Hel­lo!

Wel­come to the ASUG Util­i­ties newslet­ter, a new way for us to share and col­lab­o­rate around SAP and the util­i­ties sec­tor. To keep pace with the rate of change in a fast-evolv­ing world, all of us have adopt­ed new and inno­v­a­tive ways to com­mu­ni­cate. This is the lat­est exam­ple: going for­ward, ASUG will pro­duce and dis­trib­ute an SAP and util­i­ties newslet­ter focused on the most press­ing chal­lenges the util­i­ties indus­try faces, and how to over­come those hurdles. 

Our indus­try and sys­tems are being asked to evolve, to sup­port new busi­ness mod­els and cut­ting-edge tech­nol­o­gy. At the same time, we’re on-board­ing new staff and need to share with them our indus­try and tech­nol­o­gy expe­ri­ence. The best way to reduce risk is by shar­ing best prac­tices and lessons learned.

As an SAP cus­tomer since 2008, Sno­homish Coun­ty PUD has seen many changes over the past 15 years. What’s stayed the same, from the per­spec­tive of this util­i­ties cham­pi­on and cus­tomer, is our com­mu­ni­ty’s abil­i­ty to come togeth­er and help one anoth­er. In an effort to con­tin­ue this col­lab­o­ra­tive prac­tice, we will move my reg­u­lar newslet­ter com­mu­ni­ca­tion to this ASUG-sup­port­ed chan­nel. This evo­lu­tion will help us to reach more of the util­i­ties indus­try, as ASUG runs the SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG con­fer­ence and sup­ports many local chap­ters and func­tion­al areas of SAP. 

On a per­son­al note, main­tain­ing emails for over 1,000 employ­ees at 150 dif­fer­ent SAP Util­i­ties in North Amer­i­ca has been chal­leng­ing, espe­cial­ly with staff retir­ing. As our indus­try tran­si­tions to SAP S/4HANA to meet new cus­tomer demands, we need more com­mu­ni­ca­tion and col­lab­o­ra­tion. Please share this new chan­nel with your teams and make it part of your onboard­ing process for new employ­ees. Bring­ing your voic­es to the dis­cus­sion will only strength­en our SAP util­i­ties community.

I look for­ward to see­ing you all in Chica­go this Octo­ber at the in-per­son SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG con­fer­ence and online with our con­tin­ued col­lab­o­ra­tion and Q&A on an array of top­ics. As we look for­ward to the fall con­fer­ence, I want to high­light some recent infor­ma­tive and help­ful events for this group. 

On April 26, we dis­cussed the future roadmap for cus­tomer ser­vice in the SAP suite with Robert Straub­inger, Senior Direc­tor — Cus­tomer Trans­for­ma­tion Lead for Util­i­ties at SAP. And SAP Sap­phire and ASUG Annu­al Con­fer­ence took place in May. While the event did not have a ded­i­cat­ed util­i­ty focus, it did fea­ture lots of excit­ing demos. Between the new Microsoft Part­ner­ship to include Microsoft 365 Copi­lot in Suc­cess­Fac­tors, SAP Ser­vice Cloud 2.0, SAP Field Ser­vice Man­age­ment, and RISE with SAP, the event addressed plen­ty of top­ics rel­e­vant to the util­i­ties sector. 

I hope to have lead­ers in the util­i­ties com­mu­ni­ty con­tribute to this newslet­ter. We’d love your thoughts on indus­try-spe­cif­ic trends, chal­lenges, and suc­cess­es. If you’re inter­est­ed in par­tic­i­pat­ing, please reach out to me (mdrosson@​snopud.​com) or to Jim Licht­en­wal­ter (jim.​lichtenwalter@​asug.​com). We want to hear from you, and this is a great way to share your voice with our community. 

Change is con­stant and com­plex but, togeth­er, as a fam­i­ly, we move for­ward to help not only our indi­vid­ual com­pa­nies but our larg­er util­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty and the mil­lions of cus­tomers you all serve. 

Thank you,

Marc Rosson