One of the biggest challenges faced by the E&U industry is the excessive redundancy in the manual data collection process. Although it is not the most reliable means of recording data, many businesses still use pen and paper. Therefore, employees then must convert data across formats, which not only consumes a lot of time but also increases the risk of human errors.

Data challenges in the utility industry also manifest in other ways. With digital transformation in place, businesses are overwhelmed with data, coming from different business functions such as research, growth, emissions, consumption, transmission, and distribution – making it really challenging for businesses to keep track of source of each data point and generate a data lineage.

It becomes extremely difficult to determine which data to emphasise on and what it means. However, this gathered data can be understood well with the integration of the centralised asset management systems. This industry needs to adopt modern solutions that are smart, customizable, innovative, and efficient; to stay relevant in the current age of digital transformation.

Continue reading the blog to discover how the power of data can be harnessed when integrated with IT systems and in delivering personalised experiences to the end users -

1. Automating Data Lifecycle Management processes

The process of manually summating the data can be made easier by leveraging modern data platforms covering from data acquisition stage till the data reporting layer. A plethora of data cataloguing tools, appended with analytical tool kits, Artificial Intelligence (AI) driven machine learning models can help in integrating real-time data along with the operational dataset, turning the analytics reports to be more meaningful and insightful. It will help organisations make more accurate decisions in many areas including work and outage planning, regulatory compliance, emergency response, and customer service and support. Further advancements in these technologies have made the complicated and predictive modelling simpler to help improve decision-making in this industry.

2. Faster Data Processing for Real-Time Analytics

According to McKinsey, “the Oil & Gas industry faces a $200 billion performance gap. In their research, offshore platforms operate at a maximum capacity of 77% on average. When appropriately used, data-driven analytics can yield up to 30-50 times the investment within a few months.”

To preserve a competitive edge and adapt to new business models, monetising data and fact-based decision-making have become essential. By using powerful analytical tools, it is now much easier to evaluate real-time data, trends, and activities, which not only makes it simpler to assess client behaviour but also to derive new insights and deliver targeted communication that meets their demands. The other added advantages include - increased production and oil recovery rates, better operations, innovation in exploration, and predictive maintenance.

3. Improving Customer Services & Operations

Utility companies are gradually recognising that clients, not ratepayers, should be treated as such. Hence, these companies have started making investments in their game to enhance customer engagement. Companies in the energy sector are creating user-friendly designs and adopting new digital channels to facilitate faster transactions. As utilities continue to build their customer engagement programs, data will become the cornerstone to share personalised insights with the consumers. By integrating customer data with asset insights and field service data, they can transform the way utilities quickly respond to customer complaints and successfully manage customer expectations during outages, thus simplifying operations and boosting productivity.

For the largest Gas Distribution Network Company in the UK, Espire recently provided End-to-End Managed Services for Efficient Issue Resolution & improving Customer Experience and Business Experience with 100% up-time of mission-critical applications. Read more >>

4. Enhancing Prediction Accuracy & Outage detection

Despite the efforts of the energy industry businesses, there are still power outages that leave a sizable number of people without power. In this sense, people frequently blame blackouts on the collapse of the electrical networks. But as a result of the automatic protection system's operation, the blackout is a preventative step. The energy systems engineers previously relied on static algorithms and models as opposed to real-time solutions. However, the employment of modern smart power outage communication systems by energy and utility-related businesses can help in improving outage detection and prediction such as the effect of weather conditions on the power grid, possible outages in the specified area and so on.

Refer to our latest ebook to explore the Top 6 technology trends and how our Total Experience solutions are building business resilience & driving customer loyalty for Energy & Utility businesses in 2022 & beyond >> https:// www.espire.com/ebook/Top-6-tech-trends-for-energy-and-utilities-in-2022-and-beyond

Espire Infolabs is a Digital Transformation and Total Experience (TX) Solutions provider with a Cross-Enterprise approach to deliver future-ready services that are resilient to market disruptions. With focus on TX, we are paving way for enterprises to deploy & deliver the best Customer Experience (CX), Employee Experience (EX), and Business Experience (BX) – with overarching service offerings around Multi-Experience (MX), and User Experience (UX).

To explore more about our offerings in E&U space visit us at >> https:// www.espire.com/industries/energy-and-utilities