Ahead of SAP for Utilities, Presented by ASUG (September 9–11, 2024, Fontainebleau Miami Beach; register now!), gain insights from Michael Wooldridge, Enterprise Account Executive - Regulated Industries, at Redwood Software.
Utility companies, like businesses in other industries, have faced significant technological challenges over the past few decades. However, the pace of evolution in utilities — especially of customer, regulatory, and sustainability demands — has never been faster.
Grid usage is increasing as electric vehicles become more popular, but high interest rates and exploding labor costs have made traditionally expensive grid expansion projects even more expensive. And leaders are looking at how they can use data from ERPs, Internet of Things (IoT) meters, HR systems, generative artificial intelligence (AI) tools, and more to drive down operational costs and make better decisions about everything from resourcing to permitting.
IT modernization and access to clean, fluid data are vital for enabling these objectives. Migrating from legacy systems presents both a risk (back-end exposure) and an opportunity to set the stage for new, innovative technologies and next-generation ERP.
Cloud migrations and front-end innovation in the form of new end-user applications have been the focus for many organizations because of their direct impact on customer experience and revenue generation goals. But for these solutions to thrive and provide your users with the necessary insights for success, you must prioritize modernizing your full IT architecture, including the aging tools that were built for a different era of computing.
The Importance of Full IT Modernization for Reliable Data Flow
Even with a focus on digital transformation and front-end innovations, you could still be falling behind in upgrading the critical back-end systems that support core business processes. When you’re burdened by legacy infrastructures and solutions, it’s difficult to evolve in the face of ever-changing economic conditions, increasingly complex operations, customer behaviors, market trends, and new technologies. Outdated systems typically don’t perform well under stress and are prone to catastrophic failures, which could forever damage your company’s bottom line and reputation.
Modernizing just your front-end technologies and processes will not deliver better customer experiences if your back-end billing and invoicing processes are archaic and poor. The back end is what connects everything. True IT modernization and seamless data flow cannot happen if you simply tackle the front end. Accessible data in a clean-core environment is a major benefit of solutions like SAP S/4HANA Cloud and acts as the foundation for harnessing AI capabilities as these technologies evolve.
Roadblocks Impeding Data-Driven Decisions
While data should enable you to make better, more informed decisions to meet modern utilities-specific challenges, it has to be high-quality data. Collecting and handling the volume and complexity of data the industry requires means coming to terms with how disjointed your back-end processes and tools are and thinking beyond meter-to-cash (M2C) to develop reliable data pipelines.
At Redwood Software, we encounter some utility providers with 25+ data sources, many of them coming from the SAP Utilities Core—meter data, billing and accounting data, insights, and more. With no integrated workflow orchestration and an inability to achieve real-time processing, they’re drowning in inefficiencies and can’t piece together meaning from what should be valuable information.
End-to-end automation is the solution: the best way to gather, cleanse, transform, segment, and store the data that will optimize your processes, enhance your customer experiences, and drive your business improvements. It allows you to lower operational costs by accounting for complex dependencies and the needs of multiple business functions.
By establishing an IT foundation with an automated, modern, connected enterprise, your organization can truly embrace next-generation technologies, including SAP S/4HANA Cloud, generative AI, and predictive maintenance solutions. Armed with these tools, you can leverage data to improve operations and meet current demands—from customers, infrastructure assets, and regulatory bodies.
Bringing your back end up to speed minimizes the risk of breakdown and guarantees the smooth execution of everyday processes that generate, move, and depend on data.
Considerations for Successful Modernization
What stops some organizations from getting there? Many are overwhelmed at the mere thought of a massive IT modernization project. But, as the utility industry embraces the cloud, leveraging modern enterprise workload automation (WLA) alongside cloud ERP solutions like SAP S/4HANA Cloud, WLA is becoming a non-negotiable component of a successful digital transformation.
There are a few ways to streamline this process:
- Pay attention to the warning signs. The longer you ignore a “check engine” light, the bigger and more costly the issue could become.
- Partner with forward-thinking software providers that prioritize innovation and adaptability while considering specific business needs. They’ll offer solutions that adapt to technological changes to ensure your ecosystems scale easily and don’t become obsolete.
- Safeguard your organization with purpose-built WLA. Instead of fighting to make monolithic, inflexible systems work, opt to orchestrate and build reliable, efficient end-to-end processes.
The Power of a Single Point of Control
As your utility company enacts large-scale IT modernization projects, you’ll need a tool that feeds critical data through all systems—both SAP and non-SAP—to accurately schedule, orchestrate and consistently and complete complex processes.
When utility organizations migrate to RunMyJobs by Redwood, our full stack workload automation solution, they experience a 180° turn in more ways than one.
- Once unable to provide quick answers to customers, their call center agents now have real-time data when they need it.
- Operations leaders, previously in the dark, get alerts about bottlenecks, allowing them to make decisions that improve safety and efficiency.
- IT team members get full visibility into granular process performance, including M2C, and no longer have to worry about failed updates or unclear dependencies.
- Industry challenges remain a consistent concern but with accurate and timely information, leaders can better adapt, stay competitive and continue to innovate.
See what these changes look like for Anglian Water and SWM in the real world.
These are examples of the powerful potential of automating end-to-end processes across all SAP and non-SAP systems and applications, regardless of infrastructure, and making them visible in a single pane of glass. Many utility companies are optimizing their end-to-end processes with RunMyJobs, leveraging its low-code, drag-and-drop interface and extensive connector catalog to quickly build automations across both SAP and non-SAP systems.
With the most SAP integration certifications of any WLA solution, including Industry Cloud for Utilities, RunMyJobs has a secure gateway that connects with SAP systems without the need to install agents or provide customer scripting. This agentless connectivity supports SAP’s clean core principles, making RunMyJobs the only WLA solution for which SAP Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) offers managed services to connect to and perform advanced monitoring of automations in an SAP customer’s RISE environment.
Learn more about how your organization could benefit from Redwood’s two decades of partnership with SAP and gain peace of mind during your cloud migration.
For more insights from Redwood Software, attend SAP for Utilities, Presented by ASUG (September 9–11, 2024, Fontainebleau Miami Beach); register now!