In a recent webinar, held by The Institute of Engineering and Technology, we spoke to other industry leaders about the recent shift of digital technologies from ‘nice to have’ to essential. We discussed the re-emergence of IT as a business enabler. Additionally, we talked about how manufacturers can use it to build resilience.

Digital technology as an enabler of resilience

From what we’ve seen in our work in the sector, it’s not about implementing digital technology for the sake of it. It’s about ensuring the technology is aligned to business use cases and outcomes, both for today and for the future.

For manufacturers, data is an asset and they can leverage IoT or Industrial IoT, data analytics, AI and digital twins for resiliency. However, where the sector has been lacking is developing the right data strategy across the business, as well as standardising and sharing open data. Also, there needs to be more understanding of the business models that data and digital technology can enable.

The organisations who are successful in this take an agile approach to digital modernisation. They adapt quickly not just to the changing needs of the sector, but also to external circumstances and the expectations of an increasingly digital native workforce. To do this, we’ve seen many manufacturers approach digital modernisation through smaller projects instead of taking a wider waterfall approach. This can help build champions and leadership support, as they see the positive effects quicker.

Sustainable operations

Manufacturers need to continue to operate their assets as reliably and efficiently as possible. Additionally, as we head to a net zero future, manufacturers need to look at more sustainable ways to operate. This is where digital technology can help. Using a secure cloud platform, manufacturers can connect data across offices, factory floors, and more to create holistic views of their business.

Manufacturer Ricoh uses Azure Machine Learning and AI across all areas of its factory to manage costs, and access greater insights to optimise operations and reduce costs. Ricoh uses AI to adjust machines in real-time to respond to changing demand, and to predict maintenance. And by connecting this data to HR and financial systems, they can manage labour needs, track costs and more.

Create an agile supply chain

Data helps embed visibility and intelligence into supply chains. A connected supply chain will predict disruptions, enhance visibility, improve planning, and maximise asset productivity. This, in turn will reduce waste and can deliver data that will help build a sustainable circular supply chain.

Bel Fuse manufactures electronic circuits products globally. As part of a larger supply chain, they rely on small parts from suppliers before passing their components onto other manufacturers that create the finished products. Therefore, they need to ensure that they do not become a bottleneck in the process. By using Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management, Bel Fuse now has a deeper, more precise view into its supply chain.

“Our system quickly shows us when parts haven’t arrived on time, and we can pivot to load our production with parts that are available,” says Stefan Naude, General Manager. “With Dynamics 365, we streamlined our planning and have flexibility to adapt to our vendors and adjust our inventory—all while remaining a reliable supplier.”

Personalise customer relationships

To be resilient you need to ensure you’re meeting your customers’ expectations in new ways. You need to engage with them throughout the relationship lifecycle. By connecting data silos, manufacturers can gain new insights into customer behaviours. They can also use AI and machine learning to predict, support, and improve customer relationships.

Malvern Panalytical designs, develops and commercialises analytical instruments for material analysis across a wide range of industries and applications. To help customers optimise their instruments, they built a digital solution that streamlines data capture – effectively offering them a ‘cloud-based control room’. Customers can use performance metrics to optimise assets. At the same time, Malvern Panalytical can use the data to understand how customers use their products. This allows them to offer better post-sales support and develop improved innovations.

Build the right culture for resilience

Whether on the plant floor, the office, or mobile, your people need to be empowered to drive resiliency. Investing in your existing talent and attracting the right talent is important. Not only does this help your organisation to take advantage of digital tech, but it is also key to building innovation and new business value.

Organisations need the right data and digital skills, plus a more agile culture to maximise impact. Manufacturers are clearly exploring these areas, but there is some way to go. Partnerships can support manufacturers here. At Microsoft, we have a range of learning resources available to help build technology competencies. The High Value Manufacturing Catapult is also working on data and digital skills programmes for the sector.

Use digital to innovate and build resilience

Finally, as manufacturers bounce back, using digital will be key to innovating and creating new business models and opportunities. For example, using technology to optimise and automate time-consuming manual tasks, giving employees more time to spend on value-adding work. At Phlexglobal, they use AI to automate the indexing and management of vaccine trial master files, improving time savings by 25-30 percent.

To be resilient, manufacturers also need to build partner ecosystems – not just within industry but across digital technology companies and other sectors. Open data and data sharing will help build resilience by driving new business models and innovations and creating more robust supply chains. We saw this in 2020, when British manufacturers united to build 20,000 ventilators in 12 weeks with the help of technology – something that would normally take 20 years.

For manufacturers, resiliency and digital modernisation go together. Embrace data and empower your workforce with the right skills to adopt an agile approach to implementation. Look for partnerships that support your goals and values to not only share expertise, but also innovate and drive new and current business models.

Find out more

Watch the webinar

The future of supply chains: Unlock sustainability through innovation

Build resilience today

About the authors

Rik leads Microsoft’s industry strategy across manufacturing, energy and resources in the UK. Responsibilities include working with the government and regulators, industry bodies, industry partners, and largest customers to ensure Microsoft enables sectoral needs. Rik sits on multiple industry boards for energy, manufacturing, research, digital twins and digital skills. His focus areas include the energy transition, sustainability, cyber security and digital technologies for operational environments.

Prior to Microsoft, Rik worked at Cisco for 13 years, with global lead roles in energy and resource industries, IoT and security, and digital transformation. He has been a member of multiple industry standards groups and consortia, is a published author, has written multiple industry white papers, and has spoken at conferences all over the world. He has an MBA in international leadership and is currently studying sustainability and green economies.

Lizzie works with a number of Manufacturing, Aerospace and Defence customers and partners in the UK, working closely with business leaders to help drive the use of digital technologies to achieve industry-focussed outcomes and unlock innovation. It is a pivotal time for both the Manufacturing and Aerospace industry to transform, with sustainability, factory of the future and connected supply chain being at the heart of many customer conversations, as well as the future of Manufacturing/work.

The post How digital tech can help manufacturers build resilience appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

And organisations are responding to these ambitions. According to the ESO, 2020 was the greenest on record. And 2021 looks like it is readying to exceed this. In fact, in early April, almost 80 percent of the grid was powered from low-carbon sources.

We recently hosted a roundtable with Accenture and Utility Week. This brought together energy firms, regulators and partners to answer an important question: Are energy organisations doing enough now to meet these goals?

At the roundtable, topics included the need to build a cohesive roadmap that covers the entire energy system, taking advantage of digital technology, and change the way consumers interact with energy. Perhaps most importantly, the need to cross-collaborate internally and externally with other utilities, regulators and third-party tech providers was agreed. Here are the four most important topics that came out of the discussion:

1.      Reduce silos and focus on collecting better data

Energy firms are collecting more and more data. But as the roundtable asked – are they collecting the right data?

Often in utility companies, like many industrial environments where systems have built up over time, data is siloed between departments. The billing department sees customer-centric data, while field operations see a different type. However, these silos can be barriers to an energy firm’s innovation and sustainability ambitions. By connecting data and reducing silos, utilities can ensure the right data is collected. This creates more visibility over energy demand, and even opens new business models to monetise data.

Organisations need to not only think about the present, but also the future. For example, data may be being collected around current methods of green energy consumption. But organisations must consider the type of data needed to take advantage of any possible future energy sources, such as geothermal. By futureproofing data, they will be in a better space to drive innovation and keep up with change at pace.

2.      Build partnerships and share open data to reach net zero

Taking those data silos one step further – the net-zero carbon goals are our collective responsibility. So, to reach them, must involve collaboration across industries, governments, and regulators. Open data sharing was a big topic for the roundtable, highlighting the importance of multi-disciplinary action on it.

An open data plan reduces silos across companies and in the sector. This builds creating innovation, and allowing us to transition quickly to a low-carbon future. However, there are some challenges to this. Organisations are at different stages of their journey, with varying datasets, data governance strategies, and often using different data standards.

