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
