Chargemaster, the UK’s biggest name in electric vehicle (EV) charging, is digitally transforming its business in order to maintain market leadership in an ever-evolving marketplace.

To accelerate its transformation journey, BJSS delivered an 18-month digital strategy roadmap for Chargemaster in just six weeks. The roadmap is anticipated to make Chargemaster Britain’s most digitally savvy and accessible EV charging provider, which in turn could help it achieve a 630% annual growth rate.

An industry on the cusp of disruption

BP, the world’s sixth-largest oil and gas company, is facing disruption. With sales of all-electric vehicles up 70%, and continuing to grow, there is a reduced consumer demand for fossil fuels – BP’s primary source of income.

Additionally, governments from around the world have legislated to ban the sale of new petrol and diesel cars over the next 30 years, further reducing the demand for BP’s traditional product.

To arrest this trend, and to secure an immediate foothold in the growing electric vehicle market, in 2018, BP acquired the electric vehicle power specialist, Chargemaster.

Chargemaster: Industry-leading, digitally behind

Chargemaster was the market leader for public and home charging units but had not kept pace with its competition in terms of its digital offerings. This resulted in a 42% drop out rate from Chargemaster’s sales funnel.

Additionally, when the UK Government announced changes to its Electric Vehicle Homecharge Scheme (EVHS), Chargemaster’s home charging portfolio became non-compliant.

This non-compliance was rapidly reducing the attractiveness of Chargemaster products because, within six months, Chargemaster consumers would become ineligible to claim their £500 EVHS incentive.

Enter the BJSS team

Chargemaster needed to transform quickly. For consumers to qualify for an EVHS grant, the charging units had to be ‘smart’ and remotely accessible. Both features were lacking in the Chargemaster offering.

Tasked with rapidly improving the company’s digital portfolio, BP’s digital solutions product manager, Ghlas Ferguson, engaged, BJSS.

BJSS assembled a highly experienced and multi-skilled strategy team for the project. The team included a technical delivery manager, business consultant, strategy consultant, service designer and UI/UX designer. A technical implementation team supported the technical delivery.

A proven service design approach

Using a Discover-Define-Design-Deliver framework, BJSS delivered an 18-month digital strategy roadmap in just six weeks. These aggressive delivery timelines were achieved through a range of Agile ceremonies such as Sprints and Retrospectives, to ensure momentum and continuous improvement.

Laying the foundations for further success

“The work we did with BJSS was to create a digital roadmap that aligned to our company strategy. BP Chargemaster is the market leader in the UK for home charging – we want to maintain a market leadership position in the future for a market that is expected to be disrupted by start-ups, energy companies and original equipment manufacturers. The development of the BP Chargemaster strategy set out to identify how it can maintain market leadership with a changing profile of consumer.”

Ghlas Ferguson, BP Digital Solutions Product Manager

This programme has already enabled Chargemaster to modernise its infrastructure and deliver its first Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The MVP now allows users to control their home charging unit remotely. As a result, this initial delivery ensures that Chargemaster’s Homecharge product is fully compliant with EVHS, allowing consumers to benefit from the £500 government grant.

BJSS provided Chargemaster with crucial insight into Agile ways of working. This means that Chargemaster benefits from a delivery method that minimises risk, accelerates delivery, and allows it to continuously improve its product.

The successful delivery of the MVP is the first stage of a wider transformation project for Chargemaster. The roadmap and infrastructure implemented by the team will see Chargemaster continuously improve its digital user experience over the next 18 months. Technologies such as voice activation and remote unlock will make it Britain’s most digitally savvy and accessible EV charging provider.

With the improvements that the BJSS team made to the Chargemaster product, BP anticipates that they will achieve a 630% annual growth rate and become the UK’s market leader in EV charging within four years.