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• Case | HBS Case Collection | October 2016 (Revised October 2020)

  Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company

  Ananth Raman and Elena Corsi

  Patrick Lammers, Chief Commercial Officer (CCO) for the Dutch energy company Essent NV, once a state-owned company, was pleased with the progress Essent’s consumer (“B2C”) business had made: Earnings Before Income Tax (EBIT) for B2C had gone from a loss of €18 million in 2010 to a profit of €149 million in 2014; churn rates had decreased, and customer satisfaction had increased. The B2C brand had become a leader in the fully liberalized Dutch market. Behind B2C's performance there had been a strong focus on marketing, an optimization of the channel mix, and also changes in the company's operations by adopting lean management tools. Despite the strong performance of Essent's B2C business, Essent's B2B business had instead seen its profits drastically decrease from €47 million in 2011, to minus €15 million in 2015. For 2016, B2B expected to report €15 million losses. While pondering the reasons behind the difference in performance between B2B and B2C, Lammers wondered what Essent should do to improve its B2B business.

  Keywords: lean management; operation management; service management; Commercialization; Operations; Management; Energy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Service Operations; Performance; Energy Industry; Europe;

  Citation:

  Raman, Ananth, and Elena Corsi. "Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company." Harvard Business School Case 617-026, October 2016. (Revised October 2020.)  View Details

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• Supplement | HBS Case Collection | October 2020

  Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company (B)

  Ananth Raman and Elena Corsi

  Keywords: lean management; operation management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Energy Industry; Netherlands;

  Citation:

  Raman, Ananth, and Elena Corsi. "Essent: From a State-Owned Utility to a Commercial Company (B)." Harvard Business School Supplement 621-038, October 2020.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | September 2020

  Assistant Professor Crabb Prepares for Fall Classes

  V.G. Narayanan and William Schiano

  Citation:

  Narayanan, V.G., and William Schiano. "Assistant Professor Crabb Prepares for Fall Classes." Harvard Business School Case 121-028, September 2020.  View Details

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