Energy firms and regulators need to work together to create standardised data formats. This is already in motion, with activities such as the Modernising Energy Data Access (MEDA) competition. Set up by Innovate UK and the Modernising Energy Data group, the aim is to help develop the concept of a Common Data Architecture (CDA) for the Energy Sector. As organisations move to the cloud, data standards and sharing in a secure way can be driven forward, leveraging AI and machine learning to deliver insights. For example, cross-industry partnerships could build digital twins of energy networks or even cities, gaining insights to optimise operations.

For example, we are working in collaboration with Accenture and Avanade to help energy firms such as SSE to reach the UK’s net-zero carbon goals. By using open data, the partnership aims to provide secure, consistent and accessible information. This will drive efficiency, support cross-industry innovation around new markets and improve asset performance and optimisation.

“The scale of the net zero challenge is so great and the significance of achieving it so important, we need all-hands-on-deck. The energy system – electricity in particular – must be completely decarbonised very quickly, so that trickier sectors like heat and transport can reach zero carbon emissions. The answer to all the technological, market and regulatory challenges that result, cannot possibly come from a single organisation or sector. Partnerships, like the one between Microsoft and Accenture, are essential in bringing together an electricity utility like SSE with business and digital technology transformation specialists,”

Rachel McEwen, Chief Sustainability Officer at SSE Renewables.

3.      Personalise customer experiences

This cross-industry approach can not only help drive net-zero carbon, but better serve communities. By collecting and sharing the right data, energy demands can be better responded to. For example, a cold spell in the north might use more resources, so energy companies can work together to respond quickly. It can help organisations better identify vulnerable customers and help as, or even before, needed. Open data will also help identify disengaged users, creating more competition within the energy marketplace. Reducing silos internally and externally will ensure customer service teams can access insights to personalise customer experiences. As a result, they can respond better to customer’s needs.

Energy firms rolling out smart meters will collect better insights around energy usage. At the same time, it empowers customers to take control of their personal sustainability journey. A large percentage of users want smart homes, so long as it is at an acceptable price point. This is a great opportunity for energy companies to drive new value. By collaborating with other industries, this aim can be achieved, opening new revenue streams and data sources.

4.      Reach net zero by supporting the new energy system

By 2030, the energy system will be more decentralised. There is expected to be more small-scale generation (some estimates as much as 30 times), such as solar and wind farms. Additionally, there’s an increase in domestic and grid storage, and a growth in renewable gas, more heat networks, heat pumps and hybrid generation. These changes could mean a shift to two-way systems that generate and store energy locally. This could see distribution networks becoming active managers, helping the system remain stable and secure. Enabling data sharing will make this transition smoother.

Moving to a new energy system means a need for more collaboration and partnerships. Also, organisations need to support employees with new skill sets. Everyone, from frontline workers to data teams, needs access to support and information to help drive new insights, workflows, and experiences for customers.

A chance to start building partnerships and achieve net zero

When it comes to net-zero, the roundtable participants agreed that the energy industry is thinking big. But there needs to be more action. The government and regulators need to incentivise and create policy that mandates the embedding of digital technology into projects, and encourages open data sharing. However, organisations shouldn’t sit back and wait. There is real opportunity to act now and drive cross-industry collaboration, build partnerships, support employees, and connect data silos to help drive the new energy system.

Find out more

Accelerate the energy transition

Transform your digital supply chain

Harnessing innovation to accelerate the transition to net zero

Powering a sustainable future podcast with Darryl Willis

Innovate with a modern data strategy

About the authors

Rik leads Microsoft’s industry strategy across manufacturing, energy and resources in the UK. Responsibilities include working with the government and regulators, industry bodies, industry partners, and largest customers to ensure Microsoft enables sectoral needs. Rik sits on multiple industry boards for energy, manufacturing, research, digital twins and digital skills. His focus areas include the energy transition, sustainability, cyber security and digital technologies for operational environments.

Rina leads several commercial businesses within Microsoft UK including Manufacturing, Utilities, Life Sciences and the Built Environment Sector. In this role, she is responsible for supporting customers to accelerate their digital transformation with Microsoft technologies. She supports the enablement of this through partnerships with integrators, regulators, government and industry bodies.

Rina has over 25 years’ experience in the IT industry. She has spent 14 of these in diverse roles across Microsoft. This included Chief of Staff for the UK CEO and EMEA President, where she was a core part of the cultural transformation of Microsoft as part of the broader transformation that Satya Nadella has led for the business.

Before joining Microsoft, Rina held several business development and marketing-related roles within smaller IT and start-up organisations. She lives in Wokingham with husband and enjoys the moments of being a mum again when her children visit from university.

The post How utility firms can help the UK reach net zero by 2025 appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Therefore, the water sector requires new thinking and greater collaboration than ever before. Data, and digital technology has the power to unlock this opportunity. It can also unlock new approaches and processes that can support consumers, create a new universal system, and help us reach our collective net-zero goals. At a recent roundtable with Utility Week, we discussed how the water sector can transform sustainably. We talked about how sharing data can transform the water sector. As a result, we created a graphic of our main outcomes from the roundtable discussion.

Open data platforms and data sharing in the water sector

A centralised, accessible universal system can help water organisations better manage demand and unlock new insights. However, to do this we need to get the basics right. Water organisations need to ensure they are collecting the right data and that data needs to be of good quality. You need to reduce silos internally before looking outwards. By taking advantage of apps such as Microsoft Dynamics 365, you can start taking steps to reduce business silos.

We also need unified data standards and governance. This is easier said than done, as there’s no national body leading this and no means of enforcing standards. Also, organisations could risk spending too much time and effort deciding on what standards to use instead of focussing on immediate priorities. A practical approach could be to choose a non-competitive aspect you can collaborate on. This will establish de facto standards that can be adopted further as collaboration progresses. For example, Azure Data Share helps organisations securely share data in a common standard, while taking advantage of AI and machine learning to drive new insights. This data can be used to create a digital twin of the UK’s water network to help plan for the future, run scenarios, and gain even more insight.

Fostering and accelerating water sector partnerships and ecosystems

Sharing data helps drive new partnerships and relationships. It will also help us collectively manage water supply demands, sustainability goals, and support consumers. As previously mentioned, there’s no national body. This means the onus is on organisations to communicate and collaborate with each other and regulators. For example, we’re working with Accenture on a five-point plan for utilities that aims to speed up the UK’s mission to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.

A good way to start, is to focus locally. Connect with other organisations who are geographically close and then start building out towards a national approach. By sharing environmental data, water supply information, and other types of data, you can build more resilient systems, react with agility to demand periods, and even identify and support vulnerable customers.

Digital technology in ecosystems and the water supply chain will help deliver insights and data. Using IoT across water networks can help detect leaks, plan predictive maintenance or adapt to demand. For example, Anglian Water introduced smart meters to consumers. This gives consumers the ability to monitor their own water-saving journey. At the same time, it also gives Anglian Water the insights to better plan water supply and respond to demands. As a result, they’ve delivered an eleven percent reduction in demands across households.

Building digital skills in the water sector

The PR19 stresses the importance of ‘resilience in the round’. This focus is not just on infrastructure resilience but operational, financial and corporate resilience. This means as water organisations look to use digital technology such as AI, IoT, and machine learning to optimise and support operations, they need to ensure their employees can use these technologies effectively.

This can also help them attract new talent and retain current talent. According to Energy and Utility Skills, English/Welsh water organisations will have needed to replace (by volume) their entire workforce by 2024. Despite that, the water industry had the lowest number of utility apprenticeship starts and completions in 2013/14.

By ensuring you have a culture that focusses on learning, you can open up innovation and new value chains, become more resilient, and empower the next generation of employees.

