Matt Plante, CEO at EcoFactor, answers industry questions prior to speaking at Smart Energy Summit in February:

What do you think is the most challenging issue for your company as it relates to the residential energy management market?

Our industry has long sales cycles. Utilities, energy retailers, and home service providers would benefit from being quicker to market with strong offerings. Leveraging third-party validated studies may help partners feel comfortable with a solution more quickly.

What are the major challenges that your business must address in 2015? in 2020?

2015:  The market for top engineering talent is competitive, making it hard to hire engineers as fast as we need them. In addition to hiring, we often receive requests from partners to expand our product line. The challenge for EcoFactor is to remain committed to our core competencies and products while capturing opportunities that align with our strategy.

2020: Developing the right network of partners to offer fully bundled home services will be a major challenge in the future. We expect a significant shakeout to have occurred by 2020 and home energy management to be a core competency and huge market for select established service players – similar to the mobile industry today. The challenge will be finding where EcoFactor’s services fit best to deliver the easiest to use and most effective solution for both consumers and partners.

What are the major barriers impacting consumer adoption of energy related products and services?

Consumers will adopt energy related products and services when those products and services bring value. Our charge is to demonstrate clearly the value of our services to drive adoption.

What are the biggest opportunities for the smart home industry to work with the electricity industry?

The electricity industry is currently undergoing massive change and an opportunity exists for the smart home industry to help utilities engage customers and meet their efficiency and demand response goals.

Matt Plante will be speaking at the “Smart Meters: Creating Value in Big Data and Analytics” at 10:45 AM during Smart Energy Summit in Austin, TX, February 18, 2015. He will be joined by other company representatives from Bidgely, PlotWatt, Sensus Analytics, and WeatherBug Home by Earth Networks.

For more information on Smart Energy Summit speakers, sessions, or topics, visit www.ses2015.com. Register to attend today!

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