The fol­low­ing Util­i­ty Voice was authored by Marc Rosson, Enter­prise Archi­tect at Sno­homish Coun­ty PUD. 

This week at Sno­homish Coun­ty Pub­lic Util­i­ty Dis­trict (PUD), we began review­ing the SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG con­fer­ence agen­da to iden­ti­fy which top­ics our team want­ed to focus on. It quick­ly became clear that no sin­gle per­son could cov­er everything.

For­tu­nate­ly, like many util­i­ties well into the SAP RISE jour­ney, we are cur­rent­ly in the request-for-pro­pos­al (RFP) selec­tion phase for a sys­tems inte­gra­tor (SI) to help us advance. Giv­en our stage in the project, we have nine team mem­bers, includ­ing project lead­ers, busi­ness SMEs, archi­tects, and lead­er­ship, attend­ing the con­fer­ence this year, all trav­el­ing togeth­er next month to con­nect with peers and learn from their experiences.

This year’s con­fer­ence (Sept. 8 – 10; in Den­ver, Col­orado) gath­ers togeth­er util­i­ty lead­ers, SAP prod­uct experts, and indus­try inno­va­tors to exchange lessons learned, explore prac­ti­cal use cas­es, and chart the next steps in their shared evolution.

To max­i­mize our cov­er­age of this oppor­tu­ni­ty, we cre­at­ed tai­lored tracks for each team mem­ber, ensur­ing we attend ses­sions rang­ing from CX pan­el dis­cus­sions to RISE deep dives. From BTP to SAP Busi­ness Data Cloud (BDC), secu­ri­ty, gen­er­a­tive AI, part­ner-pro­vid­ed solu­tions, and core IBU devel­op­ment, there is tru­ly some­thing for every­one. We’ll come togeth­er for the keynotes, where SAP senior lead­ers — not just from their util­i­ties lines of busi­ness (LoBs) but across the com­pa­ny — will present a stel­lar line­up of speakers.

We also dis­cov­ered ses­sions fea­tur­ing util­i­ties like ours. So, whether you are pub­licly owned or pub­licly trad­ed — or deliv­er­ing water, gas, or elec­tric­i­ty — we look for­ward to see­ing you at this year’s conference.

Pre-Con­fer­ence Learn­ing and Networking

Hit the ground run­ning on Mon­day with pre-con­fer­ence work­shops that pro­vide col­lab­o­ra­tive envi­ron­ments where you can pres­sure-test your approach­es with SAP’s senior archi­tects and peers who have suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cut­ed sim­i­lar transformations. 

Exclu­sive­ly avail­able to ASUG mem­bers, these ses­sions offer a con­cen­trat­ed return on time invest­ed before the main pro­gram gets underway.

• Util­i­ty Trans­for­ma­tion in the Cloud Era: Strate­gic Enter­prise Archi­tec­ture, Tools, & Real-World Exe­cu­tion – Led by Mar­tin Mysyk (Senior Enter­prise Archi­tect, SAP) and Ste­fan Ress­ing (Chief Enter­prise Archi­tect, EA-RISE Util­i­ties, SAP) and Marc Rosson (Enter­prise Archi­tect, SNOP­UD), this work­shop cov­ers clean core prin­ci­ples, AI use cas­es, and tools (SAP Sig­navio, LeanIX, WalkMe, Cloud ALM) that joint­ly sup­port trans­for­ma­tion. Case stud­ies will high­light how util­i­ties are apply­ing these in real-world scenarios.
• Unlock­ing the Pow­er of SAP BTP: Inno­va­tion, Inte­gra­tion, & Intel­li­gence for Util­i­ties – Led by Suhas Ali­gave (Prin­ci­pal Solu­tion Advi­sor, BTP, SAP), Sandeep Dhin­gra (Chief Archi­tect Advi­sor, SAP), and Vic­ki Zheng (Glob­al CRO AI, SAP), this ses­sion demon­strates how to use SAP Busi­ness Tech­nol­o­gy Plat­form to uni­fy oper­a­tional data with Busi­ness Data Cloud, embed AI into fore­cast­ing, and build intel­li­gent inte­gra­tion landscapes.

The day will also include EA, Water, and Ener­gy Com­mu­ni­ty Meet Ups for tar­get­ed net­work­ing, and a wel­come recep­tion that will set the stage for the days ahead.

