While IT investments in utilities companies remain focused on delivering cost savings and efficiency gains, customer-related initiatives are increasing in importance.
Against a backdrop of a market environment that involves more off-grid generation, non-fossil fuel generation, and new sources of energy supply, providing consistent, reliable energy to Australian consumers and businesses will be increasingly challenging and require a whole new set of investments.
In 2014, the Australian utility sector ICT spending reached $1.7 billion, representing 4 per cent of total Australian ICT spending – a figure which is forecast to grow to $1.9 billion by 2018. Spending by the Australian utility sector on ICT will remain moderate, with a 2 per cent five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR).
“Although overall IT priorities amongst utilities organisations in Australia are conservative – we are seeing investment in third platform technologies continue, as companies seek to drive efficiency across all parts of the business,” says Emilie Ditton, head of Asia Pacific Energy Insights. “In particular, we are seeing IT workloads moving into the cloud, investment in mobility technologies, particularly across field teams, and an ongoing increased focus on driving excellence in customer experience.”
According to IDC, security and cloud investments are the leading strategic priorities, reflecting the fundamental role that data and data integration will play for utilities. This is driven by changing requirements around utility network management, fulfillment and customer experience. Utilities will need to have in place consistent and forward-looking data strategies enabling approaches to data collection, storage, access and utilisation across IT and operational approaches.
“Being a services sector, utilities organisations will increasingly strive to deliver to the expectations of their customers – to prove accurate and timely information and quality services. For most utilities this is less trivial than it sounds and data will be the foundation that these capabilities are based on,” said Ditton.
