Arjan Dosanjh has been involved with Monarch Partnership from a young age. Now Managing Director, he oversees business strategy and manages the teams.

We talk to him about weathering the recent energy crisis storm, and why the future is all about sustainability…he might also surprise you with his culinary skills!

What is your day like in the office? Which team members and departments do you work closely with?

On a day-to-day basis, I work with the pricing and tendering teams, who do a lot of trading on the clients’ behalf to ensure that we get the best pricing for them.

I also work closely with all the client facing account management teams. On the carbon and sustainability side, I work with the director of our carbon solutions team, which is helping to drive clients towards a low carbon future.

I also interact with our sales and marketing teams to ensure that our brand messaging, client communications and services are adding real value.

Who is a typical Monarch client?

Monarch tends to be predominant in the large multi-site social housing and local authority sectors. A term coined in the industry is ‘bill validation’, but we were the vanguard – we started that. We started to build our own in-house software back in the early 2000s. What that led to was the ability to handle multiple sites for clients and all the billing that comes with it.

We work with many housing associations: Bromford Housing, Stonewater, Poplar Harca and VIVID Housing all come to mind straight away. We also have many clients in the education sector, for example, Birmingham City University. Plus other clients like Bunzl, who are a large logistics company that we do a lot of work for across their group.

“Monarch is predominant in the large multi-site social housing and local authority sectors. That came about through the mid-2000s. A term coined in the industry is ‘bill validation’, but we were the vanguard – we started that.”

Let’s talk about the recent energy price rises. How is this impacting your clients? And what effect do you think this will have on the industry in general?

I think the industry has been shocked by the energy crisis. Compared to last year, we’ve seen a 300% increase in gas prices and 270% increase in electricity prices. It is likely that we will lose a lot of suppliers who have recently been aggressively trying to disrupt the market.

This is the backend of a lot of geopolitical factors – weather patterns, a lot of brinksmanship and a pandemic have come together in a perfect storm. So, the idea is for us to weather the storm for our customers.

What would your message be to clients?

My message to clients would be that they should come and talk to us. We send out a lot of communications about the reasons for the market movements. And we’ve carried out a lot of work previously within the year, to ensure that we have the security of supply. The majority of our customers are on contracts that we are confident will be honoured.

What are your views on sustainability? How should clients approach sustainability within their corporate social responsibility strategy?

I think that they should be looking at it holistically. It isn’t just one element, such as just purchasing green energy. It goes deeper than that, within an organisation.

Businesses need to look at trading green energy. They also need to look at their carbon footprint and look to reduce carbon wherever possible. They should look at onsite generation to mitigate some of the power that they are buying in.

They also need to know their reporting requirements. With the corporate social responsibility obligations, a lot of the governance is around sustainability reporting, SECR, ESOS and other regulatory reporting requirements.

The sustainability journey is the future of our company. We’re looking at new product services, and acquisitions, to ensure our customers benefit from the holistic green journey.

“The sustainability journey is the future of our company. We’re looking at new product services, and acquisitions, to ensure our customers benefit from the holistic journey.”

Who has been your inspiration or mentor?

It would have to be my dad. He started the business and I’ve worked with him for pretty much all of my career. He’s a great sounding board, he gives good advice and ultimately a lot of trust.

What are your hobbies and interests?

Football. Cooking. Working out. Going out!

I’m a big football fan. I support Arsenal (not everything’s going great!). I do like sports a lot, and working out myself in the gym…Like most people I love going out and when I need some quiet time, reading.

I do have a passion for cooking and baking. I recently challenged myself to make cinnamon swirls which are quite tricky but turned out surprisingly well. I guess along with the nation, during lockdown everyone was baking bread, banana cake and cookies!

Read the full interview with Arjan here.