Hel­lo, SAP util­i­ty community! 

As we pre­pare to wrap up this amaz­ing year, let’s cel­e­brate our achieve­ments and look toward our goals for 2024. Across these last few years, we have been shar­ing our insights, chal­lenges, and solu­tions with each oth­er through var­i­ous chan­nels, and we’re proud of the impact that each and every one of us has made in the util­i­ties space by work­ing togeth­er. This col­lab­o­ra­tion shifts our indus­try forward. 

SAP Util­i­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Voices

One of this year’s high­lights was the debut of SAP Util­i­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Voic­es, a series in which we fea­tured month­ly arti­cles from dif­fer­ent util­i­ties gas, water, elec­tric –as well as from both pub­lic and IOUs.

Pub­lished in col­lab­o­ra­tion with ASUG through our new­ly launched and fast-grow­ing newslet­ter, ​“The Top­ic: Util­i­ties,” these arti­cles show­cased the diverse, inno­v­a­tive ways our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are trans­form­ing their util­i­ties with SAP solu­tions. Here are the arti­cles that we pub­lished this year:

• June: Intro­duc­ing the ASUG Util­i­ties Newslet­ter, by Marc Rosson, Enter­prise Archi­tect for Sno­homish Coun­ty PUD
• July: Con­sumer. Pro­sumer. Flex­umer. What’s In A Name?, by Shachel­la James, Vice Pres­i­dent of Infra­struc­ture and Tech­nol­o­gy Ser­vices at Cen­ter­Point Energy
• August: A Jour­ney to the Present, by Thomas Lord, VP, CIO at UGI Util­i­ties, Inc.
• Sep­tem­ber: A Brighter Future: The Jour­ney to 100% Renew­able Ener­gy, by Ale­jan­dro Reyes, Chief Dig­i­tal Offi­cer at AES Clean Energy
• Octo­ber: Lead­ing the Way: At SAP for Util­i­ties, by Marc Rosson, Enter­prise Archi­tect for Sno­homish Coun­ty PUD
• Novem­ber: At BC Hydro, A Plat­form Approach to Mobil­i­ty, by Mike Seblani, Solu­tion Lead — Enter­prise Mobil­i­ty at BC Hydro 

Expect more inspir­ing sto­ries to come from lead­ers in our SAP util­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty who are forg­ing the future of their util­i­ties in these fas­ci­nat­ing times. Between the ever-chang­ing reg­u­la­to­ry envi­ron­ments and busi­ness chal­lenges we all face, our util­i­ties are also respond­ing to the need to inte­grate the adop­tion of new tech­nolo­gies, such as gen­er­a­tive AI, into the com­plex busi­ness out­comes we are all seek­ing to achieve. 

We hope you can see your­self in the sto­ries of suc­cess, adver­si­ty, and resilience shared through the SAP Util­i­ty Com­mu­ni­ty Voic­es and are moti­vat­ed to share your own voice in 2024. Please reach out and let us know if you would like to be con­sid­ered for a future col­umn. We would love to learn from your experience.

Webi­na­rs and Subgroups

As we con­tin­ue to present webi­na­rs, includ­ing many in col­lab­o­ra­tion with ASUG, that explore top­ics relat­ed to SAP solu­tions for util­i­ties, we’ve seen ter­rif­ic par­tic­i­pa­tion from this com­mu­ni­ty. From more than a dozen dis­cus­sions of SAP S/4HANA to spe­cif­ic pre­sen­ta­tions on RISE with SAP, SAP Field Ser­vice Man­age­ment, and mobil­i­ty strat­e­gy, 2023 was a busy and pro­duc­tive year. Equal­ly valu­able were con­ver­sa­tions that cus­tomer sub­groups col­lab­o­rat­ed to host and share direct­ly with SAP prod­uct man­agers, pro­vid­ing their col­lec­tive input on the prod­ucts we’re all using. 

Next year, we have mul­ti­ple pre­sen­ta­tions already in the works, including:

• Cus­tomer engage­ment pre­sen­ta­tions from mul­ti­ple util­i­ties using the embed­ded cus­tomer rela­tion­ship man­age­ment (CRM) prod­uct in SAP S/4HANA
• A pre­sen­ta­tion by South­ern Cal­i­for­nia Edi­son, with rep­re­sen­ta­tives dis­cussing recent enhance­ments to the company’s CX implementation
• The launch of a com­mu­ni­ty sub­group for water util­i­ties, led by Corix Infra­struc­ture and South­West Water (a com­bined enti­ty of two pri­vate water util­i­ty firms), focused on learn­ing, shar­ing, and col­lab­o­rat­ing between U.S.-peer water utilities 

If you have a top­ic that you’d like to share, please let us know. And for many of you who shared sto­ries at the SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG con­fer­ence, expect to hear from us soon about the pos­si­bil­i­ty of repris­ing your ses­sions as webinars.

SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG

With over a thou­sand atten­dees at this year’s Chica­go edi­tion, the SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG con­fer­ence con­tin­ues to be a huge­ly suc­cess­ful event for the util­i­ties com­mu­ni­ty — and we are plan­ning for next year’s con­fer­ence, in Mia­mi next Octo­ber, to be even larger. 

Expect more news to come on that front short­ly; these con­fer­ences remain invalu­able oppor­tu­ni­ties to see every­one in our SAP com­mu­ni­ty in per­son. We will have great sto­ries to share, from util­i­ties select­ing RISE with SAP to accel­er­ate their go-live on SAP S/4HANA to util­i­ties lever­ag­ing SAP Ser­vice Cloud 2.0 and Joule, SAP’s gen­er­a­tive AI assis­tant.

That said, please don’t wait until next Octo­ber to start shar­ing and con­tact­ing each oth­er. Giv­en the pace of change and chal­lenges we are tak­ing on in the util­i­ties sec­tor, the only way to reduce risk is to phone a friend, share an inno­v­a­tive solu­tion, and — as always — don’t go alone.

Thank you for your con­tin­ued sup­port of our col­lab­o­ra­tion with­in the SAP util­i­ty com­mu­ni­ty, I want to per­son­al­ly thank each one of you, and wish you all a won­der­ful hol­i­day season.

Marc

Marc Rosson is Enter­prise Archi­tect for Sno­homish Coun­ty PUD.