Pole positionIn business, speed is everything – whether it is in meeting your customers’ needs or invoicing them and receiving timely payments. The smart money is on e-invoicing as a means of improving business processes, and it’s a concept that one of Sweden’s largest energy firms, Skellefteå Kraft, is fully embracing.

The energy company operates regional and local electricity networks, as well as offering heating, property and communication services. It is renowned for its expertise, R&D and focus on quality, reliability, and environmental responsibility and competence.

The Swedish power firm has an impressive client base of public and private sector companies as well as residential customers. Per-Erik Hedström, Head of billing departure, Skellefteå Kraft, says: “We have to issue many invoices to some of our clients each month. In fact, one local authority client has to clear more than 1 000 invoices from us every month. Around eight years ago, they asked us to start sending their invoices as eInvoices, and since we started transforming our processes to meet their needs, we haven’t looked back.”

From point-to-point to connect-once – reach-allTieto created a point-to-point solution to help Skellefteå Kraft meet its immediate eInvoice requirements. “This solution met the unique needs of one of our municipal customers and worked very well,” Hedström says. “However, we recognized that if we were going to address the invoicing requirements of more of our bigger clients, we would need a different solution. Tieto worked with us to deliver a connect-once – reach-all solution that met the many different needs of all these buyers.”

Tieto came up with an economical e-invoicing solution that Skellefteå Kraft could apply to all its customers. “We’re really pleased with how it works,” Hedström says. “We don’t need to know how our customers use the e-invoicing technology; they can simply use the parts that are relevant to them, while enabling us quickly and efficiently to issue them eInvoices.”

Skellefteå Kraft says it has connected 20 customers in a short time using e-invoicing. Hedström is impressed at the speed with which the company is able to switch its clients over to e-invoicing. He says: “Clients that choose to interact with us via e-invoicing can be up and running in just two weeks.”

Customer case: Skellefteå Kraft

“Tieto worked with us to deliver a connect-once –

reach-all solution that met the many different needs of all these buyers”, says Per-Erik Hedström, Head of billing departure, Skellefteå Kraft.

L–R Patrik Jonsson, Tieto and Per-Erik Hedström, Skellefteå Kraft

Company profileSkellefteå Kraft is one of the largest energy companies in Sweden. It operates five business areas: electricity generation, electricity networks, heating, properties and communication. It has operations in Skellefteå, Lycksele, Storuman and Sundsvall, Sweden, as well as Jakobstad, Finland . It is renowned for its expertise, R&D and focus on quality, reliability, and environmental responsibility and competence.

It is an important player in the Norrland region’s energy market and aims to not only maintain but strengthen this position.

The challengeThe company was keen to maintain and build its relationships with its major clients and recognized that it could achieve this by pioneering e-invoicing. It knew that by being one of the first to offer good-quality e-invoicing, it would be well placed to continue doing business with its biggest clients.

The solutionSkellefteå Kraft turned to Tieto to provide a connect-once – reach-all e-invoicing solution that it could easily and cost-effectively apply to all its major clients. Tieto’s solution has proved a success, enabling the company to continue to meet its business obligations.

Customer case: Skellefteå Kraft

No hidingTieto and Skellefteå Kraft’s latest collaboration builds on an existing relationship between the two firms.

Patrik Jonsson, Sales, Tieto Sweden, says: “We were already working with Skellefteå Kraft in other areas and this helped us deliver a solution that met its needs.”

Hedström agrees: “We already have a large communications centre to collect payments that we’ve worked on with Tieto.”

“We can’t hide from our customer!” jokes Jonsson. “We’re based close to our customer and this proximity has helped us develop a great business relationship with members of the Skellefteå Kraft team.

Deployment So far Tieto has helped Skellefteå Kraft switch the majority of its large clients in Sweden to e-invoicing. “The connect-once – reach-all solution is perfect for us,” Hedström says. “It makes it easy for us to maintain contact with all of our customers.”

“This all helps our customer relationships,” Hedström says. “We can issue invoices faster. More importantly, it puts us in the driving seat to work with the increasing number of clients that demand that you issue an eInvoice. Without it, we’d lose out on contracts, so it’s becoming a necessary part of

our business. We’re ahead of our competitors because we can offer this.”

Tieto and Skellefteå Kraft are looking forward to many more years of cooperation. “We’re going to continue to use Tieto to help us manage our relationships, and this will continue,” Hedström

explains. “We’re also planning to get e-invoicing out to more companies, including some of our smaller clients, and are now working with customers to whom we issue about 50 invoices per month to see how we can apply our invoicing procedures.”

For contacts and further information: www.tieto.com/bix