brave new world – how to realise the benefits of investment in technology from day one
Co-written by John Lillistone, Director of Water, Arqiva
It is hard not to get excited about new technology at the start of a new AMP cycle. Regulation in the sector is getting tougher and significant penalties for failing targets are taking effect. So, as billions of pounds are released there is a clear case for investing in technology as the perfect way to address and mitigate these risks and improve performance. But buyer beware, to realise the true value of such investments, companies will need to think carefully about the real problem they are trying to solve and have a clear understanding of how new technology will integrate into the business from day one. If not, the investment may not realise the exciting benefits set out in the business case. Technology is just one part of the picture - how the business, its processes and people need to adapt to accommodate the new way of working is often forgotten in the excitement.
Beware the pitfalls
John Lillistone from Arqiva, industry leaders in UK communications infrastructure, has seen where both the benefits and pitfalls can lay. The company is working with the water industry to deploy radio networks across a number of regions that can relay back data from water meters in real time. The potential cost savings are clear with less man power needed to collect the data and more accurate data delivered faster and more regularly.
However, there is much else that is less clear. If a company moves from one meter reading every 2 years to one every 15 minutes how is the business going to cope with the sudden increase in data? It can take years to work out how to process all the information suddenly flooding into the company. Multiply this task over one million smart meters and suddenly the idea of investment into real time reporting becomes overwhelming.
Far from providing cost savings from day one, it can actual cause a huge headache, sucking up management time in Head Office as the leadership team scrabble around to work out whose job it is to process and manage the insights such a huge volume of data can produce. Worse still, rather than solving any problems, it just creates more – yes, the data is there, but what does it mean and how can it be used?
Start at the very beginning – what problem are you trying to solve?
Rather than looking at the new technology on offer and working out which problems it could solve within the business it is always smarter to look at the problem the other way. What are the problems in the business that need solving? Which of these problems causes the biggest regulatory workload and potential financial penalties? Then explore the solutions, including but not limited to new technology.
Assess the impact on the business (or risk missing the benefits)
In the rush of excitement to discover that there is a technology solution available, the real-world business impact is often overlooked. In addition to a business case each technology investment needs to be backed up by a rigorous plan for how the solution is going to be integrated into business processes. If the implications of a new solution have been thoroughly thought through at the start of the project, then benefits can start to be realised from day one. These questions are essential to ask at the start:
How will the new technology change the way the business operates?
Does the company have the right operating model and organisation design to exploit the technology?
Have the employees got the right skills and capability? If not, how quickly can they be trained or hired?
How flexible are the workforce? Will they embrace the changes or be threatened by them?
Taking the example of a massive injection of data into a business, as provided by radio telemetry from smart meters, this is only useful if there is a data processing team in place to deal with it and experienced analysts on hand to mine the data. If the new network sends through more data in a day than has been received in the last four years how will the business cope? Far better to know in advance and have processes in place to deal with it, than to panic and shut off the technology while adjustments are made.
Exploiting the technology
One last thing to be aware of when making a big technology investment is to make sure it is exploited to its fullest potential across the whole business. The technology used in smart meters, for example, is well known in the industry. There is a lot of focus on the actual meter and whether it has the right radio on it, yet water meters are one small part of exploiting a radio network. What water companies are really buying into is a utilities focused communications network, which can pick up data from any sensor within the water network and report back over the same radio frequency into head office. This has huge implications for joined up reporting from both the waste and clean water sides of the business, corporate and domestic clients.
Remember the big picture
Before making a big investment in technology, take time to truly understand how the solution could work across the different business areas. It is, after all, just one part of a big picture. What might be right for one part of the business could also solve issues in an interconnecting area.
Preparation is the key, understanding the problem that needs to be solved and then assessing the impact on the business should always be the first steps. Leave these steps out and it is much harder to realise the full benefits from day one.
This article first appeared in the March edition of Institute of Water
To find out more please get in touch / +44 (0) 20 7298 7878
