Digital Transformation for Energy & Utilities Sector

Digital transformation is fast becoming the key business driver in each industry, and energy and utilities organizations are no exception to this trend. The energy and utilities sector has undergone fundamental shifts in the last few years. The disruption caused by the pandemic has influenced these organizations to undertake various digital initiatives and accelerate their processes. According to a 2021 survey by Accenture, 96% of utility executives have reported that their firms were innovating with urgency and call-to-action.

Digital transformation has become crucial for the organizations in the sector due to the following associated advantages:

• Better customer experience
• Enhanced operational efficiency
• Improved project implementation
• Increased top line and bottom line

Key Challenges Encountered

Despite their investments in modern, cutting-edge technologies, many organizations in the energy and utilities sector are yet to leverage the power of digital to its fullest. This is mainly because of the following reasons:

• The organizations in the sector still rely on the disconnected transactional and operational systems
• The systems might be efficient for handling simpler transactional cycles but fall short of managing the end-to-end process lifecycle

A Unified Platform is the Way Forward

To fast-track their digital transformation, utility organizations must break the practice of digitizing in silos and automate their end-to-end process lifecycle. It is critical for organizations to adopt a unified project management system to digitize the entire project lifecycle, including streamlining documents, processes, people, and devices.

A unified platform enables these organizations to streamline their functions, such as submittals under multiple disciplines. Furthermore, the platform routes these functions to the appropriate processing channel through a document-intensive or template-based workflow. This ensures better operational efficiency and reduced maintenance-related overheads for the organizations in the sector and helps them stay ahead of the curve.

Webinar: Turbocharge Digital Transformation in the Energy and Utilities Sector

Recently Newgen and Ernst & Young (EY) hosted a webinar where Vinit Mishra (Director-Technology Consulting, Power and Utilities, EY) and I shared our insights, ideas, and opinions on why accelerating digital transformation is now a top priority for energy and utilities organizations.

The webinar consisted of an in-depth discussion on the following aspects:

• How digital transformation is driving innovation across various industries
• Challenges encountered by organizations that are unable to leverage the power of digital
• Need for organizations to stop ‘doing digital’ and start ‘being digital’
• Key findings of the survey based on the digital transformation trends in the energy and utilities sector
• Top ten digital transformation predictions in the utilities sector
• Major challenges associated with document engineering, project engineering, and document management
• Advantages brought by a unified platform for streamlining processes like engineering drawings, maintenance workflow, incident reporting, etc.
• Case studies, best practices, and way forward

Watch the full recording of the webinar to learn more.