Cus­tomer Expe­ri­ence: Defin­ing the Future of Util­i­ty Engagement

With util­i­ties fac­ing the deci­sion between adopt­ing the Embed­ded Cus­tomer Engage­ment (CE) mod­ule in S/4HANA or mov­ing to the SAP CX suite, this year’s CX ses­sions pro­vide real-world insights from notable ear­ly adopters and engag­ing dis­cus­sions with experts.

• Enhanc­ing Util­i­ty Cus­tomer Ser­vice with SAP Ser­vice Cloud (Tues­day, 11:15 a.m.) – Tina Kuo (Senior Direc­tor, Prod­uct Man­age­ment, Cus­tomer Ser­vice, SAP Sales & Ser­vice Cloud) and Sanu Koshy (Direc­tor, Prod­uct Man­age­ment, SAP) will walk through the lat­est 2.0 capa­bil­i­ties and roadmap devel­op­ments, giv­ing util­i­ties the detail need­ed to make long-term plat­form choices.
• Real-World Insights & Future Vision: How Util­i­ties & Part­ners Are Shap­ing & Adapt­ing to SAP CX 2.0 (Tues­day, 1 p.m.) – Pan­elists Antho­ny Saba­ti­ni (CX Spe­cial­ist, Util­i­ties, SAP), Kevin Bojanows­ki (IT Direc­tor, SAP Cus­tomer Sup­port, Duke Ener­gy), Sarah Pelu­so-Ibar­ra (Direc­tor, Cus­tomer Solu­tions, South­west Gas), Kristi­na McCle­na­han (Super­vi­sor, Billing & Pay­ment Sys­tems, Puget Sound Ener­gy), and Gibs Saint Paul (Direc­tor, Cus­tomer Mod­ern­iza­tion, Salt Riv­er Project) will share expe­ri­ences from both CX 1.0 and 2.0, with Salt Riv­er Project as the first elec­tric util­i­ty to imple­ment CX 2.0. A fol­low-up Q&A will allow audi­ence mem­bers to direct­ly inter­act with the panelists.
• Pio­neer­ing the Future: Loudoun Water’s Jour­ney to Next-Gen­er­a­tion SAP Solu­tions (Wednes­day, 1:45 p.m.) – Lara Bow­ers (IT Pro­gram and Sup­pli­er Man­ag­er, Loudoun Water) and Tony Fore­man (Solu­tions Man­ag­er, Loudoun Water) share oper­a­tional impacts from being the first water util­i­ty to go live on 2.0.

Ser­vice Man­age­ment and Process Modernization

S/4HANA has deliv­ered inno­va­tion for over 10 years. In 2018, new util­i­ty func­tion­al­i­ty start­ed to move away from cer­tain com­pat­i­bil­i­ty com­po­nents like Cus­tomer Ser­vice Noti­fi­ca­tions, via tran­si­tions to new S/4HANA func­tions like Ser­vice Requests/​Service Orders. 

For RISE cus­tomers, capa­bil­i­ty mode extends to 2030, and for those util­i­ties already on S/4HANA on-premise, cer­tain util­i­ty areas — includ­ing LE-TRA, PP-PI, and Cus­tomer Ser­vice Noti­fi­ca­tions — were also extend­ed to 2030. Plan­ning, man­ag­ing, and learn­ing from oth­ers is key to man­ag­ing these changes.

• Sun­set­ting CS: Future-Proof­ing Util­i­ty Ser­vice Man­age­ment in SAP S/4HANA (Tues­day, 3:30 p.m.) – Dominic Bren­nan (Senior Direc­tor, Busi­ness Devel­op­ment, SAP) and Robert Straub­inger (Senior Direc­tor, Indus­try Busi­ness Unit for Util­i­ties, SAP) will out­line the shift to Ser­vice Requests and Ser­vice Orders with Advanced Exe­cu­tion, explain com­pat­i­bil­i­ty dead­lines, and pro­vide strate­gies for get­ting ahead of the change.
• Green­field CIS Trans­for­ma­tion with Lon­don Hydro — Enabling Dig­i­tal Util­i­ty (Wednes­day, 1:45 p.m.) – Syed Mir (CIO & VP, Cor­po­rate Ser­vices, Lon­don Hydro) and Sayan­tan Taraf­dar (Head of Trans­for­ma­tion, Util­i­ties Amer­i­c­as, Tata Con­sul­tan­cy Ser­vices) will detail how Lon­don Hydro became the first util­i­ty to ful­ly adopt the new ser­vice mod­el and is prepar­ing to go live.

