December 19, 2025
From Flying Blind to Full Control
When energy prices exploded in 2021, everything changed. Volatility became the norm, forecasts lost their reliability, and energy buyers suddenly found themselves at the center of a risk game that directly impacted company margins.
For many companies, one thing became clear: manual Excel-based processes were no longer sufficient.
One of those companies was Flender – a global industrial market leader with energy-intensive production and the highest requirements for planning reliability. This is where a transformation began that resulted in a 37× ROI, 10% cost savings, and 20 hours less manual work per month.
The Real Pressure Behind Industrial Energy Procurement
Conversations with energy managers repeatedly reveal the same picture:
- Energy buyers carry responsibility, but have no direct savings incentives
- Procurement decisions are often made without a solid data foundation
- CFOs need planning certainty, while operational teams lack the right tools
- Analyses are manual and scattered across Excel files
- Decisions are too often driven by timing and luck
Energy procurement used to be reactive.
Today’s market demands proactive action.
That’s exactly where onu.energy comes in:
We make energy procurement simple, flexible, data-driven, and controllable.
Flender: When Industrial Excellence Meets Volatile Markets
Flender has been a heavyweight in drive technology for 125 years. Its production is energy-intensive, complex, and highly dependent on stability.
The energy crisis made one thing clear:
Energy is not just a cost factor – it is a strategic lever for competitiveness.
Yet Flender faced the same challenges as many others:
- Sporadic load profile analyses
- Data silos in Excel
- Lack of real-time transparency
- Reactive procurement
- No clear overview of risks and cost impacts
The turning point was reached:
Excel could no longer reflect this new reality.
The Decision: Rethinking Energy Procurement
Together with onu.energy, Flender transitioned to a fully data-driven procurement model, delivering four key effects:
1. Automated real-time data
Load profiles and meter values flow in automatically.
Analysis time dropped from 20 hours per month to seconds.
2. One central dashboard instead of data silos
Consumption, prices, hedging, and costs –
all metrics in one interface, consistent for all stakeholders.
3. A solid negotiation basis
Using the Trade Evaluator, Flender now simulates each procurement tranche in terms of costs, risk, and coverage level.
Decisions are based on facts – not gut feeling.
4. Proactive opportunity & risk management
AI-powered signals identify market movements early.
Flender now acts earlier, faster, and with greater confidence.
The Impact: Three Numbers That Say It All
🔹 37× ROI in the first year
The investment paid off faster than expected.
🔹 10% reduction in energy costs
Savings driven by better timing decisions.
🔹 20 hours of manual work saved per month
More focus on strategy, less time spent in Excel.
The Result
Energy procurement that is fully controllable from both a procurement and finance perspective – even in volatile markets.
And the surprising part?
The biggest impact did not come from individual measures, but from a new operating model:
- automated
- transparent
- flexible
- strategic
Flender is now scaling this model across Europe.
What Exactly Did Flender Change?
The detailed step-by-step analysis – including screenshots, decision models, and process design – can be found in the full case study.
You’ll also learn:
- which levers enabled the 10% savings
- how the new decision logic works
- how AI recommendations help in practice
- how Flender manages risk and costs today
Download the full Flender case study
