Reg­is­ter today to attend this fal­l’s SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG con­fer­ence (Sept. 8 – 10, at Col­orado Con­ven­tion Center).

In a con­ver­sa­tion with ASUG last fall, Marc Rosson, Enter­prise Archi­tect at Sno­homish PUD (and a dri­ving force behind this newslet­ter), spoke open­ly and can­did­ly about pri­or­i­ties and chal­lenges faced by North Amer­i­can util­i­ty companies. 

“We’re see­ing shifts, includ­ing the adop­tion of gen­er­a­tive AI and RISE with SAP,” he said. ​“We’re also see­ing a need for our employ­ees to be more tech­nol­o­gy-savvy to sup­port this new tech­nol­o­gy. As more expe­ri­enced long-term employ­ees retire, and we bring in more tech­nol­o­gy-savvy — but not nec­es­sar­i­ly util­i­ty-spe­cif­ic — employ­ees, there will be more demands on all of us.”

This sen­ti­ment shared by Rosson con­tin­ues to res­onate in the ASUG ecosys­tem. Over half (58%) of util­i­ty respon­dents to the 2025 ASUG Pulse of the SAP Cus­tomer Research project indi­cat­ed that SAP S/4HANA exper­tise is one of the most impor­tant skill areas for their orga­ni­za­tion. Oth­er pop­u­lar selec­tions includ­ed inte­gra­tions and APIs (42%), cyber­se­cu­ri­ty (41%), data sci­ence and ana­lyt­ics (41%), and busi­ness process man­age­ment (39%).

While plan­ning this year’s edi­tion of SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG, my col­leagues and I have kept these trends and skills front and cen­ter. As always, we are focused on build­ing a line-up for infor­ma­tive ses­sions address­ing the cur­rent needs of the SAP util­i­ties com­mu­ni­ty. With the event com­ing up in Sep­tem­ber, we have made incred­i­ble progress build­ing out a robust agen­da that tar­gets the spe­cif­ic needs of this community. 

As usu­al, we have a vari­ety of in-depth, infor­ma­tive ses­sions fea­tur­ing insights from SAP and util­i­ty com­pa­nies, includ­ing Chesa­peake Util­i­ties Cor­po­ra­tion, Loudon Water, South­west Gas, UGI Util­i­ties, Sno­homish PUD, Fair­fax Water, and San Diego Gas & Elec­tric. I’m also per­son­al­ly excit­ed about the line-up of dif­fer­ent learn­ing ses­sions we have planned. Join us for one of two Pre-Con­fer­ence Work­shops — focused on enter­prise archi­tects and the SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form (BTP). These ses­sions will touch on best prac­tices and skill-build­ing spe­cif­ic to utilities.

We are also intro­duc­ing an inter­ac­tive Deep Dive Learn­ing Lab that focus­es on SAP prod­ucts and strate­gies, host­ing Com­mu­ni­ty Meet-Ups and Lunch & Learn Top­ic Tables where atten­dees can go deep into spe­cif­ic top­ics and solu­tions. Final­ly, we are intro­duc­ing ASUG Pow­er Peer Groups, which are mod­er­at­ed dis­cus­sions fea­tur­ing indus­try experts dis­cussing spe­cif­ic busi­ness challenges. 

As util­i­ties seek to embrace new tech­nolo­gies — includ­ing SAP S/4HANA and cloud envi­ron­ments — to meet the new, evolv­ing demands of their cus­tomers, these ses­sions can help enter­pris­es along with their journeys. 

We are still accept­ing speak­er appli­ca­tions. If you want to share your sto­ry at the con­fer­ence, send your pro­pos­al here!