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Accelerating sustainability in the water sector

The water sector relies on a healthy environment. Therefore, it’s important for water organisations to have robust plans on how they are supporting and improving the ecosystem. PR19 commits water companies to reduce water leakage by 16 percent and empower customers to use 13 percent less water by 2025. At the same time, Microsoft has committed to reach net-zero.

Data and digital tech will help us build sustainability. By sharing data across the industry, introducing smart meters and even connecting with other industries such as energy, we can better manage demand, fix leaks, and support the maintenance of water treatment centres.

Building sustainable water systems

The time is now for water organisations to start working together, with regulators and other industries to build cross-collaboration. By creating an open data system, organisations will be in the right spot to help support the UK’s transition to net-zero. At the same time, they will build resilience, agility and innovation. Also important to this is ensuring your employees have the digital skills and tools to support this move.

Find out more

The role of data sharing in water transformation

Discover how to harness the power of data

Accenture and Microsoft collaborate to help accelerate UK’s transition to net-zero carbon emissions

Learn how to drive innovation with data and analytics

Build digital skills with these resources

About the author

Rik leads Microsoft’s industry strategy across manufacturing, energy and resources in the UK. Responsibilities include working with the government and regulators, industry bodies, industry partners, and largest customers to ensure Microsoft enables sectoral needs. Rik is a board member in techUK’s Smart Energy & Utilities working group, techUK’s Digital Twin steering board, UK Research & Innovation Manufacturing Made Smarter, and a member of the BIM4Water Digital Skills steering group. His focus areas are the energy transition, cyber security and digital technologies for operational environments. He is also an independent technology strategy advisor to a super major.

Read more blogs from Rik.

Carrie works with Energy and Utilities customers and partners in the UK. She aligns industry needs to digital capabilities to drive innovation with business leaders. Passionate about learning, she has spent the last four years at Microsoft empowering organisations to upskill employees to adapt to new ways of working with digital technology. In order to inspire the next generation, Carrie volunteers as a STEM Ambassador and has guided others to realise and exceed their potential through mentoring schemes.

The post How to innovate and transform the water sector appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

The English regulator has stated that “the solutions of the past will not be enough to continue to deliver the services of the future.” Amid this, there is also uncertainty about levels of demand, changing weather patterns, population growth, lifestyle and demographic shifts. For the current regulatory period, the Water Industry Commission for Scotland has already adopted the principles of Ethical Business Regulation.

As we work to build back better and reduce our impact on the world, the water sector must not wait to act. It must find better ways of doing things and must start looking for solutions now. Here we review the broader landscape of opportunity for insight-led sustainability in the water sector and five areas of consideration.

Water companies need to build technology partnerships

Last month, we discussed how the water industry could learn from oil and gas as it reinvents itself. Emerging technology such as analytics, AI, IoT, machine learning and smart metering have enormous potential to reduce utilities’ water footprint. Additionally, these technologies can improve productivity, cost-effectiveness and deliver remote solutions to hybrid and frontline workers.  Fundamental to building sustainable approaches is the need to increase the use of digital technology, the alignment of water industry domain expertise with cross sector collaborations and the pursuit of a comprehensive internal reskilling/upskilling programme.

Partnering with transformation companies allows for collaborative innovation ecosystems to harness these emerging technologies and drive the sustainability agenda forward.

Reducing the leak lifecycle in water companies

For the current regulatory period, Ofwat has tasked water companies to cut leakage rates by 16 percent and reduce mains bursts by 12 percent. When comparing to the improvements demanded over the last decade, this is a quantum leap. Water companies cannot simply continue to pursue strategies that have struggled to deliver typically single-digit improvements in recent years. Harnessing data and analytics is key to meet these targets. Microsoft’s cloud technology provides the foundations for organisations like EY to analyse and visualise massive quantities of data collected by sensors and pumps. Combining that data with historical information enables proactive, predictive and even prescriptive maintenance scenarios.

We believe there are five key data and analytics capabilities water companies must establish to enable effective leakage management, and step-change operational performance:

1.     Leak detection – accelerated awareness

By combining existing and long-standing data from SCADA sources with IoT and other distributed assets such as bulk meters and critical pressure points, water companies can analyse and understand pressure and flow anomalies in the supply network. Add in machine learning, and organisations can quickly identify and validate leak events. They can do this at a pace that is unrecognisable in comparison with enduring net nigh-time flow methods, which commonly require days or even weeks to elapse before catalysing on-the-ground investigations.

2.     Leak location – increased accuracy

Knowing you have a leak is only part of the problem. To fix it you must first find it. Here, the opportunity is to extend the data landscape to incorporate operational maintenance, network asset and other open and acquired datasets such as weather, soil type, council works registers, CCTV networks, utility groundworks datasets and even satellite image data. Additionally, there is substantial value and insight in establishing a segmented view of network ‘leak propensity’. In our experience, this vastly accelerates the ability of on-the-ground leakage teams to pin-point leaks up to 70 percent faster and significantly reduce the number of interventions resulting in dry holes.

3.     Intervention optimisation – enabling a digital workforce

With faster leak detection and more accurate leak location, you can rapidly make risk and priority-based decisions for human or automated job ticketing and allocation. Coupled with field-force digital enablement that combines engineers with location and asset information, the latest information is placed directly in the hands of on-the-ground teams for faster, smarter and better-informed decisions and outcomes.

4.     Network pressure – limiting collateral damage

With a focus on reducing service interruption and improving customer service, the rapid post-repair re-pressurisation of the network can often lead to destabilisation of other vulnerable assets in the area. This can create a domino-effect of leak repairs causing further outbreaks. Automated pressure balancing is increasingly common. However, to reduce destabilisation, the speed and level of recommissioning a post-repair segment of the network plays a significant role. Taking an insight-led approach over an extended period can provide support in post-repair decision making; further reducing unwanted additional leak events.

5.      Network renewal – better targeting capital investment

Traditional water and wastewater utility systems are not built for the dramatically changing stresses of climate change and rapid urbanisation. Typically, less than half of one percent of the underground asset network is replaced annually. Putting that into context, it’ll be around 200 years before the current network is refreshed in full. Yet the average pipe lifespan is considered to be around 30 years. The risk that this aging infrastructure brings – both in terms of potential failure and poor environmental compliance – is a key concern for water utilities and highlights the opportunity to embrace digital modernisation.

Therefore, an effective asset replacement strategy is informed by clearly understanding network condition and weak points. The insights common to leak detection and location can be applied with equal success to drive condition-based network replacement priorities and associated value for operational KPIs.

EY has worked with several UK water companies and have extended practical experience creating and implementing analytics-driven solutions including leak detection. In our experience, organisations pursuing an analytics-led augmentation of leak management processes can achieve:

• 25-50 percent reduction in leak awareness lead times
• Up to 70 percent precision in identifying DMA leak locations
• Up to 75 percent reduction in leak location duration
• Over 10 percent reduction in severity of I2S leakage impacts

Adapting operations and demand for efficiency and energy cost reductions

Approximately half of typical water companies’ energy spend relates to pumping clean and wastewater. Yet, many pumping head operations continue to run at fixed and highly conservative schedules aligned to peak demand.

EY found that using demand insights to optimise pumping head operation can reduce the volume and cost of energy. At the same time, it negates the impact of Triad and other punitive tariffs. Software running on Microsoft Azure’s highly scalable Platform as a Service (PaaS) optimises pumping head daily schedules. This allows them to meet customer demand while aligned to operational, safety, regulatory and water quality constraints. As a result, there were significant energy cost reductions for optimised pumping stations enabled by the integration of demand insights across seasonality, weather and external events, using advanced analytics and AI.

In our experience, organisations pursuing an analytics-led approach to clean water pumping optimisation can achieve on average:

• 1-5 percent reduction in energy consumption
• 20 percent average reduction in energy costs

These digital solutions for improved sustainability outcomes are a result of innovation ecosystems and collaborative approaches. For instance, a team from Microsoft, alongside data experts, conducted a water leakage hackathon as part of Northumbrian Water’s Innovation Festival. Analysts worked on data relating to leaks, soil types, water pressure, pipe materials and other elements that impact the likelihood and location of leaks.

