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– while preparing them to better respond to
daily challenges.
Various projects are already underway. Take
Telstra, for example, which developed a
Digital Water Metering solution that uses
IoT sensors to help identify and reduce
water wastage, with the aim of reducing
operating costs for utilities while saving
consumers money.
And let’s not forget consumers’ influence;
they demand better, cheaper and more
portable services that are designed around
their usage requirements and won’t
hesitate to ditch their provider for the next
best option.
Utilities suppliers are managing this
disruption in similar fashion to organizations
in other sectors: through heavy ICT
investment designed to improve internal
efficiencies and subsequently deliver
enhanced digital services to supplement
energy provision.
Large chunks of these investments
are geared to developing a better
understanding of consumers by analyzing
data and tailoring packages to suit their
diverse circumstances. Personalized
services boost customer retention and
open new revenue opportunities for
providers. But while the utilities industry is
leveraging ICT to modernize, the surge in
new technologies is creating new
complexities – namely in the form of data
silos. The move from legacy systems to
cloud-based, best-of-breed, multi-vendor
technologies has created disparity within
organizations because those new
applications were not developed to
communicate with one another.
This leaves companies confused as data
is scattered across locations, leaving
employees – including field workers – unable
to fulfill their roles.
Without the ability to connect systems and
unify the data that resides in them, utilities
providers also lack visibility into the true state
of their own operations and consequently
struggle to respond to customer demand.
A centralized data strategy gives utilities
companies a competitive edge in an industry
where consumers want real-time access into
their energy usage data and flexible pricing
to match.
For example, Origin Energy embarked on a
technology integration program to connect
its applications and data for its integrated
gas business and realized immediate
benefits. Origin’s field agents not only
operate many hours from civilisation, they
also rely on a broad range of systems and
applications – integrating those with the
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