At the forefront of this scrutiny has been the leading regulatory bodies for the utilities sector, such as Ofwat. David Black, senior director at Ofwat, stated back in May 2017 that the lack of innovation in the water sector was “striking”, and labelled companies as “too passive and happy with the status quo”.
In an attempt to drive forward innovation within the water sector, Ofwat announced in its 2019 price review (PR19) that innovation will be one of the four key areas it will be rewarding businesses on. However, those water companies that choose to ignore this ambition, will be faced with the potential of heavy fines.
But, it isn’t just Ofwat that is driving innovation. Ofgem has also taken steps to encourage greater levels of innovation within the gas and electricity sector and launched ‘Innovation Link’ at the end of 2016 – a dedicated service that aims to encourage and support businesses to transform their products and services.
The foundations are currently being put in place to encourage businesses within the utilities sectors to embrace technology. Now is the time for businesses to move into the 21st century and start embracing innovative technologies to reduce costs and create greater efficiencies.
Improving communication by embracing cloud technology
Communication plays a huge role within the utilities sector, primarily as large projects will often require workers and professionals from several disciplines and with different skillsets to collaborate. But with people working from various locations and out in the field, this can make communicating across departments difficult or impossible.
However, cloud computing can help to make communication easier and more efficient, as workers can access any documents via the cloud from their smartphone, from anywhere and at any time. Job sheets and project information can be sent between colleagues, allowing for improved communication. And tasks can be completed quickly, efficiently and to the required standards of the project specification. Not only this, but it will also help workers to operate in a compliant manner by ensuring that they can follow the most up-to-date working practices and regulations via guidance on their mobile device.
Given that the utilities sector is already under immense pressure to cut costs and improve efficiencies, adopting cloud-based solutions will help save time and money by eliminating project delays and improving cross-department communication.
Reducing costs by utilising digital data capture applications
For most workers within the utilities sector, working remotely is part of the job – as is dealing with piles of paperwork. But, the use of paper documents is far from ideal. Not only is it easy for them to be lost, they can also be easily damaged and, in some instances, incorrectly filed. The outcomes of poor document management often include time wasted searching for missing information and information being miscommunicated. Or, it could also lead to more serious issues, including incomplete audit trails or compliancy issues.
We recently conducted research that found 53 per cent of employees find it hard to store paper files and keep them organised. As a result, almost a fifth (19 per cent) of workers have seen vital information filed incorrectly, which has led to tangible losses to the business including customers leaving to competitors.
But, technological solutions have been created to remove reliance on paper. In fact, there are now a variety of digital data capture solutions that not only simplify data processes and storage, but also allow for data to be collected more accurately and efficiently.
These data capture services allow users to access digital versions of documents from either a smartphone, tablet or laptop and allow data to be captured in real-time from any location. The data collated can then be saved within the cloud and accessed by any member of the on-site or off-site teams. This means data capture can remove the need for paper documents and all the issues associated with them. Most importantly, it can also help to make workers’ lives easier by removing the risk of losing or damaging documents, both in the office and out in the field.
With the utilities sector coming under increasing pressure to embrace new technology, there is no better time to adopt readily-available and proven solutions, such as data capture, cloud computing and smartphone devices to improve its existing operating processes. In an industry where competitive advantage is key to survival, adopting such technologies can give businesses the edge they need to be successful.