Business sustainability in water companies

Sustainability is not just a subject for now. It also means investing for the future and beyond. Today, water companies have spent the bulk of sustainability investment on ODI targets and carbon reduction. They’ve focussed on the operational efficiency of assets and the workforce, leakage, and reducing environmental impact. However, we are already seeing many organisations seriously look to the future. These organisations are developing new business models that drive new revenue streams and business diversification. This is in addition to broader factors around process lifecycle emissions, operational and supply chain circularity, and community engagement.

Historically sustainability innovation initiatives have been more science projects or POCs. This is changing with a transition targeting new profitable sustainable business models and business diversification.

For example:

• Sewage sludge extraction can provide a large part of the nitrogen and phosphorous for crop production.
• Recovering ammonia from wastewater and turning it into green hydrogen fuel.
• Turning heat recovery from purification process into energy.
• Making fertiliser products from production carbon exhaust.
• Creating oxygen for commercial sale from sustainable hydrogen electrolysis.
• Extracting cellulose from the waste stream.

In addition, newer technologies such as AI and digital twins provide more efficient and sustainable ways for the industry to plan, model, simulate, and operate.

Building collaborative innovation ecosystems in water companies

As Ofwat increased sustainability standards in PR19, so did the estimation that the UK will need an extra 3.4 billion litres of water daily between 2035 and 2050.

Human-managed water systems degrade as they’re used. Circularity has the potential to achieve resource efficiency, reduce waste production and to improve environmental, economic and social sustainability. This can be achieved in the transition of wastewater treatment plants to resource recovery facilities, to recover materials and energy. Additionally, circularity can enhance resources via the use of alternative water sources such as rainwater or stormwater harvesting.

This restructuring is an opportunity for UK water companies to be a beacon for sustainability. They can drive progress in the water sector worldwide as we collectively push towards UN Sustainable Development Goals. However, for there to truly be a sustainability revolution in the water sector, we need to collaborate. This is not just between utilities, but regulators, transformation companies and other stakeholders as well. By working together, water companies can improve environmental performance, keep their assets safer, reduce costs, and deliver greater efficiencies.

Therefore, collaboration with transformation companies can play a key role. The right insights at the right time can put utilities on a path to reduce water usage and reach their customer service and sustainability goals. At the same time, technology has become more accessible, with the cost of tools like AI, IoT and smart devices decreasing. There has never been a better time to take a great leap forward to achieve a true digital transformation. Together, we can create a resilient, digital water utility for the future that embraces sustainability.

Find out more

Intelligent Energy Management Systems

Microsoft’s commitment to sustainability

Resources to empower your development teams

Sustainable software engineering

About the authors

Rik joined Microsoft at the start of 2020, with responsibility for Microsoft’s strategy across manufacturing, energy and resources in the UK. He is Microsoft’s lead when working with regulators, industry bodies, industry partners, and our largest customers to ensure Microsoft enables the needs of industry. Since joining, Rik has become a board member in techUK’s Smart Energy & Utilities working group, techUK’s Digital Twin steering board, UK Research & Innovation Manufacturing Made Smarter board, and the BIM4Water Digital Skills steering group. Prior to Microsoft, Rik worked at Cisco for 13 years, with global lead roles in energy and resource industries, IoT and security, and digital transformation.

He has an MBA in international leadership and is currently studying for a Masters in Green Economy.

Mark is a director of Ernst & Young’s insight-led transformation services in the UK. He also leads business development for the UK data and analytics practice and is an analytics subject-matter expert for the UK power and utilities sector. He works across all sectors with a focus on UK power and utility clients providing services in support of insight-led operational optimisation.

The post How water companies can reach their sustainability goals through digital modernisation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

At Microsoft, we’re also going through this journey. We’ve seen that giving people the tools to be more productive and collaborative whether in the office or at home is only one piece of the puzzle. An effective culture is one that gives people what they need to succeed. It also encourages everyone to truly be themselves. This drives a more diverse culture, and in turn, more innovation and agility for the future.

During 2020, many employees were working strictly from home. Microsoft had to work differently to extend this culture onto a digital platform. I’ve talked previously about how using this technology, especially in the manufacturing and utilities industries can help drive an innovative culture. From our learnings, we know that with the right tools and leadership, you can successfully have a transparent and collaborative culture.

Centrica also recognised this and began to survey their colleagues more frequently to check in on employee wellbeing. Their people told them that there was a growing sense of isolation. Feedback from employee groups also shared a greater need to focus on inclusivity, addressing barriers to inclusion and creating a workplace where all can thrive.

Creating a platform to share our culture change stories

In November, Centrica invited us to join their first ever Culture Hack which gave their employees a platform to come together, listen to different experiences and discuss ideas for what their culture could grow into. Culture change doesn’t always come from the top down, it can be from the bottom up and the Culture Hack was a great way to uncover the changes that were needed and to start driving them forward.

Here are three learnings from Centrica’s experience of running a Culture Hack to help you with your own culture change revolution as we enter a new world of work.

1.      Use your values to drive your culture change

At Centrica, our values act as a guide to driving this culture change, our business is founded on a 200-year heritage of serving people and our values are central to our success:

Technology helps mobilise productivity and collaboration from anywhere. Our people are already using it effectively in their day-to-day, so we leveraged it to help us start our culture change. We decided the best way for people to come together would be a specific day. Then we would have follow up communications and events designed to keep the ball rolling.

We used Microsoft Teams to host the events. We hosted one main event for keynotes and talks and then created Channels to host smaller breakout groups, based on key topics. These groups were each assigned a Microsoft and Centrica facilitator. We gave clear advice on what we wanted these breakout sessions to achieve. We provided a virtual Whiteboard template, with prepared sticky notes as well as simple guidelines on how to get the best from the session and what we wanted them to discuss.

The most difficult part of running the Culture Hack was the planning and logistical side, but it was worth the extra effort. Our tech worked perfectly. Our people were genuinely excited and engaged. We even had people wanting to join last minute, which showed how enthusiastic the team were to be involved. It was challenging to manage the individual breakout sessions based on employee availability. However, scheduling the Culture Hack as much in advance as possible will definitely help if you’re looking to run your own.

2. Encourage everyone to get involved in the culture change

Our leaders have found that the virtual way of working requires dialling up their emotional intelligence skills to improve online collaboration, demonstrate empathy, model personal resilience and look after their team as well as having the ability to listen to and coach others.

The Culture Hack was something they were completely engaged with. We also encouraged everyone to join and share feedback. It was a very empathetic, collaborative space with people sharing and listening – you truly felt like everything was being taken on board. This is something highly important for culture change. Listening to feedback and ideas is the best way to ensure everyone stays on board with the movement.

Our speakers from Centrica, Microsoft and LinkedIn were well received. They generously shared stories of their own cultural transformation journey. Our people found that it provided inspiration as well as practical tips on how organisations can make a change that matters. When organising your own Culture Hack, be sure to share personal stories. Encourage people to come off mute or use the chat window to share their own ideas.

3. Implement the quick wins and act on the bigger ideas

Following the feedback, we got so many ideas to follow up on. What’s important for our colleagues is to show that we’re hearing them and taking action. So, while some ideas may take some time to develop, we have immediately implemented the ones we could. Sometimes, this is as easy as signposting our people to programmes we already run.

For example, skills was a big topic discussed during the Culture Hack. One of our Responsible Business Ambitions is to inspire and develop 100,000 people with essential STEM skills. So, post-event we shared how to access our Learning Academy, Workday Learning App, and The Career Development Hub with our colleagues so they could start building skills. These resources already existed but employees weren’t necessarily aware of them. Having a central place where resources can be shared can go a long way to alleviating some of the challenges faced by your teams.

