These are excit­ing times for tech­nol­o­gy pro­fes­sion­als, par­tic­u­lar­ly in the util­i­ties and ener­gy indus­tries, where ener­gy con­sump­tion par­a­digms are under­go­ing a pro­nounced shift. 

Con­ver­sa­tions have evolved, and cus­tomers are no longer pure­ly seen as con­sumers but are instead dis­cussed as pro­sumers and ​“flex­umers” – engaged con­sumers who proac­tive­ly bal­ance con­sump­tion with gen­er­a­tion and man­age­ment of ener­gy resources, allow­ing flex­i­ble capac­i­ty for the grid and con­tribut­ing to the over­all ener­gy sys­tem. We all can appre­ci­ate that there is huge untapped poten­tial for util­i­ties to sup­port as cus­tomers become pro­sumers, with those cus­tomers har­ness­ing the abil­i­ty to pro­duce their own, indi­vid­ual ener­gy. And imag­ine the pos­si­bil­i­ty of advanc­ing ​“pro­sumers” by turn­ing them into ​“flex­umers,” ded­i­cat­ing their ener­gy to ​“ener­gy com­mu­ni­ties” and there­by adding flex­i­bil­i­ty to the grid. 

The indus­try is under­go­ing mas­sive trans­for­ma­tion, and the SAP Intel­li­gent Enter­prise Suite based on SAP S/4HANA is lit­er­al­ly a core com­po­nent of this change. SAP is keen to lever­age insights from its senior cus­tomer lead­ers, both busi­ness and tech­nol­o­gy exec­u­tives, to enhance ener­gy tran­si­tion, dig­i­ti­za­tion, and dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion efforts. When so many are still work­ing ​“out­side” of the sys­tem, SAP asks what can be done bet­ter to dogged­ly move for­ward. What is the dif­fer­ence between a pro­sumer and ​“flex­umer”? How does tech­nol­o­gy enable this capa­bil­i­ty? How does it impact the asset infrastructure? 

As we all seek to achieve sus­tain­abil­i­ty out­comes, assess what busi­ness trans­for­ma­tion looks like among dis­trib­uted ener­gy resources, and improve ener­gy sup­ply resilience across var­i­ous ecosys­tems, the SAP Advi­so­ry Cus­tomer Coun­cil for Util­i­ties (ACCU) is one mech­a­nism avail­able to pro­vide SAP util­i­ties cus­tomers an influ­en­tial voice with SAP to answer their burn­ing questions. 

The SAP ACCU pro­vides insights into how SAP can help util­i­ties com­pa­nies do the following:

• Explore new rev­enue streams — turn cus­tomers into ​“pro­sumers” to ​“flex­umers”

• Build cus­tomer inti­ma­cy and loy­al­ty — under­stand our con­sump­tion at the low­est lev­el, and pro­vide new ser­vices to end-customers

• Secure our tra­di­tion­al busi­ness and lever­age in par­al­lel bext prac­tice innovations

• Ensure we are com­pli­ant with reg­u­la­tions and with CO₂ targets

• Focus on holis­tic secu­ri­ty concepts

• Fos­ter oper­a­tional excel­lence by lever­ag­ing the right tech­nolo­gies to enable advanced main­te­nance strate­gies and seam­less busi­ness operations

So, what’s in a name? Ask the ques­tion. Build the answer with SAP ACCU.

The SAP ACCU is a body of inter­na­tion­al SAP exec­u­tives, advis­ing on key busi­ness pri­or­i­ties, that meets quar­ter­ly, both in per­son and vir­tu­al­ly. The ACCU is under­go­ing a sig­nif­i­cant strate­gic shift in cus­tomer engage­ment by recast­ing our mis­sion, vision, mem­ber­ship, and objectives. 

• The val­ue of SAP ACCU is undis­put­ed by SAP Man­age­ment and all involved SAP departments

• The cur­rent SAP ACCU set­up and work­ing mod­el were designed 15 years ago and need to be adjust­ed to reflect new real­i­ties at SAP and with­in par­tic­i­pants’ companies

• Par­tic­i­pants should play a more active part in the orches­tra­tion and con­duc­tion of all SAP ACCU activities

• Par­tic­i­pants and SAP should agree on mea­sur­able KPIs to mon­i­tor and eval­u­ate joint suc­cess to result in tan­gi­ble out­comes for all participants

• The com­po­si­tion of SAP ACCU par­tic­i­pants is being reeval­u­at­ed to ensure appro­pri­ate rep­re­sen­ta­tion of the most impor­tant seg­ments, includ­ing sim­pli­fi­ca­tion of our charter

To be a part of this engag­ing senior exec­u­tive com­mu­ni­ty and learn more, con­tact Shachel­la James, SAP ACCU Co-Chair, at shachella.​james@​centerpointenergy.​com or Daniela Sell­man, Glob­al VP, Head of Util­i­ties at SAP, at Daniela.​sellman@​sap.​com.