Regular readers of Energy Central know that the utility industry is undergoing sweeping changes that touch everything across a utility’s enterprise. Driven by a movement towards a higher reliance on distributed, renewable energy, utilities are changing operational processes, critical planning and forecasting paradigms, and hiring practices. Nowhere, however, are the changes more profound than where the utility meets its customers.
The convergence of distributed energy resources (DERs), newly data-rich operations, and an increase in customer expectations brings utilities to a new place where they need to meet their customers. To dive into how utilities can (and do) grapple with these challenges, we sat down with Prakash Menon, Industry Principal at global software and technology services, HCLTech. Prakash shared his thoughts on this transformation that is happening right before our eyes.
Looking at utility customer organizations, these have historically had to work with siloed, often messy, or disjointed data sets. How do you see this changing within the utility’s customer organization?
Utilities until very recently have operated in a very siloed manner. This is typically due to regulatory and budgetary requirements which are also managed in siloes. This is deeply ingrained due to the structure of rates in regulated markets. Utility leaders have historically had to work primarily based on the budgets in their department rather than looking at this from more of an enterprise perspective.
As more utility companies embark on their digital transformation journey, they are focusing on customer experience as a strategic priority to remain competitive, meet regulatory and sustainability needs, adapt to changing customer expectations, and leverage new technologies – all of which requiring better data management and integrations.
Data- and insight-driven organizations require that the traditional boundaries between these siloed entities blur. This centralization of this data allows for a more comprehensive and unified view of their customers, enabling them to tailor their services and offerings to create a more personalized experience.
What are some of the business functions and corresponding systems/data sets that the customer organization should be integrated/interfacing with?
Well, there are a lot! Let’s take the electric vehicles (EVs) as an example. The biggest challenge here is that the utility doesn’t know who bought an EV until they see a surge in demand from a customer premise. There is a need for the car company to get integrated with the utility and similarly, the utility needs to be more involved in the process of a customer buying an EV and then putting a charging station in their garage.
Another example is how DERs are managed to help manage load. The customer owns the assets (like rooftop solar and EVs), but these are integrated with grid operations. This is a relatively new dynamic for utilities, and we are seeing opportunities to help manage load while simultaneously ensuring a positive customer experience.
We also see changes and opportunities in the meter-to-transformer space. The customer organization was not involved here until recently. Now with meter-to-transformer mapping, you can learn more about load and customers as well as being more preventative/predictive with managing the grid and its assets with the richer data coming from smart meters and devices or sensors on the grid.
Simply put, there is a real and urgent need for systems technologies to get integrated and interfaced.
Why have utilities not gone down this integrated path earlier and why is this still a challenge today?
There are many reasons why, starting with the nature of a utility’s mission and its place in the business landscape. Job one for utilities is reliability, and a utility and its leadership can be penalized by regulators for not meeting reliability metrics. This alone creates a risk averse environment where utilities are typically not on the leading edge of innovation. Couple this with being a regulated monopoly and the motivations for innovation, especially what is perceived as risky technical innovation, can be pretty minimal. Against this backdrop, the motivation to change comes from the utility’s customers.
Let’s talk about the role of an open, low code/no code customer platform for utilities. What are some of the key features and functionality that utility customers and IT leaders should be considering?
The ability to provide transparency in other industries like telecom and banking has made customers feel that they can now deal with their service provider on any device. The same should apply to utilities companies who can use secure low-code platforms to quickly build a customer-facing solution with well-orchestrated self-services that enable utility customers to perform a number of different tasks with their utility via a smart phone or other device.
One of the key reasons digital transformation journeys fail is the inability of an organization to outpace the speed and agility of the competition.
“Speed is the new business imperative.” Long planning and application delivery cycles do not allow business users to provide solutions rapidly that help the organization stay competitive and have delightful customer experiences. To enable this, organizations need to rethink the approach to application development. Low code platforms focus on making application development easier and faster.
Low-code platforms offer a powerful and efficient means to innovate, adapt to changing market conditions, and enhance customer experiences while reducing development costs and increasing productivity across the organization. Key features to consider include: pre-built industry templates and components, strong integration capabilities, cross-platform compatibility (web, iOS, Android, etc.), ease of scalability, security and regulatory compliance. With the myriad of systems that utilities have deployed,
it is important to have a solution that seamlessly integrates all backend systems and provides a single experience to the customer. From a security perspective, the HCL UCX platform employs Single Tenant Cloud Hosting, allowing for increased data security, customization and portability. Additionally, the UCX security architecture is built with Web Application Firewalls, DDoS and Bot mitigation, and data residency with ISO 27000, SOC2 and PCI DSS certifications.
What are some of the other benefits to this single platform approach?
As we discussed today, most utilities have risks (security, data management, maintenance, etc.) across multiple platforms or systems supporting one business function like customer engagement. With the HCL UCX platform, the utility no longer has to move data from point A to point B, even though each of these systems typically have different structures for managing data and authentication. A single platform can handle access to data securely while providing security with other systems via APIs to various software systems, applications, and databases that house the utility’s customer, outage, asset, and work management systems. In our effort to build the HCL UCX platform, we have enabled customer self-service and other features that a utility is looking for without having to move data to local storage, without impacting latency, speed to refresh and other technical issues. This architecture has been tested and implemented in a test environment and with customers.
Can you share where HCL has had an opportunity to work with utility partners to help tackle these challenges?
We work with multiple energy companies and government entities who utilize our UCX platform to improve both customer and employee experiences. These include a North American city government who built a work order management mobile application resulting in an instant turnaround time compared to a week; a global energy provider headquartered in France, who developed applications that improve both customer and employee operations; .and an Irish power distribution network that enabled 300 field service technicians to retire bulky handsets in favor of a smart phone and a much faster, more modern app, enabling synchronization in seconds.
Can you tell us about the HCL legacy of working in utilities, particularly in working with utility customer organizations?
HCL has been working with utilities for over 30 years, predominantly in the IT space. We have done a number of customer transformation projects. These often involve a range of services: CIS migration, helping with CX design, web design, and launching new services for the utility customer. We are now also doing more on the OT side of the organization….SCADA and ADMS for instance. We have strong partnerships in these areas, with the leading Utility industry OEMs.
If you were a utility chief customer officer, what would your strategy be for having technology in place three years from now that will make a leap ahead for the customer experience?
“Simply, standardize, and modernize” is the key phrase here. This means that there are a few key things that bubble to the top: ease of access to data and information; simple workflows; and investing in technology that would simplify, standardize and at the same time modernize the way our utility clients operate…and this all needs to be done in a way that lays the foundation that enables the utility to do all of this in terms of how it engages with its customers, or run its operations or manage its network and field crew activities. .
Thanks Prakash. We appreciate your time and insights.
Sure thing. Any time, and thank you, as well.
For more information on HCL’s UCX solution, visit here.