This part­ner insight was authored by Kevin Clemons, Data Archi­tect at delaware.

Util­i­ties have no short­age of data.

Cus­tomer infor­ma­tion, asset per­for­mance, work man­age­ment, finan­cials, oper­a­tional data, and infor­ma­tion from SAP and non-SAP sys­tems are gen­er­at­ed across the enter­prise every day. The chal­lenge is bring­ing that infor­ma­tion togeth­er in a way that allows the busi­ness to under­stand what is hap­pen­ing, iden­ti­fy what is like­ly to hap­pen next, and act on it.

As util­i­ties mod­ern­ize their tech­nol­o­gy land­scapes, that chal­lenge is becom­ing increas­ing­ly important.

AI, advanced ana­lyt­ics, and more intel­li­gent deci­sion-mak­ing all depend on one thing: trust­ed, acces­si­ble, and con­nect­ed data.

For many util­i­ties, how­ev­er, that data remains dis­trib­uted across mul­ti­ple sys­tems and plat­forms. Cre­at­ing an enter­prise-wide view can require sig­nif­i­cant inte­gra­tion, repli­ca­tion, and cus­tomiza­tion. That can make it dif­fi­cult to move from sim­ply col­lect­ing data to actu­al­ly using it to dri­ve the business.

Why the Data Con­ver­sa­tion Is Changing

For years, util­i­ties have relied on estab­lished data ware­hous­es, ana­lyt­ics plat­forms, and point-to-point inte­gra­tions to bring infor­ma­tion togeth­er. Those approach­es have served an impor­tant pur­pose, but the demands being placed on util­i­ty data are changing.

Orga­ni­za­tions increas­ing­ly want to com­bine infor­ma­tion from across the enter­prise, per­form advanced ana­lyt­ics, under­stand his­tor­i­cal trends, and make data avail­able to AI and oth­er emerg­ing technologies.

That requires more than anoth­er report­ing tool. It requires a data foun­da­tion capa­ble of con­nect­ing infor­ma­tion across the enter­prise while pre­serv­ing the busi­ness con­text that makes the data meaningful.

This is where SAP Busi­ness Data Cloud enters the conversation.

SAP Busi­ness Data Cloud pro­vides a path for bring­ing SAP data togeth­er and mak­ing it avail­able for ana­lyt­ics, plan­ning, AI, and broad­er enter­prise data strate­gies. It can also play a role in archi­tec­tures that include plat­forms such as Data­bricks and oth­er hyper­scaler tech­nolo­gies, giv­ing util­i­ties greater flex­i­bil­i­ty in how they build their mod­ern data environments.

For util­i­ties work­ing through this evo­lu­tion, delaware’s ana­lyt­ics prac­tice has helped orga­ni­za­tions assess where they are in their data jour­ney and define a path for­ward, from basic report­ing and data deliv­ery to enter­prise-wide pre­dic­tive ana­lyt­ics and a gov­erned foun­da­tion for advanced ana­lyt­ics and auto­mat­ed intelligence.

From Frag­ment­ed Data to an Enter­prise View

Con­sid­er how many deci­sions across a util­i­ty depend on infor­ma­tion that resides in more than one system.

An asset deci­sion may require main­te­nance his­to­ry, finan­cial infor­ma­tion, and oper­a­tional data. A cus­tomer deci­sion may depend on billing, ser­vice, and engage­ment infor­ma­tion. A finan­cial fore­cast may require infor­ma­tion from oper­a­tions, cap­i­tal projects, and enter­prise systems.

When those data sets remain dis­con­nect­ed, the orga­ni­za­tion is often left assem­bling the pic­ture after the fact.

A mod­ern data archi­tec­ture changes that equa­tion. Instead of treat­ing data as an out­put of indi­vid­ual appli­ca­tions, util­i­ties can begin treat­ing it as an enter­prise asset that can be shared and used across busi­ness functions.

That cre­ates the foun­da­tion for capa­bil­i­ties such as:

• Enter­prise-wide report­ing and analytics
• His­tor­i­cal analy­sis and trend identification
• More informed oper­a­tional and finan­cial decision-making
• AI and machine learn­ing use cases 
• Greater access to trust­ed SAP data across the broad­er tech­nol­o­gy ecosystem 

The tech­nol­o­gy mat­ters, but the larg­er objec­tive is giv­ing the orga­ni­za­tion a con­sis­tent foun­da­tion from which to make bet­ter decisions.

Build­ing the Foun­da­tion for AI

The con­ver­sa­tion becomes even more impor­tant as util­i­ties explore AI. AI is often dis­cussed in terms of agents, automa­tion, and new use cas­es, but the qual­i­ty of those capa­bil­i­ties ulti­mate­ly depends on the infor­ma­tion avail­able to them.

Dis­con­nect­ed, incon­sis­tent, or poor­ly gov­erned data lim­its what AI can reli­ably do. For util­i­ties, the path toward AI there­fore doesn’t begin with AI alone; it begins with estab­lish­ing a data archi­tec­ture that makes trust­ed busi­ness infor­ma­tion avail­able in the right context.

That is one of the rea­sons SAP Busi­ness Data Cloud deserves atten­tion as part of a utility’s broad­er trans­for­ma­tion roadmap. It pro­vides an oppor­tu­ni­ty to think beyond indi­vid­ual ana­lyt­ics projects and instead con­sid­er how data can sup­port ana­lyt­ics, AI, and deci­sion-mak­ing across the enterprise.

The Ques­tion Isn’t Sim­ply ​“What Is BDC?”

For util­i­ty lead­ers, the more impor­tant ques­tions are:

• How should our data archi­tec­ture evolve as our SAP land­scape evolves?
• How do we make SAP and non-SAP data avail­able across the enter­prise with­out cre­at­ing anoth­er gen­er­a­tion of dis­con­nect­ed integrations?
• How do we estab­lish the data foun­da­tion required for the ana­lyt­ics and AI capa­bil­i­ties we want to deploy next?

Those are archi­tec­ture ques­tions, but they are increas­ing­ly busi­ness ques­tions as well. Because ulti­mate­ly, the goal isn’t to cen­tral­ize data for the sake of cen­tral­iz­ing data — it is to turn that data into bet­ter decisions.

Con­tin­ue the Con­ver­sa­tion at SAP for Utilities

At this year’s SAP for Util­i­ties, Pre­sent­ed by ASUG, delaware will con­tin­ue this con­ver­sa­tion with a real-world cus­tomer per­spec­tive on build­ing a mod­ern data foun­da­tion with SAP Busi­ness Data Cloud.

Our ses­sion will explore why Avista select­ed SAP Busi­ness Data Cloud and Data­bricks as part of its mod­ern data plat­form strat­e­gy, the busi­ness and tech­nol­o­gy con­sid­er­a­tions behind that deci­sion, and what oth­er util­i­ties can learn as they eval­u­ate their own data architectures. 

For util­i­ties con­sid­er­ing what comes next for ana­lyt­ics, data, and AI, the dis­cus­sion is no longer only about where data lives. It’s about what your orga­ni­za­tion can do with it.

Whether your orga­ni­za­tion is begin­ning to assess its data foun­da­tion or active­ly eval­u­at­ing plat­forms like SAP Busi­ness Data Cloud and Data­bricks, delaware can help you define a path for­ward that fits your land­scape, your pri­or­i­ties, your busi­ness needs, and your timeline.