We also have suggested people implement a ‘Golden Hour’ – something our Irish team in Bord Gáis does already. This is an hour everyday, blocked out in diaries, around lunch time when people are encouraged to leave their computer and get some screen-free time. A Microsoft Research study found that in the last few months workers experienced reduced boundaries and struggled with work-life balance. In the office, this is normally represented by grabbing lunch with a colleague, or going for a midday walk. We want people to ensure they take their breaks during the day. By implementing this organisational-wide, we can ensure everyone can take their time without feeling guilty, and come back refreshed.

For those ideas that take a little bit longer, we’re looking forward to hosting more discussion groups to develop them. However, we told people if they wanted positive change – don’t wait.

Creating a more transparent, collaborative future

For us, running a Culture Hack in partnership with Microsoft brought people together to co-create our new world of work. We were able to:

• Help our people understand why culture change is critical to delivering Centrica’s strategy and what it looks like.
• Source their feedback/input on the type of organisation we want to be.
• Reflect on how we, as individuals, may need to shift their own mindset, actions and behaviours.
• Commit to pragmatic actions to nudge us towards the desired future culture.

People loved the opportunity to be open. They appreciated our leadership team and Microsoft showing up and genuinely taking part, sharing their culture change experiences. Our speakers were extremely popular. People are already asking us when the next sessions are running. This is just the first stage of our culture change journey.

It’s never been more important to maintain a continuous conversation and ensure that all employees voices are heard, particularly as we begin to navigate a new world of work. Centrica have been on an incredible journey and we hope that the learnings they have shared in this blog provide some helpful inspiration for your organisation’s transformation journey.

Find out more

Learn how to empower employees in the new world of work

Discover more about Centrica’s values

Drive innovation through inclusion

How to have productive and inclusive workplaces in the new normal

Resources for your development team

Discover how a DevOps culture can help high-performing teams perform even better

About the authors

Rik joined Microsoft at the start of 2020, with responsibility for Microsoft’s strategy across manufacturing, energy and resources in the UK. He is Microsoft’s lead when working with regulators, industry bodies, industry partners, and our largest customers to ensure Microsoft enables the needs of industry. Since joining, Rik has become a board member in techUK’s Smart Energy & Utilities working group, techUK’s Digital Twin steering board, UK Research & Innovation Manufacturing Made Smarter board, and the BIM4Water Digital Skills steering group. Prior to Microsoft, Rik worked at Cisco for 13 years, with global lead roles in energy and resource industries, IoT and security, and digital transformation.

He has an MBA in international leadership and is currently studying for a Masters in Green Economy.

Heather joined Centrica in 2020 as HR Director for Centrica’s Digital and Technology Services Division. Here, the focus is on reinforcing strong company culture, creating and leading employee engagement and development programs, and implementing reward and talent management strategies that enable the achievement of business goals and objectives as well as meeting the needs and aspirations of its employees. Prior to her appointment at Centrica, Heather has held senior HR leadership roles including as HR Director UK & Ireland for OTIS. Heather has also served in HR leadership roles at Virgin Media, International SOS, the Telegraph Media Group and BT Plc.

Heather holds a Bachelor of Law degree from Durham University, a Postgraduate Diploma from University of Law and is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development.

Tara Keatley joined Centrica in 2011, reporting directly into the CIO of Centrica Energy. After a whirlwind tour of Digital Technology Services (DTS), she moved into the role of DTS Transformation Strategy Manager in 2019. Tara’s main focus is on the people within DTS; ensuring that diversity and inclusion, learning and development, and wellbeing are at the forefront of a strong culture within Centrica. Tara also works closely with the DTS leadership team, concentrating on encouraging employee engagement, improving motivation and morale, and highlighting career development and capability building for our colleagues.

The post How to deliver successful culture change for the new world of work appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

We spoke to Stephen Phipson, CEO of Make UK; Phil Hadfield, Country Director of Rockwell Automation; Ruth Nic Aodih, Executive Director at McLaren Automotive; Rina Ladva, Sector Lead, Manufacturing and Resources UK at Microsoft; Thierry Malleret, Managing Partner from The Monthly Barometer; and Juergen Maier, Chair of Made Smarter.

What have been some of the positives to emerge in manufacturing this year?

While the events of this year created disruption to supply chains, processes and our daily working lives, it has been refreshing to see how manufacturing business leaders quickly adapted to reflect the new ways of working.

As we return to work and operations in the new normal, we need to take advantage of these new technologies, and we are already working with industry bodies like the HVMC and AMRC to do so. Data and analytics can help us engage customers in new ways or even create more resilient supply chains. Digital Twins and AI can help us build more agile factories, and digital workspaces can help our teams stay connected no matter where they are, securely. During the session the panel shared their thoughts on the opportunities and challenges in these areas:

Stephen Phipson: “One advantage has been to heighten the awareness of digital possibilities. We need to dispel the myth about this being incredibly complicated and expensive for SMEs. The other opportunity is the UK is a world leader in innovation in manufacturing. We need support to scale up.”

Ruth Nic Aoidh: “There is a huge amount of innovation happening in the UK and we need to bring it to market. We took the Ventilator Challenge at McLaren; one of the things it highlighted was the ‘can do’ attitude that exists in UK manufacturing already. If we work cross sector, we can achieve anything and hopefully we will see more collaboration as well.”

Rina Ladva: “One of the challenges we faced at Microsoft was not just innovating but adopting and developing what technologies we already had. Microsoft was involved in the Ventilator Challenge as well. We brought together companies who were competitors in the past, to leverage data and collaborate. Some of the collaborators never met in person. Another benefit was that things were now getting done quicker.”

Phil Hadfield: “The pandemic has really emphasised the importance of adopting digital technologies with open standards to help manufacturing achieve greater flexibility. We’re having more virtual meetings, more remote maintenance and digital modelling; we’re using digital tools to accelerate production and improve cost efficiency and to minimise human interaction in the workplace. We also need to contextualise data from smart devices more and turn it into strategic information.”

Thierry Malleret: “The pandemic has given us a chance to reset our world. The race is on to a more sustainable future. It will be accelerated by rising activism of the younger generation. A new phenomenon is the combination of youth activism and investor activism and this will accelerate over the coming months and years.”

Jurgen Maier: “COVID-19 has, no question, accelerated the need for the adoption of digital technology. But the implementation has taken place in what I’d call ‘light tech’ areas, like remote monitoring and web conferences. In terms of ‘deep tech’,  less than 20% of manufacturers are really engaging with this more complex technology. We’re brilliant innovators in Britain but we’re not very good at being integrators of technologies.”

This question then led on to policy. In order for the UK organisations to remain competitive, they need to make incremental changes to attract the right skills, talent, tech and leadership. Currently, nearly half (46%) of British organisations fall into the worst performing category, posing a real threat to UK prosperity.

What should be the role of the government?

Another key discussion topic in the session was the role of the government. The panel concluded that in order to be successful, UK organisations need strong support from the government. They can help with access to the rights tools and resources or run fund initiatives to help enable the right set of digital and data skills. Most importantly, they need to incentivise organisations in the long-term to make these changes to support the UK recovery and emerge more prosperous and drive innovation.

Stephen Phipson: “ The government has done well short term with things like the job retention scheme. But over successive administrations, we have not been long term enough… Manufacturing is a long term game. The French and Germans are taking a much longer term view with regards to support. The UK recovery is going to take longer than government first estimated.”

Phil Hadfield: “I think the situation accelerates the need for manufacturing to train employees to leverage a digital future. Manufacturing also needs to have an ongoing dialogue with academic institutions and to make engineering more appealing and diverse. This all requires help from the government.”

Rina Ladva: “I think there is definitely more we can do with government support around common data platforms and data mechanisations. We’re hearing from our customers about getting the data strategy right. We also need to empower the next generation of skills and drive digital transformation quicker.”

