If you’ve ever been to a SAPPHIRE NOW conference, you know that one of the biggest challenges (other than remembering the names of all the new people you meet) is finding a way to squeeze in all the industry sessions you want to see.
Fortunately, there’s a simple solution if you didn’t make it to every session on your list this year. Simply visit SAPPHIRE NOW On Demand for Utilities
http://events.sap.com/account/sapphire-now-utilities/en/home, where you can watch video replays and download presentations for hundreds of sessions and keynotes. But where to begin? We asked SAP’s Henry Bailey, global vice president, Utilities Industry Business Unit, to recommend his top five utilities sessions for those who couldn’t see them in person.
“Honestly, it’s hard to narrow it down to just five, because I saw so many outstanding presentations this year. It’s an exciting time in our industry, but we’re facing some new challenges. Customers are looking for more engagement and empowerment. Rates are under more scrutiny. Best-in-class utilities are transforming their business through technology and mobile, giving them real-time insights to optimize their operations, strengthen customer relationships, reduce outages, and increase revenue. And real-time analytics are a game-changer. So things are changing rapidly.
“Here are five sessions for utilities I think everyone should see, although they’re in no particular order:”
Improve Smart Meter Analytics [LINK TO: http://www.sap.com/events/resources.epx?SearchText=improve+smart&SortOrder=DESC&pageSize=20&Filter1=...=]
You’ve probably heard about SAP HANA and how it’s the premier real-time data management platform for utilities. Here’s a great example of how one company, Houston’s CenterPoint Energy, put it to work. First up was Gautam Sonde, an IT project manager, who explains how CenterPoint tested SAP HANA with its smart meter data, seeking ways to use that data more proactively.
Then Henry Le from Utegration, who helped with the implementation, goes into greater detail on the test methodology and measurement. In this case, SAP HANA enabled CenterPoint Energy to load data and immediately put it to work, run reports, and reduce its implementation effort from days to hours. They now get reports in real time, when and where they’re needed. It’s all about finding ways to gain operational efficiencies while meeting business needs and increasing customer satisfaction.
Innovate Your Business: Adopt Mobile, Cloud, and Other New Technologies [LINK TO: http://www.sap.com/asset/index.epx?id=b95c42b3-ce33-4044-8300-0f6e28c91da6&name=Innovate-Your-Busine...]
This panel discussion covered a wide range of topics, from the perspectives of three utility CIOs. They discuss the needs for a data management system that scales with their industries’ rapid growth and helps keep them ahead of the game in today’s competitive market.
You’ll enjoy hearing from three SAP customers: Coy Wright of Pacific Drilling, Dr. Steven Pratt of CenterPoint Energy, and Patrick Worms of Carmeuse. They represent three different industries in the utility sector, yet there are some strong parallels in the way they’ve adopted mobile and cloud computing to meet goals for their businesses, their customers, and their employees.
Transforming Your Industry with Mobile: Utilities [LINK TO: http://www.sap.com/events/resources.epx?SearchText=Transforming+Your+Industry+with+Mobile&SortOrder=...]
When you think of “mobile,” do you think of a device? In this session, SAP’s Rory Shaffer, utility solution manager, challenges us to rethink our definitions of “mobility.” According to Shaffer, today’s utilities are moving beyond defining mobile in terms of point solutions and are taking a much more strategic, enterprise approach. They’re maximizing productivity by empowering their people with key information and processes, wherever they are. And they’re creating value for the entire organization.
The second speaker is Nadine Heard of Canada’s SaskPower, a vertically integrated utility owned by the province of Saskatchewan. Nadine talks about the many business drivers that led SaskPower to implement its mobile integration project—which all came down to wanting to be the best in the industry. She describes how SaskPower built its mobile system on the Sybase Unwired platform and used SAP Afaria for distribution and device management. The key is providing the right applications to make it easier for people to do their work effectively, wherever their work takes them.
Conduct Business in the Moment with Your Customers [LINK TO: http://www.sap.com/events/resources.epx?SearchText=Conduct+Business+in+the+Moment+with+Your+Customer...]
This customer experience panel features a variety of SAP clients, including one of our utility customers, Steve Bandy of SourceGas. The panelists discuss how they’re using big data insights to strengthen customer relationships and create real-time contextual experiences. They also share some very impressive stories of how they’ve harnessed big data to respond to their customers’ growing needs for engagement and empowerment.
SourceGas can now see what kinds of interactions they’re having with customers, see how those customers prefer to contact them, improve service times, and have improved their first-call resolution rate. They’re able to better manage their multi-tiered rate structures to make sure they’re sending accurate bills each month. And they’ve made it easy for customer service reps to clearly explain the billing structure to customers, quickly answer questions, and dramatically improve customer satisfaction levels while reducing call center volume by more than 20,000 calls.
Improve Asset Performance with Operational Analytics [LINK TO: http://www.sap.com/asset/index.epx?id=e2e68ea5-7290-40ac-b173-60813876e275&name=Improve-Asset-Perfor...]
This session offers a fascinating look at how oil producer Continental Resources implemented SAP HANA with analytics software to help meet its goal of tripling production over the next five years. You’ll hear from Continental’s Claude Seaman, chief accounting officer, and Jared Roberts, business intelligence supervisor of the project. They’re joined by Gopal Krishnamurthy, founder and CEO of Visual BI, the lead partner in the project.
The three panelists discuss how Continental uses SAP HANA and SAP Business Warehouse to combine data from multiple sources, automate processes, and create more than 15 key performance indicator (KPI) dashboards such as barrels of production, wells down, capital expenses, and cycle time. It’s quick, it’s easy, and anyone can understand it at a glance.
These are just five utilities sessions to get you started. To search all of this year’s sessions and keynotes by industry, LOB, and solution type, visit SAPPHIRE NOW On Demand for Utilities. [LINK TO: http://events.sap.com/account/sapphire-now-utilities/en/home
Henry Bailey Global Vice President, Utilities IBU
Industry Business Solutions SAP America, Inc. 3999 West Chester Pike Newtown Square, PA 19073
Email henry.bailey@sap.com
