As we head into the SAP for Util­i­ties conference lat­er this month, the ASUG research team took some time ear­li­er this week to share the results of its research focused on this indus­try. Maris­sa Gilbert, research direc­tor at ASUG, was joined by Marc Rossen, enter­prise archi­tect for Sno­homish Coun­ty PUD #1 to dis­cuss the finds of this research and break down the state of the util­i­ties industry. 

“2021 has been an excit­ing but cer­tain­ly a chal­lenge time for those in the util­i­ties indus­try,” Gilbert said. 

Gilbert and Rossen not only went over the trends and pres­sures most SAP util­i­ties cus­tomers are expe­ri­enc­ing, but they also focused on how these orga­ni­za­tions are lever­ag­ing and imple­ment­ing tech­nol­o­gy to bol­ster their oper­a­tions. Here are some key take­aways from the web­cast and the ASUG research focused on the util­i­ties industry. 

Trends and Pres­sures in the Util­i­ties Industry 

Gilbert kicked the web­cast off by detail­ing the main trends and pres­sures SAP cus­tomers are see­ing in this sec­tor. Like just about every indus­try, util­i­ties were great­ly affect­ed by COVID-19, which spurred change across the entire indus­try. Gilbert not­ed a few trends the research team spot­ted while look­ing over the data col­lect­ed from this research project. Many respon­dents indi­cat­ed that they are work­ing to incor­po­rate emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy like smart meter­ing into their oper­a­tions. Gilbert not­ed that ​“orga­ni­za­tions want to remain rel­e­vant and com­pet­i­tive,” and that cut­ting edge tech­nolo­gies can help them accom­plish that goal. 

A few oth­er trends ASUG is see­ing in the util­i­ties indus­try are tied direct­ly to COVID-19. Remote work­ing has become the norm for office employ­ees, with many util­i­ties orga­ni­za­tions hav­ing to put into effort to ensure that their employ­ees are sup­port­ed while work­ing remote. Rossen not­ed that work­ing from home is going to con­tin­ue being a sig­nif­i­cant aspect of the work expe­ri­ence in the util­i­ties indus­try mov­ing for­ward. In addi­tion to this trend, the util­i­ties indus­try has also need­ed to address cus­tomers that fall behind on their util­i­ties pay­ments because of finan­cial hard­ships stem­ming from the COVID-19 outbreak. 

Final­ly, many respon­dents were also con­cerned with cyber­se­cu­ri­ty. Gilbert said that many orga­ni­za­tions are doing work to address and pre­vent exter­nal secu­ri­ty threats and ensure that cus­tomer data is in safe hands. 

The Impact of Technology

This research project also focused on how tech­nol­o­gy is affect­ing the util­i­ties indus­try, and which types of tech­nol­o­gy are hav­ing the biggest impact on employ­ees’ dai­ly work. Data man­age­ment topped this list, with 52% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed that ana­lyt­ics and dash­boards will sig­nif­i­cant­ly affect their work in the next 12 months. Sim­i­lar­ly, 85% of respon­dents said that data man­age­ment is one of the most impor­tant fac­tors relat­ing to their jobs. 

“It’s all about infor­ma­tion-based deci­sion mak­ing instead of expe­ri­ence-based deci­sion mak­ing,” Rossen said. He not­ed that younger employ­ees don’t have the expe­ri­ence of their old­er col­leagues, so it’s vital that the indus­try can give them easy access to data so they can make bet­ter decisions. 

But, data and ana­lyt­ics capa­bil­i­ties are not the only tech­nol­o­gy solu­tions dri­ving change in the util­i­ties indus­try. 49% of respon­dents indi­cat­ed that cloud solu­tions have a sig­nif­i­cant impact, with anoth­er 30% say­ing these solu­tions have a mod­er­ate impact. This bears out the ear­li­er research ASUG con­duct­ed with DSAG, the Ger­man-speak­ing SAP user group, focused on cloud adop­tion.

Oth­er tech­nolo­gies that are help­ing dri­ve change in the util­i­ties indus­try include inter­net of things (IoT) solu­tions (with 45% of respon­dents say­ing the tech­nol­o­gy has a sig­nif­i­cant impact and 30% indi­cat­ed it has a mod­er­ate impact) and RPA solu­tions (with 29% say­ing this tech­nol­o­gy will have a sig­nif­i­cant impact and 38% indi­cat­ing it has a mod­er­ate impact). 

Tech­nol­o­gy Adoption 

This round of research also exam­ined what SAP solu­tions util­i­ties cus­tomers are lever­ag­ing in their IT land­scapes. These cus­tomers are run­ning SAP instances on a vari­ety of envi­ron­ments. 46% of respon­dents are run­ning on a hybrid on-premise envi­ron­ment, 29% are lever­ag­ing a pri­vate cloud, 28% are using a third-par­ty pub­lic cloud, and 25% have an on-premis­es solution. 

The research also focused on SAP S/4HANA adop­tion among util­i­ties cus­tomers. All respon­dents are some­where in their SAP S/4HANA — and zero per­cent said their orga­ni­za­tions do not have plans to move. Right now, 22% of respon­dents are cur­rent­ly live on SAP S/4HANA, with 35% of respon­dents who have begun the tran­si­tion process, and 23% have active plans to migrate to the ERP solution. 

Adopt­ing cloud solu­tions is also pop­u­lar among util­i­ties cus­tomers. 35% of respon­dents have a cloud strat­e­gy in place, 38% are in the ear­ly stages of devel­op­ing a strat­e­gy, and 26% are in the process of explor­ing a cloud strategy.