Utilities

Utilities describes a market sector that encompasses organizations that provide products and services in the areas of fundamental amenities like electricity, natural gas, water, and sewage. Due to the nature of services provided, this is a very large sector and organizations in this sector usually have complex business operations. These organizations generally constitute a major part of the economy of any country. Utility companies in U.S. had a market capitalization of approximately $1.5 trillion in March 2021.

Technology in the Utility Industry

Utilities describes a market sector that encompasses organizations that provide products and services in the areas of fundamental amenities like electricity, natural gas, water, and sewage. Due to the nature of services provided, this is a very large sector and organizations in this sector usually have complex business operations. These organizations generally constitute a major part of the economy of any country. Utility companies in U.S. had a market capitalization of approximately $1.5 trillion in March 2021.

Technology in the Utility Industry

Like every other industry, technology is playing a key role in utility industry as well. Due to the nature of the services provided, there is an imperative to provide reliable, safe, and affordable services. The utility industry has long leveraged technology to meet these goals. New and emerging technologies are paving way to help build utility companies build new capabilities in areas like business continuity, operations, distribution, and infrastructure management. While utility companies have already invested in technology and innovation, new technologies like AI and IoT create opportunities to discover more.

Key Considerations for SAPinsiders

SAP and partner technologies are helping utility companies in the following areas:

Business operations systems: With productions  like SAP S/4HANA, utilities companies get the ability to run their end-to-end business, and key operations like metering, billing, and customer engagement. Capabilities like SAP Fiori helps generate insights into aspects billing and helps provide opportunities to streamline these processes. There are customized, utility industry specific processes in various modules, like interaction center for the role of a customer service agent.

Intelligent Enterprise: Advances in technology allow utility organizations to evolve into digital energy networks that can allow them to develop new business models and processes, assimilate the prosumer and transform the way these companies work in a competitive and collaborative business environment in this industry today. Specific technologies that help enable this are technology platforms like SAP Business Technology Platform (BTP), Artificial Intelligence (AI), cloud, process automation & intelligence, Internet of Things (IoT), and enterprise analytics.

Solutions? Applications? [RH1]