Ruth Nic Aodih: “The government offered welcome support in the initial stages of the pandemic. But we’re not in recovery yet. I would ask two things of the government: firstly, we need to know what the medium to long term support will look like… Recovery is optimistically 18 months away. Secondly, I’d implore government to look at the supply chain… If we don’t support the suppliers and technology-leading SMEs, we’re going to see a massive impact on the bigger manufacturers. So I would say to government, what happens next?”

Thierry Malleret: “If the UK does not embrace wholeheartedly the fourth (digital) industrial revolution, it is doomed to fail. An industrial strategy or policy doesn’t give you a competitive advantage. But you do need one. Success will depend on things like how you relate to trading partners, how you harness the power of globalisation and the Brexit outcome. But we don’t know yet how Brexit will take shape. You can’t consider industrial policies in a silo; it has to relate to other circumstances.”

Jurgen Maier: “It’s not all doom and gloom; I think the situation will rally the industry, people will get incredibly passionate and, through innovation, we will find a way to get through this period. However, it would be incredibly helpful as an antidote to all of this, especially since we have Brexit on top of everything else, if we could learn more from Germany and France and inject a bit more of their long termism and their scale of investment.”

Creating a blueprint for UK competitiveness and innovation

A clear call to action from the panel’s industry experts is now is the time to build on our people’s skills and technology to drive innovation for not just recovery, but to create a competitive and exciting shared future for the UK.

This was emphasised in a recent study by Goldsmiths, University of London in partnership with Microsoft. It found that the UK economy could receive a £48 billion boost if companies leveraged digital technology to enable agile changes to employee and cultural transformation.

In the research, Clare Barclay, CEO of Microsoft UK, said: “UK organisations face a unique moment…The tech intensity that was starting to gather pace before the pandemic struck has become turbocharged – to keep up, leaders must act decisively and quickly. Small changes in approach to investment, people and technology can quickly boost the UK’s competitiveness, giving our economy the best chance of success in the post-COVID and post-Brexit era.”

To successfully navigate the current climate, and importantly thrive in the future, there is a need to deliver against four key areas:

• Talent
• Technology
• Future readiness
• The ecosystem.

Together, these four dimensions represent the key ingredients in any organisation’s future success.

In the research there was huge emphasis on the fourth area – the ecosystem and partnerships. It found that a collaborative approach, is absolutely essential to accelerate innovation and industry transformation, both at pace, and at scale. This is why Rockwell Automation and Microsoft are committed to working together to help customers deliver the right skills and technology to successfully navigate the current uncertain climate in manufacturing, and prepare as well as possible for the  new normal that is already emerging.

[msce_cta layout=”image_center” align=”center” linktype=”blue” imageurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-us/industry/blog/wp-content/uploads/sites/22/2020/10/recover.jpg” linkurl=”http://approjects.co.za/?big=en-gb/business/uk-recovery/” linkscreenreadertext=”Download the report: Creating a blueprint for UK competitiveness” linktext=”Download the report” imageid=”42599″ ][/msce_cta]

About the authors

Rik joined Microsoft at the start of 2020, with responsibility for Microsoft’s strategy across manufacturing, energy and resources in the UK. He is Microsoft’s lead when working with regulators, industry bodies, industry partners, and our largest customers to ensure Microsoft enables the needs of industry. Since joining, Rik has become a board member in techUK’s Smart Energy & Utilities working group, techUK’s Digital Twin steering board, UK Research & Innovation Manufacturing Made Smarter board, and the BIM4Water Digital Skills steering group. Prior to Microsoft, Rik worked at Cisco for 13 years, with global lead roles in energy and resource industries, IoT and security, and digital transformation.

He has an MBA in international leadership and is currently studying for a Masters in Green Economy.

Phil studied with the Open University, where he gained his BSC (Hons) in Engineering, in 2000.

He joined Rockwell Automation in 2005 and has over 20 years of automation sales experience in a variety of different industries. He is responsible for overseeing continued growth of Rockwell Automation products, solutions and services in the UK, and leading the continued expansion of The Connected Enterprise principles that help its customers expand human possibility in the era of Industry 4.0.

A registered STEM ambassador he is passionate about enthusing the next generation of engineers, Phil has also recently been engaged across EMEA in a strategic role relating to the company’s investment into PTC.

Follow Phil on LinkedIn where he publishes his blogs and other company news, and posts regularly on issues most important for UK industry and its growing importance to the UK economy.

The post The future of manufacturing and innovation appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Rising unemployment, changing income levels, remote work, and other elements of a COVID-19 world are impacting consumer spending and forging new customer behaviours. To ensure that utility companies emerge from this crisis on top, new data and new approaches must be implemented.

Our partner SparkBeyond highlights a number of ways data and analytics can provide tangible and practical business outcomes as we transition towards the ‘new normal’.

For deeper insight on these use cases, visit the webinar recording where we and the SparkBeyond team discuss in more detail.

Data and analytics are driving impact in a big way

Traditionally, data models are manually created by internal data science teams and embedded in solutions bought by a business. While relied upon for decades, they have become rigid and lack real time applications. By leveraging AI, utilities can benefit from more flexible models that automate pattern recognition as new data appears. These adaptive models are the key to identifying trends in real time as the economy evolves and pricing changes. This will help businesses meet consumer demand.

There’s a real opportunity to innovate now and shape what that ‘new normal’ will look like and not wait for it to happen. Using data as an asset, taking advantage of best practice partnerships is really the key to accelerate that journey.

Here are four ways that data science and AI can help utility organisations drive impact and achieve successful outcomes:

1. Combine resources

Conventional work processes have undergone a fundamental shift. Remote work, once considered a perk of office culture, has become the norm. Therefore, the ability to access and utilise resources from wherever you or your employees are is a must.

Utilities can combine productivity applications, cloud technology services, and security systems together. Teams in multiple locations can cross-train one another, collaborate on inter-departmental projects, and work together harmoniously.

Transform the way you work from wherever your people are.

2. Forecast changes with AI

The ability to discover where delays may occur in the supply chain or the particular elements that are likely to drive up costs is simply invaluable.

Your internal teams such as engineering and asset and customer care and marketing, can leverage data science platforms. They can discover a range of explainable insights, identify at-risk areas of business and prevent problems before they happen. They can also forecast demand by identifying hidden patterns buried deep in data, understanding key drivers of new customer behaviours.

For example, one utility company sought to predict levels of water pollution build-up to ensure operations continued uninterrupted. They were unable to leverage external data sets such as geo-spatial data (SHAPE files). This was because of the technical difficulties involved with integration and alignment. This meant the company was not able to consider external factors which were impacting the company’s operations, such as restaurants and farms in the immediate vicinity of water pumping stations. Previous consultancies had armed them with just one actionable insight after three months.

Using external data sets such as census, weather reports, demographical data, OpenStreetMap, and others with Azure Data and AI stack, SparkBeyond discovered hundreds of new drivers of water pollution. This included the effects of the weather, all the way through to uncovering geo-spatial insights such as the impact of farms and restaurants. To help the company mitigate additional risk, these insights were used to create a unique risk scoring method for each pumping station. Glassbox explainability meant that everyone, from engineers through to the CEO, could interpret the insights and the model’s predictions as well as take confidence to their accuracy.

3. Personalise the customer experience

Take the economic impact of COVID-19 for example. This has caused lower incomes and higher unemployment rates. Making the likelihood of payment defaults driven by unaffordability higher than ever.

What if we could uncover new drivers of at-risk utility customers?

Using a combination of historical payment information, demographical data, marketing reports, and customer interactions, utilities can detect early trend signals and predict which customers are more likely to default. This creates new opportunities to prioritise certain services to the most at-risk customers. You can help them avoid payment default while optimising customer retention efforts.

4. Reduce customer churn

The most effective way to lower churn is to understand why customers leave. Data scientists and existing solutions can predict which customers will churn, but not why. In turn customer service and marketing teams can struggle to implement effective customer retention efforts.