Cloud ERP and EAM Trans­for­ma­tion Journeys

From asset man­age­ment mod­ern­iza­tion to large-scale ERP moves, this track fea­tures end-to-end case stud­ies wor­thy of a spot­light. Here are the ses­sions you shouldn’t miss:

• Dig­i­tal Trans­for­ma­tion Suc­cess: TECO Peo­ples Gas Stream­lines Field Oper­a­tions with SAP and Mira­ta (Tues­day, 10:15 a.m.) – Greg Hall (IT Man­ag­er, EAM Func­tion­al & Solu­tion Archi­tec­ture, Tam­pa Elec­tric) and Rich Padu­la (Founder, Mira­ta Soft­ware) share how TECO replaced paper-based work­flows and upgrad­ed to SSAM 2405 with Mira­ta forms for bet­ter UX and stream­lined automation.
• Met­ro­pol­i­tan Util­i­ties District’s SAP S/4HANA Migra­tion Jour­ney on RISE with SAP (Tues­day, 2:00 p.m.) – Fea­tur­ing Dhanachezhiyan Mahalingam (IT Direc­tor, Enter­prise Archi­tec­ture, MUD) and Deven­der Kumawat (Senior Basis Admin­is­tra­tor, MUD). A busi­ness-first, brown­field move pre­served key con­fig­u­ra­tions and his­to­ry while mod­ern­iz­ing core sys­tems. Top­ics include readi­ness assess­ment, data archiv­ing, secu­ri­ty redesign, CRM-to-CE migra­tion, BTP enable­ment, and key inte­gra­tion lessons.
• Imple­ment­ing SAP S/4HANA Cloud Pri­vate Edi­tion: A Jour­ney of Chal­lenges & Tri­umphs (Tues­day, 2:00 p.m.) – Kevin Lagge (Strat­e­gy and Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Exec­u­tive, OGE) and David Keny­on (Chief Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy Archi­tect, OGE) share how they became the first lega­cy util­i­ty to migrate 25 years of work order his­to­ry to S/4HANA on RISE in a sin­gle go-live, along­side a CX 1.0 deploy­ment and EAM modernization.
• OGE Tran­si­tions to SAP S/4HANA and SAP C4C by Tak­ing Advan­tage of Open­Text Solu­tions (Tues­day, 3:30 p.m.) – Bryan Sher­lock (Sr. Man­ag­er of Prod­uct and Plat­form Oper­a­tions, OGE) and Gabriel­la Popovych (Direc­tor of Cus­tomer Suc­cess, Ecodocx) detail a first-of-its-kind Open­Text deploy­ment for cus­tomer cor­re­spon­dence, ven­dor invoice automa­tion, and AI/ML-dri­ven doc­u­ment management.

Safe­guard­ing Data and Sys­tems in an AI-Dri­ven Util­i­ty Landscape

As AI becomes a core part of util­i­ty oper­a­tions, the integri­ty of data and the secu­ri­ty of dig­i­tal envi­ron­ments are now mis­sion-crit­i­cal. Atten­dees will have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to dis­cov­er prac­ti­cal strate­gies to estab­lish a reli­able data foun­da­tion, defend against emerg­ing threats, and lay the ground­work for advanced ana­lyt­ics that deliver.

• Busi­ness Data Cloud: The Trust­ed Foun­da­tion for AI in Util­i­ties (Tues­day, 11:15 a.m.) – Bret Van­der­Woude (Prin­ci­pal Solu­tion Advi­sor, BDC, SAP) explains how con­nect­ed, con­text-rich data enables reli­able, respon­si­ble AI across util­i­ty operations.
• Through the Breach – Secu­ri­ty and Com­pli­ance in the Shared Respon­si­bil­i­ty Mod­el (Tues­day, 11:15 a.m.) – Paul Klein­schnitz (CRO, Onap­sis) and Marc Rosson (Enter­prise Archi­tect, Sno­homish PUD) exam­ine how the Shared Respon­si­bil­i­ty Mod­el in RISE with SAP impacts secu­ri­ty and com­pli­ance, empha­siz­ing clear account­abil­i­ty, ear­ly-phase deci­sions, and sus­tain­ing suc­cess after go-live.
• Over­com­ing Data Secu­ri­ty & Test­ing Chal­lenges in Util­i­ties: OGE’s RISE with SAP Trans­for­ma­tion (Wednes­day, 2:45 p.m.) – Rick Tay­lor (Man­ag­er IT Plat­forms, SAP ERP and QA, OGE) and Phil Best (VP of Sales, Amer­i­c­as, EPI-USE Labs) share how Object Sync and Data Secure tools pro­tect­ed sen­si­tive data, stream­lined test­ing, and met pri­va­cy com­pli­ance requirements.

