Energy management isn't a peripheral concern any more. No longer just the concern of energy and facilities managers, it has jumped to the top of the page, and has settled itself as a regular feature on executives' lists of priorities.

Faced with rising energy prices, the stringent demands of regulators and shareholders' growing curiosity over sustainability, execs know that business-wide, transformational and strategic programs are the holy grail of energy management.

The solution is enterprise-class energy management software that gives businesses the ability to monitor, analyse and reduce energy consumption across a firm's entire operations. Pre-2009, managers contracted small-scale software solutions to deal with energy management challenges on a tactical basis, such as on a single site or for a particular building, but the market has come a long way since then.

As energy and sustainability risks have increased, software has kept up with the pace of change with the arrival of enterprise scale solutions that can scale up to global deployment. We identified over 60 suppliers offering energy management software solutions in the market today. Given the wealth of choice, how can firms be sure of selecting the best match for their functionality requirements?

In our recent report, Green Quadrant Energy Management Software, Verdantix researched both the buy-side and the sell-side of the enterprise energy management software market.

Interviewing 15 budget holders from global firms with combined revenues of $306 billion, we heard that buyers are investing in energy management software in order to cut costs and deliver on energy reduction targets as their businesses shift from basic energy monitoring to advanced energy management.

On the sell-side, we spoke to 15 energy management software suppliers and conducted 15 live product demonstrations to find out exactly what energy management software options are on the market, to piece together buyers' requirements and suppliers' offerings.

So what are buyers demanding? Our entire customer panel considered monitoring and targeting functionality essential in energy management software, with two-thirds calling for reporting and certification functionality as well as utility bill management functionality.

Buyers also require proof of value from suppliers -- 13 stated they would request evidence from suppliers to show how the software delivers savings, with the same number also keen for new software to integrate with existing data sources.

Yet faced with so many software suppliers, buyers need to select energy management software with extreme caution. Our research unearthed a number of implementation train wrecks which heads of energy, sustainability and facilities can avoid if they keep the following recommendations in mind:

1. Energy domain expertise is crucial. Even the largest energy management software providers tend to specialize within a few distinct "energy domains," for example data centers, grocery retail, or commercial buildings. It's essential to choose an energy management software supplier with expertise in the domains directly related to your business operations.

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