Did you know that the day a customer is called can impact the likelihood of churning? Or that low team performance can be attributed to sales reps’ outdated call scripts?

AI can spot weaknesses in the supply chain, leading to the discovery of unique, explainable insights that were previously unexplored. Rapidly searching connections in both internal and external datasets and automatically combining features can uncover micro segments and create new ones.

For the utilities sector, these connections explain why – and when – customers churn. Feature discovery helps business leaders create new ways of customer engagement such as virtual assists and remote digital services.

To lower customer churn and create effective engagement, utility companies must accelerate digital transformation programmes. They can engage customers in new ways and help engage them for a powerful and positive impact.

Using data and analytics to find the unknowns

Data science teams and solutions only find the insights the human data scientist thinks to test and code for manually. This means companies will only find the insights they expect.

But with AI you can discover deeper insights quicker, as there are no long manual processes. With SparkBeyond on Azure, for example, you can combine internal data with a rich source of external datasets, such as geospatial, weather, economic, and demographic data. But it’s about more than in-depth analytics. It’s about asking the right questions to solve problems unique to the Utility sector.

The SparkBeyond platform eliminates the need for internal data science teams to manually search for patterns and correlations. Human limitation causes analysts to find connections only where they think to look. But SparkBeyond on Azure removes the limitations of human intelligence, time and bias. It can – even without large data sets – search for small, subtle patterns that generate maximum impact. The platform leverages all possible data sources. This removes the need for complex data to find the unknowns and the unexplored, revealing key drivers of change.

Utilities can emerge from this crisis on top by implementing AI-powered, data science-backed solutions now.

The power of data analytics and AI can be realised today – it is not just a thing for the future.

“Just as the widespread adoption of computerised spreadsheets in the 1990s unlocked new ways to understand and manipulate data, so too does the current explosion in new data tools and analytical techniques promise to elevate utilities’ understanding about their operations and customers. The first important step in unlocking that value is for utility executives to realise the current potential of analytics and experiment with the tools they already have.”

Bain and Company

Embracing data and analytics

Quick wins are required to prove the value of data and analytics. However, utilities are already seeing the operational and financial benefits today. The overall journey to a consistent business-focussed data platform may take some time, but the millions of pounds in value will not be possible without embracing advanced analytics and AI.

Keep an eye out for the next exciting addition to the back to work series, when we hear practical customer examples of how technology has enabled and transformed the workforce experience.

Find out more

Create intelligent apps with Azure AI

About the authors

Rik is responsible for establishing and driving Microsoft’s strategy and position in manufacturing, energy, and resources in the UK.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Rik worked at Cisco for 13 years, with global roles in digital transformation, IoT/IIoT, and security in energy and process industries, specialising in new and emerging technology adoption. He created a number of global solutions, validated designs, training and collateral for industrial environments, with a focus on the OT/operational domain.

Rik has worked in various standards bodies/consortia including Open Process Automation, IEC61850, IEC62351, and been UK Cigre SCD2 Lead.

He has written for industry publications and journals, authored multiple technical and business white papers, and is a published author with a book on advanced security for IoT/IIoT.

Rik holds a Bachelor’s Degree, and an MBA focused on international leadership.

George has over 10 years’ experience helping companies in the energy sector navigate rapid change. Formerly Asia Pacific Commercial Director at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, George looks after SparkBeyond’s energy, utilities, and power customer practice, and helps them supercharge their AI ambitions. George has also written several blogs on the subject of energy and AI.

SparkBeyond is a Top 15 global data and AI Microsoft partner used across many Global Fortune 2000 names. SparkBeyond is also McKinsey’s global AI platform.

The post 4 ways data and analytics can help the utilities sector in the new normal appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

Firstly, it will have an impact on how an organisation is able to operate and respond throughout this period. Safety, physical distancing, moving to remote working where possible, and potential staff shortages will all affect an organisation. Secondly, it will likely change how utilities look to operate in the future.

The future of utilities: driving digital

For some of our customers, we’ve found the focus for them has purely been supporting core business activities and keeping the grid reliable. However, for others it has presented an opportunity to accelerate their digital optimisation and transformation strategy.

The industry is already transforming. To succeed in the future of the utilities industry, the right balance between reinventing, growing its core business, and expanding into new business models and revenue streams must be maintained. The IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Utilities 2020 Predictions Report highlights a few statistics:

The journey to an agile organisation

Digital technology is clearly not new for utilities, but for many, COVID-19 has rapidly accelerated adoption. Utility organisations have reacted quickly and in some cases, have started to actively explore how their business will operate in the future. The future of the utilities industry will focus on digital dexterity. We’re already seeing a less technology risk-averse customer appear.

To help with this process we are supporting in three key ways:

1. Navigate the now: Supporting our customers’ most pressing needs to maintain business continuity despite the disruptions and restrictions of the moment.
2. Plan the comeback: Helping our customers prepare to rebound their business as restrictions ease in a time of continued uncertainty and upheaval.
3. Shape the new normal: Helping to reimagine our customers’ business models to leverage insights, streamline operations, and realise business efficiencies to succeed in an environment that will likely be permanently altered from pre-pandemic times.

Many are still very much focussed on the first two phases. This includes; employee safety, business continuity, expanding remote operations, and finding new ways to engage with customers.

There is also a desire to accelerate back to a ‘new normal’, or at least a new way of operating. Utility businesses are well prepared. However, there are a number of ways to enhance the response to potential issues that arise in the short-term. This can even be done while allowing new ways of working in the future.

We’ll take a look at how the utilities sector can leverage technology to gain these capabilities in order to operate as effectively as possible.

Impact on industry and rising trends

The delivery of power services will continue as normal as utilities focus on core operational business activities. However, construction, renewables, and new business projects are likely to be impacted due to logistical and supply chain issues.

We’ve seen shifting consumption patterns and drop in demand as well as customer churn and bill revenue losses. This will make the future more difficult to forecast. UK energy companies will find themselves re-prioritising IT tasks and managing customer expectations differently.

However, the International Renewable Energy Agency doesn’t believe COVID-19 will impact the transition to net-zero C02 emissions. Now is a great opportunity to assess and address sustainability opportunities ready for a ‘greener’ new normal.

How digital technology opens key opportunities for utilities

Businesses are responding and planning their comeback. We’re focussing on working closely with utility businesses to maximise the impact of their digital technology investment.

Our customers are exploring opportunities to work differently, and this will have the maximum business impact. This includes increasing remote monitoring and automation to reduce onsite presence and streamline operations.

By increasing digital engagement, utilities will leverage new channels and technologies to deliver more personalised customer experiences. The use of analytics to drive personalised customer experiences, including proactively contacting at-risk customers, is a new area to adopt.

Most utility organisations had to implement various forms of social distancing, including quickly enabling a remote workforce. Moving to remote collaboration tools and cloud-based platforms not only empowers a remote workforce, but keeps firstline workers onsite connected.

Use forward-looking strategies for agility now and tomorrow

The utilities sector must ensure that it has forward-looking strategies in place to address various scenarios that may arise during the three phases. Business continuity will remain of paramount importance. This is to ensure the grid stays reliable and workers and customers stay safe and healthy.

There is a real opportunity to consider future investments in a greener and sustainable power system. The UK government is formulating policies to stimulate the economy. Energy infrastructure that will help meet future carbon reduction targets is a strong area for investment. Utilities have an opportunity to increase their investment and focus on efficient and carbon-reducing energy infrastructure that is sustainable, technologically advanced, and future-focussed.

To be successful in the future of the utilities industry, organisations must continue a journey of digital agility. Look at technology and processes aligned to optimisation and innovation. You must also learn to follow a ‘business innovation sprint’ mindset: think big, scale fast, and fail fast.

