Taking the next step in field communications

BY JIM MENTON, ClickSoftware

Electricity remains the same as it always has, but the entire context around providing a safe and reliable supply has changed, and continues to evolve. New challenges have emerged for electric utility executives spanning deep cuts in the price of gas, to more and increasingly complex regulatory pressures in parallel to targeted de-regulation, greater attention on storms impact, and the evolution of technologies for the network and the back office.

The bi-directional impact on and from return on equity (ROE), and its impact on the ‘staple’ of utilities in shareholder value is keeping the proverbial ‘lights on’ in the bedrooms of electric utility executives across the globe, while municipalities struggle to just keep track and keep their costs down.

While there is no panacea, virtually every one of these challenges has a common touch point—the workforce. While it continues to age, churn, and adjust itself, the workforce continues in parallel to be accountable to consumers in accordance with the same expectations for reliability and availability among a demand that is beyond the original design of the networks and supply.

The conclusion is obvious. Electric utilities that invest in the productivity of their workforce will more rapidly and seamlessly accommodate the contextual changes of today’s utility, and inevitably provide less expensive, safer, and more reliable electricity—and set the future ‘bar’ for customer satisfaction and ROE.