Connecting the dots: How to optimize your energy brand portfolio

Energy organizations are adapting their portfolios to meet the rapidly evolving needs of nations and consumers—but doing so is easier said than done. Here, we explain the opportunity, the challenges, and how businesses can optimize their brand portfolio to maximize impact.

With the energy transition in full swing, the industry is undergoing a profound transformation—one that requires balanced solutions and expansion into new territories. From innovative technologies to the growing emphasis on sustainability, energy companies face the challenge of navigating a fast-changing market and are racing to pivot accordingly.

Last year, we uncovered that 98% of industry leaders are preparing to evolve their brand to maintain relevance and future-proof their offer in a changing energy world. As part of this evolution, we’re seeing established players diversify their portfolios and scale clean verticals and technologies—whether in renewable power generation, battery storage, carbon capture technology, or the charging infrastructure for electric vehicles (EVs).

Shell, for example, has expanded into on-street EV charging with its acquisition of ubitricity (now Shell Recharge). Meanwhile, BP took full ownership of Europe’s largest solar developer, Lightsource bp, late last year. And, as recently reported in the Financial Times, multiple oil and gas giants are exploring opportunities to break into lithium, the essential metal in EV batteries.

It’s the right move. According to McKinsey, building smart, diversified portfolios can improve an energy company's risk and return profile by 50-80%—a significant market advantage. As global energy consumption begins to transition—with oil and gas consumption falling, and renewable energy power increasing—the big players are offsetting commercial risks and ensuring resilience for the future.

But changing the shape of an organization’s portfolio isn’t a simple task. There are myriad challenges and considerations to take into account, from securing internal stakeholder buy-in to ensuring coherence and consistency in market.

As a brand’s services and products become increasingly complex within a business, the process of optimization is key. In the simplest, most straightforward terms, portfolio optimization means organizing your portfolio in a way that makes it easy to navigate and buy from—maximizing its market impact and value.

To diversify successfully and optimize their portfolio, the critical connection between business ambition and brand strategy must be made. Energy companies have to think carefully about how they organize around the long-term goals of the business and the evolving needs of their customers.

So, what are the considerations needed to get there?

Clarify your long-term vision

Any portfolio optimization program must begin with a clear understanding of the business’s long-term vision. Leaders within the organization need to be aligned around its strategic ambitions and crucially, have a shared understanding on how the company will respond to emerging market opportunities or customer needs. Is it through acquisitions? Divestment? Internal innovation?

To define that vision, a thorough analysis of the business’s role in the wider landscape is needed. Any vision must be suited to the market as it is today and as it is likely to evolve in future, and it must act as a guide for the business as new market opportunities arise.

UK-based energy supplier Octopus Energy’s vision is to ‘make energy fair, clean, and simple for all using technology’, for example. NextEra Energy’s is to ‘help lead the decarbonization of the US economy’. Both examples are clear, precise, and can underpin any portfolio-related decision—providing a lens through which to connect all services, solutions and new ventures.

In conducting that analysis, you might find that your company’s vision is no longer fit for purpose. This was the case for Norwegian energy company Statkraft, Europe’s largest producer of renewables. Its former vision—’providing pure energy’—didn’t reflect the business’s considerable ambitions as it expands its footprint, nor the passion, drive and expertise of its people.

Deciding it was time to clarify its role in the world and set a clear forward direction, Statkraft enlisted Brandpie to engage over 180 stakeholders across the organization and help align the Executive Team around a new future. Together, we landed on a vision to ‘renew the way the world is powered’. As a shared direction for the entire organization, it reflects Statkraft’s unique expertise and capabilities—but also the long-term value and positive impact their solutions create. The response was overwhelmingly positive and led to the business’s highest-ever operating result post-launch.

Clarity of vision also has a crucial role to play in uniting the different brands and teams within sprawling energy firms, breaking down silos and ensuring every employee is pulling in the same direction. In two recent Brandpie Energy Voices webinars, industry leaders identified a siloed mentality as one of the most prominent challenges they face today.

In short: beginning the strategic process of portfolio management and optimization must begin with alignment around long-term objectives. Leaders need to identify a future-fit structure that gives every product, service and offering a clear, contributing role in the wider portfolio.

Build for the customer

Once the long-term vision is clear, the next step is to analyze and consider how to get there for your customers.

How far from the desired end point are you today? Where are there anomalies or inconsistencies within your portfolio, that might represent opportunities to streamline or expand and ultimately drive value? How clear is it for customers to understand your expanding focus?

It’s vital that you conduct this analysis with the present and future objectives of your customer in mind. Optimizing your portfolio often starts with clear segmentation of the market, or clarity around different customer needs. Think: how do they interact with you, and which of your brands has the most equity with them today? Identify the drivers of value for your business—whether it’s brand trust, economies of scale, integrated offers, or skilled staff—and organize accordingly.

Asking these questions informed our work reimagining SLB’s portfolio architecture, as the business rebranded to become a global technology leader in the energy transition. With the customer front of mind, we helped to transform a complex group of disparate sub-brands into a simplified portfolio organized around four Strategic Fields of Play—clearly and effectively communicating the business’s capability to drive energy innovation for a balanced planet.

Create a roadmap to optimize

With a defined strategy and an understanding of portfolio performance today, the next imperative is to create a roadmap for the brand portfolio—identifying how it should migrate over time to reach a desired end state.

That might include considering how close of a connection you should build between your product and service brands and your masterbrand, as we did with SLB. Elsewhere, Shell recently rebranded ubitricity to Shell Recharge, bringing its new portfolio offering firmly within its corporate brand universe. Ubitricity benefits from Shell’s existing brand equity, while Shell benefits from the association with electric energy. A mutually beneficial relationship in line with Shell’s business objectives.

Alternatively, your business may need to undergo a process of rationalization. Just as there are opportunities to bring brands closer in proximity, there will be times when it is necessary to phase brands out or consolidate them. Brands within the portfolio may need repositioning to meet shifting customer needs, or they may have become redundant in light of the business’s long-term growth ambitions.

Or perhaps your portfolio analysis uncovers innovation and growth opportunities—areas where your brand lacks market credibility, and the creation of a new sub-brand or independent brand would make strategic sense. Again, think through the lens of the customer and their perception of the business. Over time, there will be opportunities to evolve or deepen your relationship with them.

Setting course for the future

If in doubt, know that any portfolio program needs to start by asking these four questions:

1. How does your business strategy lead or inform your brand portfolio?
2. What is the relationship between the different brands and entities?
3. How can you organize for the customer and simplify the experience?
4. How can you ensure the timing and sequencing of activities will deliver maximum value?

The next few years offer a pivotal moment for the global energy industry—not a time of upheaval, but of unprecedented opportunity. Portfolio diversification and rationalization is going to play a critical role for businesses hoping to navigate highly complex sector shifts and set themselves up effectively for the future.

At Brandpie, we work with organisations to build brands and optimise portfolios at these pivotal business moments. The defining moments where every choice becomes a cornerstone of your brand and business success.