Keynotes and Shap­ing SAP’s Util­i­ty Prod­uct Roadmap

Don’t miss this oppor­tu­ni­ty to net­work with and influ­ence the SAP lead­ers respon­si­ble for deliv­er­ing inno­v­a­tive prod­ucts for the util­i­ties com­mu­ni­ty. This year offers direct access to the lead­ers who define and build util­i­ty products.

• Wel­come & Keynote: SAP’s Strate­gic Vision for Nav­i­gat­ing What’s Next in Util­i­ties (Tues­day, 8:15 a.m.) – Co-host­ed by SAP, ASUG, and Xcel Ener­gy, this open­ing ses­sion out­lines the pri­or­i­ties shap­ing today’s util­i­ty land­scape and SAP’s strate­gic response. Expect real cus­tomer exam­ples, solu­tion demos, and insights into inno­va­tions in work and asset man­age­ment dri­ving resilience, effi­cien­cy, and sus­tain­abil­i­ty. Speak­ers include Daniela Haldy Sell­mann (SVP and GM, Ener­gy & Nat­ur­al Resources, SAP), Vik­tor Kehay­ov (Chief Prod­uct Offi­cer, SAP Field Ser­vice Man­age­ment, SAP), Geoff Scott (CEO and Chief Com­mu­ni­ty Cham­pi­on, ASUG), Michael Sul­li­van (Nation­al VP, Renew­able Ener­gy and Util­i­ties, SAP), and Jan Gilg (CRO, Amer­i­c­as & Glob­al Busi­ness Suite, Mem­ber of the Extend­ed Board, SAP).
• Address­ing Util­i­ties’ CIS & Inno­va­tion Needs: Unlock­ing SAP Solu­tions Across SAP S/4HANA and BTP Ecosystems (Wednes­day, 10:30 a.m.) – Markus Bech­mann (VP Dig­i­tal Ener­gy Solu­tions, SAP) and Fred­erik Mey­er (Prod­uct Man­ag­er, SAP SE) will share the cur­rent devel­op­ment pri­or­i­ties and solic­it feed­back on func­tion­al requirements.
• Keynote Inno­va­tion, Col­lab­o­ra­tion and Unlock­ing Data Dri­ven Intel­li­gence (Wednes­day, 12:15 p.m.) – Fea­tur­ing cus­tomer suc­cess sto­ries and SAP’s vision for the Busi­ness Data Cloud and AI strat­e­gy, this ses­sion will show how uni­fied data foun­da­tions can dri­ve sharp­er insights, faster deci­sion-mak­ing, and inno­va­tion in util­i­ty oper­a­tions. A pan­el of lead­ers, includ­ing Jan Bungert (CRO for Busi­ness Data Cloud & Busi­ness AI, SAP) and Swati Daji (Exec­u­tive VP, Chief Finan­cial, Risk, and Oper­a­tions Offi­cer, Elec­tric Pow­er Research Insti­tute), will dis­cuss how inte­grat­ed data enables more agile respons­es to indus­try and cus­tomer demands.
• Fol­low-Up Dis­cus­sion (Wednes­day, 1:45 p.m.) – Bring­ing Bech­mann and Mey­er back togeth­er for an addi­tion­al ses­sion on SAP’s cur­rent direc­tion for the util­i­ties sec­tor, this ses­sion is a sec­ond oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage, col­lab­o­rate with peers, and align on requests that can be ampli­fied to SAP’s prod­uct teams.

Final Thoughts

This year’s con­fer­ence has some­thing for every­one. Don’t miss the SAP Util­i­ties 2025 Excel­lence Awards, where we rec­og­nize the suc­cess­es of our peers. Our abil­i­ty to learn from their sto­ries makes all of us bet­ter, allow­ing us to achieve our mis­sions and pro­vide the key ser­vices we enable for our communities.

See you all soon.

Marc

Save the date for the 2026 SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG!