparations and training, customer communications, and operational execution during significant storm events.
  • Organizational and Staffing Assessment
    Organizational and Staffing Assessment including all aspects of transmission and distribution for a growing, major western electric utility. The company was seeking to maintain existing cost structures while optimizing staff and organization. First Quartile provided comparisons to leading utilities facing similar situations and helped guide the budgeting/planning process to reach the desired goals.
  • Regulatory Support
    Regulatory Support for a North American utility in their rates and regulatory filings. Work involved the provision of benchmarks and analysis for transmission and distribution expenditures, as well as reliability performance. Over the course of several different consulting cycles, First Quartile efforts ranged from the simple provision of benchmark comparisons to more complex work, up to and including providing written and oral testimony in hearings.
  • Rate Case Filing Support
    Rate Case Filing Support utilizing a benchmarking-based analysis of the Customer operations of a major Canadian retail energy supplier. The analysis was designed to evaluate the overall costs and fair market value, with the results used in support of a rates filing
  • Will I get documents to take home?
    We run paperless meetings. Paper copies of documents are not handed out. We distribute meeting materials through our website and e-mail.
  • What is the dress code?
    Dress code is business casual, appropriate to the location and the outings we might take for dinner and extracurricular activities.
  • What is the basic schedule outline?
    T&DCSCorp & Shared Services Leader's ConferenceMarch February January Issue QuestionnaireAprilMarchFebruary Kick-offsAprilMarchFebruary Data Collection WebinarsApril March March Data Review WebinarsJune May April Insights ConferenceAugust July July Leader On-site ResultsOctoberSeptember
  • Are your meetings online or in person?
    Almost all meetings are offered via webinar. To register e-mail debi.cook@1qconsulting.com for an invitation. Most webinars are recorded, so that if you can't attend live, you can listen to the recording later. You can test or pre-install the Webex addon by clicking this link https://www.webex.com/test-meeting.html
  • Can I bring my laptop?
    You are welcome to bring your laptop to our meetings, in fact, we encourage it. You can follow along on your computer and you can stay in touch with work.
black-ipad-business-meeting.png
  • Service Levels
    Understanding and measuring work volumes and drivers of work
  • Performance
    O&M expenditures and capital investments, reliability and safety;
  • Enabling Practices
    Initiatives, Staffing, and Supporting functions
  • Implementation Support:
    For both process and technological improvements, including solution development, implementation planning, mobilization, team management
  • Operational Assessments
    Analyze performance against benchmarks to identify opportunities and define potential solutions
  • Continuous Measurement and Tracking:
    Supplement our standard benchmarking services to help companies get the most out of their benchmarking efforts.
  • Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Development
    Identify and develop KPIs using benchmarks to tailor the measures and understand performance.
  • Contact Center Assessment and Implementation
    Contact Center Assessment and Implementation for a North American gas distribution utility. Executed a benchmarking-based performance assessment, a detailed practice analysis, and solution development for improvement of service, call handling quality, call flow, training, supervisory roles, and technology integration resulting in programs to improved service levels and move contacts to self-service
  • Field Service Operations Improvement
    Field Service Operations Improvement for a Midwestern electric utility. Conducted a diagnostic assessment of the existing processes, management approaches, and technology, and moved to redesign of the supervision, scheduling, routing, and execution processes for field orders. After implementation of the renewed management processes, the company was able to increase its completed field orders by over 20% while maintaining the existing staff complement.
  • Executive-Level Dashboard Development
    We offer Executive-Level Dashboard Development linking key benchmarking indicators used by a large southern municipal utility. - First Quartile created a dashboard allowing the Customer Service leadership to understand and improve performance. - Additionally developed process-based scorecards measuring core processes and their influence on the afore-mentioned top-level performance indicators. - Additionally developed process-based scorecards measuring core processes and their influence on the afore-mentioned top-level performance indicators.
  • Distribution Benchmarking
    Distribution Benchmarking for a major North American electric and gas utility operating across multiple states. The benchmarking required developing benchmarks and trend analysis findings to identify areas of opportunity, summarizing insights into cost and performance gaps relative to a selected peer group, and highlighting key opportunity areas for the utility to focus on. Areas of benchmarking included transmission and distribution operations and costs, reliability, and safety.
  • Analysis of Outage Response
    Analysis of Outage Response for a large mid-western utility. The company sought to evaluate and improve their customer experience during outages. The study covered all aspects of the response plan, preparations and training, customer communications, and operational execution during significant storm events.
  • Organizational and Staffing Assessment
    Organizational and Staffing Assessment including all aspects of transmission and distribution for a growing, major western electric utility. The company was seeking to maintain existing cost structures while optimizing staff and organization. First Quartile provided comparisons to leading utilities facing similar situations and helped guide the budgeting/planning process to reach the desired goals.
  • Regulatory Support
    Regulatory Support for a North American utility in their rates and regulatory filings. Work involved the provision of benchmarks and analysis for transmission and distribution expenditures, as well as reliability performance. Over the course of several different consulting cycles, First Quartile efforts ranged from the simple provision of benchmark comparisons to more complex work, up to and including providing written and oral testimony in hearings.
  • Rate Case Filing Support
    Rate Case Filing Support utilizing a benchmarking-based analysis of the Customer operations of a major Canadian retail energy supplier. The analysis was designed to evaluate the overall costs and fair market value, with the results used in support of a rates filing
  • Will I get documents to take home?
    We run paperless meetings. Paper copies of documents are not handed out. We distribute meeting materials through our website and e-mail.
  • What is the dress code?
    Dress code is business casual, appropriate to the location and the outings we might take for dinner and extracurricular activities.
  • What is the basic schedule outline?
    T&DCSCorp & Shared Services Leader's ConferenceMarch February January Issue QuestionnaireAprilMarchFebruary Kick-offsAprilMarchFebruary Data Collection WebinarsApril March March Data Review WebinarsJune May April Insights ConferenceAugust July July Leader On-site ResultsOctoberSeptember
  • Are your meetings online or in person?
    Almost all meetings are offered via webinar. To register e-mail debi.cook@1qconsulting.com for an invitation. Most webinars are recorded, so that if you can't attend live, you can listen to the recording later. You can test or pre-install the Webex addon by clicking this link https://www.webex.com/test-meeting.html
  • Can I bring my laptop?
    You are welcome to bring your laptop to our meetings, in fact, we encourage it. You can follow along on your computer and you can stay in touch with work.
Electrical Construction Plans
  • Service Levels
    Understanding and measuring work volumes and drivers of work
  • Performance
    O&M expenditures and capital investments, reliability and safety;
  • Enabling Practices
    Initiatives, Staffing, and Supporting functions
  • Implementation Support:
    For both process and technological improvements, including solution development, implementation planning, mobilization, team management
  • Operational Assessments
    Analyze performance against benchmarks to identify opportunities and define potential solutions
  • Continuous Measurement and Tracking:
    Supplement our standard benchmarking services to help companies get the most out of their benchmarking efforts.
  • Key Performance Indicator (KPI) Development
    Identify and develop KPIs using benchmarks to tailor the measures and understand performance.
  • Contact Center Assessment and Implementation
    Contact Center Assessment and Implementation for a North American gas distribution utility. Executed a benchmarking-based performance assessment, a detailed practice analysis, and solution development for improvement of service, call handling quality, call flow, training, supervisory roles, and technology integration resulting in programs to improved service levels and move contacts to self-service
  • Field Service Operations Improvement
    Field Service Operations Improvement for a Midwestern electric utility. Conducted a diagnostic assessment of the existing processes, management approaches, and technology, and moved to redesign of the supervision, scheduling, routing, and execution processes for field orders. After implementation of the renewed management processes, the company was able to increase its completed field orders by over 20% while maintaining the existing staff complement.