Roberta Bigliani, Vice President of IDC Energy Insights sums this up well:

“It is not easy, but utilities must maintain the right balance between reinventing and growing their core business while expanding into new business models to get new revenue streams. This requires top management to balance investments accordingly, to have the courage to challenge the status quo, and to disrupt the old ways of working — opening companies to the ecosystem to ignite innovation and recruit scarce talent. It also requires a new company culture — less bureaucratic and more agile — with the goal of making companies relevant, resilient, and more flexible toward risk”

In the next blog in this series we will dive deeper into the customer experience and asset optimisation areas, with new insights from our partner SparkBeyond.

Find out more

Learn how to support resilient operations

About the author

Rik is responsible for establishing and driving Microsoft’s strategy and position in energy and resources in the UK.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Rik worked at Cisco for 13 years, with global roles in digital transformation, IoT/IIoT, and security in energy and process industries, specialising in new and emerging technology adoption. He created a number of global solutions, validated designs, training and collateral for industrial environments, with a focus on the OT/operational domain.

Rik has worked in various standards bodies/consortia including Open Process Automation, IEC61850, IEC62351, and been UK Cigre SCD2 Lead.

He has written for industry publications and journals, authored multiple technical and business white papers, and is a published author with a book on advanced security for IoT/IIoT.

Rik holds a Bachelor’s Degree, and an MBA focused on international leadership.

The post Digital agility: the future of the utilities industry appeared first on Microsoft Industry Blogs - United Kingdom.

This is a period where utilities can focus on digital dexterity – actively engaging new technology to enable and transform business operations. This is to ensure the grid meets the reliability and safety requirements customers and regulators demand.

It’s not just about being innovative and flexible with technology. The trust in digital and the new working patterns it enables must also be addressed through people and culture. A data-driven strategy combining technology, people, and processes in a trusted environment will help employees and customers navigate changes where a timely response is of the essence. This will set energy utilities on a path of future success.

A few ways you can do this is to take a cloud-centric approach and make use of collaboration tools. Data and analytics will help employees maintain effective customers engagements but you may also need to think about new approaches to accurately forecast energy trading and the debt position that will arise as a result of shifting demand patterns.

Here are four ways to help with internal and external digital dexterity.

1.      Workforce transformation

Most utilities have planned for, and already implemented changes to the way they work, from reducing meeting sizes to fully closing-down work locations and preparing contingency field workers.

IT teams are closely working with their colleagues on network and communications infrastructure. They need to ensure continuity of business is maintained while you move to a remote workforce, including keeping data secure. Moving to remote collaboration tools and cloud-based platforms alleviates on-site staffing issues, enables speed of decision-making, and allows for remote expertise to be brought in from any location. Employees will also need the skills to be confident and get the best out of these platforms. Some type of re- or up-skilling may be required to ensure the trust needed.

What it means for businesses

Think of this as an opportunity to assess future workforce patterns. Combine your data and analytics with intelligence on cloud-based platforms like Dynamics 365 to provide better business outcomes and customer experiences. These will also allow your workforce to access the information they need, when they need it, quickly and securely from wherever they are.

What it means for employees

Working remotely doesn’t mean being isolated. Microsoft Teams lets employees chat, meet, or collaborate quickly and securely. There’s app integration for maintenance, job scheduling, job task completion, documentation, remote assistance, and it works on a range of devices for field-based, office-based, or home workers.

By inputting a degree of automation and using platforms that simplify processes, your employees will also have time to invest in up-skilling to match the workplace transformation.

What it means for customers

By moving to cloud-based platforms, you can provide a single view of a customer. This means you’ll be able to provide up to date, contextually relevant information to your customers. Solve problems quicker, and use data to create better experiences.

2.      Customer experience

Call centre staffing and availability will be impacted, this means you can leverage new technologies such as chatbots, apps, and websites to deliver digital customer experiences. The biggest impacts on customers will be an increase to their energy bill as they work from home and potentially also an inability to pay. Use analytics to better engage with customers, predict customer churn, and identify vulnerable customers where you can proactively offer help.

What it means for businesses

Use a platform like Dynamics 365 to give employees a single view of customer information and lean on digital channels to support impacted call centre staff.

Use PowerApps to create easy tools that can quickly inform employees of new information, points of contact, and give them the ability to update their managers on their changing situation.

What it means for employees

Automated chatbots can help answer frequently asked questions. Data and analytics will provide customer-specific information and engagement suggestions as well. These will help give employees more time and knowledge to provide personalised customer support.

What it means for customers

Both business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C) customers will be impacted. Consider reverting rates to non-time-of-use tariffs, allow customers to modify their energy plans mid-cycle, introduce bill payment holidays, and proactively contact customers to offer advice.

3.      Remote monitoring and automation

Reduce physical onsite presence and streamline operations, with IoT technologies for remote monitoring, remote control, and automation of simple tasks. You can then take advantage of the data collected to create processes and quickly adapt to changing working patterns. Deliver an intelligent, connected field service by moving from a costly break–fix model to proactive, predictive maintenance.

What it means for businesses

By enhancing facilities and assets with technology and equipping field workers with mobility tools, you can use data to predict, detect, and resolve issues before they become a problem, saving you time and money. Timely data analysis will focus operational activities, prioritising work with essential assets and deferring the maintenance schedule of those less critical.

What it means for employees

Your technicians will have the time, tools, and information they need to resolve problems correctly the first time. Use remote assist and augmented reality to allow technicians to collaborate more efficiently by working together from different locations.

What it means for customers

Remote monitoring and automation ensure consistent and dependable operations, meaning less downtime.

4.      Understand and forecast change

Focus on forecasting and prediction for an ongoing drop in demand (US energy consumption was three percent lower in March 2020 than in 2019, a loss of about three years of sales growth), and a shift in energy consumption patterns, not just on your network, but in the context of customer churn and bill revenue losses. Use innovative technologies such as AI and analytics on both forecasting and debt models to ensure forecasts do not swing wildly and drive up costs.

What it means for businesses

Data and analytics can further enhance the complex forecasting models of today. This will add additional resilience in predicting demand, future buying patterns, and shifting debt position. The increase in home energy consumption won’t fill the gap left by the drop from industrial customers. With a moving timeline due to economic unpredictability, accurate forecasting has increased relevance. There is opportunity to focus on renewable energy integration and tying dynamic grid balancing into new business models for real-time prediction.

What it means for employees

Employees will be able to drive change quickly using precise load forecasting to ensure operations aren’t interrupted in the coming months and preventing power outages. AI and data analytics can help reduce stress levels for your employees by taking over certain administrative tasks. They will then be able to focus on more critical work, improving the efficiency of internal processes, leading to reduced cost, and improved service.

What it means for customers

You will be in a better position to provide a reliable service to customers. Also you will ensure costs are not driven up due to fluctuating forecasts. This is especially critical as customers may have an inability to pay bills or seek payment holidays.

Support your customers and employees

By maximising the impact of AI, data, and analytics, you can gain better operational resilience and business digital dexterity. You’ll also be able to provide stable and empathetic customer experiences. With these tools and an environment of trust, your employees will feel supported and empowered.

Find out more

5 tips to keep your remote team engaged and motivated

About the author

Rik is responsible for establishing and driving Microsoft’s strategy and position in energy and resources in the UK.

Prior to joining Microsoft, Rik worked at Cisco for 13 years, with global roles in digital transformation, IoT/IIoT, and security in energy and process industries, specialising in new and emerging technology adoption. He created a number of global solutions, validated designs, training and collateral for industrial environments, with a focus on the OT/operational domain.

Rik has worked in various standards bodies/consortia including Open Process Automation, IEC61850, IEC62351, and been UK Cigre SCD2 Lead.

He has written for industry publications and journals, authored multiple technical and business white papers, and is a published author with a book on advanced security for IoT/IIoT.

Rik holds a Bachelor’s Degree, and an MBA focused on international leadership.

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