As the world embraces a new energy future, digital transformation of the energy industry has become critical. Energy future will be defined by ability to handle political and economic crisis, incredible growth in energy needs, value for green sustainable energy including cleaner part of the carbon spectrum, ability to handle disruptions in production and transportation, and last but not the least, ability to accurately forecast demands and prices and serve customers better.
Digital Transformation is a business-led initiative with IT as partner
Such a complex set of factors calls for increased use of sophisticated digital technology to gather, process and analyze data faster and smarter to drive automation, improve decision making and better cater to customers and counterparties. The problem in that scenarios is not to hunt for new and more sophisticated technology but to understand the domain, absorb the usecase and need and better design the right solution, leveraging the right technology.
Hence, driving digital strategy will increasingly involve having the right understanding of the business domain, its use usecases as also understanding of the technology options to devise the right path forward. Getting the digital strategy right will be critical to the success of any company in the future, successfully predicting and addressing customer and counterparty needs and getting a leg up on the market, running operations efficiently.
In short, digital strategy will define a company to its customers, counterparties and partners. Company should have that as a clear high priority for success. This calls for a digital ambassador to partner with business. Digital transformation is NOT just an IT initiative – the foundation of digital transformation is a close partnership between business and IT, driven by business goals.
Data driving customer centricity
Every company under the planet can potentially leverage digital technology to gather more information about what the customer needs, what type of goods or services they want, gaps and positive feedback and many other critical information. Key component of the digital strategy must involve gathering data to value customer needs better and continue monitor customer engagement and feedback to make their experiences better.
Data and Analytics leading to better decision making
Business world is now much more integrated with a global supply chain with challenges in one area potentially impacting the entire chain. It is imperative to have sophisticated models evaluating process, demand, supply, logistics and transportation in analyzing disparate sources of data and making optimal decisions. A sound digital strategy should involve integrated data platform and advanced analytics tools, including AI / ML.
Automation driving efficiency
Key feature of the business process landscape is the exposition of processes all through the day. That has opened a universe of opportunities to automate them and save human effort on more valuable tasks, requiring human intervention. A digital strategy should look into processes and tasks, which can be automated – from gathering data, creating reports, triggering jobs, monitoring alerts etc. Digital Twin is now helping organizations with running, maintaining, monitoring processes, evaluating simulations and acting as a digital assistant to an onsite expert. These automations will drive efficiency across the organization.
Conclusion
Technological advances like cloud computing, data and analytics, AI/ML, automation/RPA, blockchain and others have significantly impacted the solutions landscape. There is a plethora of tools available to address various problems. It is critical to have a business strategy, starting with a clear understanding of business goals and knowledge of the business domain. That should enable one to devise the right strategy and technical solutions to help deliver value for business.
Having a digital ambassador to clearly articulate the value of digital technology to business and then partnering with business in delivering solutions will be key to successful digital transformation of the energy industry. With a solid partnership between business and IT, delivering right solutions for the right business problems in an agile way, digital transformation will indeed change the organizational landscape and help deliver tangible and consistent results.
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