  • Executive-Level Dashboard Development
    We offer Executive-Level Dashboard Development linking key benchmarking indicators used by a large southern municipal utility. - First Quartile created a dashboard allowing the Customer Service leadership to understand and improve performance. - Additionally developed process-based scorecards measuring core processes and their influence on the afore-mentioned top-level performance indicators. - Additionally developed process-based scorecards measuring core processes and their influence on the afore-mentioned top-level performance indicators.
  • Distribution Benchmarking
    Distribution Benchmarking for a major North American electric and gas utility operating across multiple states. The benchmarking required developing benchmarks and trend analysis findings to identify areas of opportunity, summarizing insights into cost and performance gaps relative to a selected peer group, and highlighting key opportunity areas for the utility to focus on. Areas of benchmarking included transmission and distribution operations and costs, reliability, and safety.
  • Analysis of Outage Response
    Analysis of Outage Response for a large mid-western utility. The company sought to evaluate and improve their customer experience during outages. The study covered all aspects of the response plan, preparations and training, customer communications, and operational execution during significant storm events.
  • Organizational and Staffing Assessment
    Organizational and Staffing Assessment including all aspects of transmission and distribution for a growing, major western electric utility. The company was seeking to maintain existing cost structures while optimizing staff and organization. First Quartile provided comparisons to leading utilities facing similar situations and helped guide the budgeting/planning process to reach the desired goals.
  • Regulatory Support
    Regulatory Support for a North American utility in their rates and regulatory filings. Work involved the provision of benchmarks and analysis for transmission and distribution expenditures, as well as reliability performance. Over the course of several different consulting cycles, First Quartile efforts ranged from the simple provision of benchmark comparisons to more complex work, up to and including providing written and oral testimony in hearings.
  • Rate Case Filing Support
    Rate Case Filing Support utilizing a benchmarking-based analysis of the Customer operations of a major Canadian retail energy supplier. The analysis was designed to evaluate the overall costs and fair market value, with the results used in support of a rates filing
  • Will I get documents to take home?
    We run paperless meetings. Paper copies of documents are not handed out. We distribute meeting materials through our website and e-mail.
  • What is the dress code?
    Dress code is business casual, appropriate to the location and the outings we might take for dinner and extracurricular activities.
  • What is the basic schedule outline?
    T&DCSCorp & Shared Services Leader's ConferenceMarch February January Issue QuestionnaireAprilMarchFebruary Kick-offsAprilMarchFebruary Data Collection WebinarsApril March March Data Review WebinarsJune May April Insights ConferenceAugust July July Leader On-site ResultsOctoberSeptember
  • Are your meetings online or in person?
    Almost all meetings are offered via webinar. To register e-mail debi.cook@1qconsulting.com for an invitation. Most webinars are recorded, so that if you can't attend live, you can listen to the recording later. You can test or pre-install the Webex addon by clicking this link https://www.webex.com/test-meeting.html
  • Can I bring my laptop?
    You are welcome to bring your laptop to our meetings, in fact, we encourage it. You can follow along on your computer and you can stay in touch with work.

Benchmarking Services

An annual benchmarking program that provides comparisons across the key elements of Transmission Lines, Distribution Lines, and Substations: 

​

Performance: O&M expenditures and capital investments, reliability, and safety;

 

Service Levels: Understanding and measuring work volumes and drivers of work; and 

 

Enabling Practices: Initiatives, Staffing, and Supporting functions

Customer Services

An annual benchmarking program evaluating the performance in traditional areas of Customer Service (Metering, Billing, Customer Contact Channels, Payment Handling, Field Service and Credit and Collections)

 

Performance: O&M expenditures- functional and unit cost, digital experience;

 

Service Levels: Customer Contact, Self Service, Billing Accuracy, Arrears Management; and

 

Enabling Practices: Initiatives, Staffing, Technology and Supporting functions

​CTA for membership- $30k, access to community events, etc? 
*set up email marketing/automation - 2.0?
*Database of contacts?
*Intake form to become part of the community

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