Switching to a Cutting-Edge Platform to Solve Modern Challenges

Due to the concern of keeping up with the solution of the mentioned situations, it is recurrent that companies integrate their legacy CIS solutions with external systems to increase their functional capacity. However, these integrations could require considerable effort and cost, and maintaining them over the medium and long term could become problematic.

Faced with this, utilities have as their only option to switch to the major market players, a move that demands significant financial resources and a robust human resources infrastructure that they lack. In this scenario, they have no choice but to continue with their current provider or switch to another provider with functionally and technologically limited solutions, sacrificing their capacity for evolution and continuous improvement.

Fortunately, new players have entered the CIS vendor market. These dynamic companies are further customer-oriented and offer modern solutions that are less complex and costly than those of the established major players. Additionally, their offerings are far more innovative and technologically advanced than the traditional CIS options. Therefore, by leveraging into these innovative solutions, utilities can better meet the evolving needs of the communities they serve, providing more reliable and efficient services.

A modern CIS could lead to success

Over time, customer information systems (CIS) have evolved to meet the changing needs of the utility industry. Consequently, CIS solutions that exclusively support meter-to-cash processes are now obsolete, as they fail to integrate new technologies and adapt to emerging market trends. In recent years, customer experience has become a critical focus for utilities, making digital customer engagement capabilities essential components of CIS platforms. Features like self-service options, digital notifications, and multichannel interaction are now crucial for enhancing overall customer satisfaction. Therefore, a modern CIS should include these capabilities as an integral part of its solution to enable the utility to offer a simple, secure and convenient customer experience This empowers customers with greater control and trust, leading to improved engagement and a stronger positive relationship with the utility provider.

A modern CIS must support the coexistence of both traditional and smart meters, and be flexible enough to create new business rules that automate billing and consumption quality assurance processes. It should also support new tariff models and customer service models that leverage smart metering.

Another key functionality a modern CIS should support is the integration of chatbots and artificial intelligence (AI) models, which enhance customer service interactions by offering personalized services and predictive capabilities. In fact, according to a global study conducted by IBM, 74% of energy and utilities companies surveyed have implemented or are exploring the use of AI in their operations.

Some of the various ways in which modern technologies are revolutionizing the utilities industry are through digital adoption tools, which use chat-based interactions to activate teaching guides or provide automatic responses, assisting utility employees in their daily tasks. AI enables the automatic delivery of communications to customers, such as program promotions or predicted peak events, tailored to real-time customer needs. Additionally, AI processes vast amounts of data from multiple sources, including customers, technician skills, traffic data, business impact KPIs, etc. All this, to perform intelligent routing, selecting better routes and optimizing time and efficiency. These cutting-edge tools are clearly transforming the utility industry, delivering exceptional service to communities and driving business growth.

Leading consulting companies recommend utilities to opt for a CIS that offers continuous upgrades and frequent updates, ensuring system reliability while prioritizing security and privacy compliance to maintain data integrity. This continuous upgrade model reduces the total cost of ownership (TCO) by preventing the software from becoming outdated, ensuring its competitiveness, and minimizing the potential costs of falling behind industry standards.

What’s next?

Utilities face a critical risk when upgrading their systems with vendors who maintain a static market view, focusing solely on supporting meter-to-cash processes. The danger lies in companies failing to transition to modern, customer-oriented systems capable of managing diverse offers and commercial packages effectively due to a wrong provider selection. This shortfall could leave utilities insufficiently equipped for new energy services and reliant on external systems to manage essential functionalities such as digital channels and self-service options, resulting in expensive and tedious integrations, exposing their competitiveness in the evolving energy landscape.

Thanks to the extensive software industry, it is important to note that utilities have vendor options offering the aforementioned features in modern CIS solutions. It is crucial for utilities to remain open to switching software providers to avoid becoming locked into expensive, complex upgrades that add little value and ultimately harm the company’s efficiency in the medium and long term. As the famous saying goes, “Insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting different results.”

Utilities are at the time to reflect and seize new business opportunities to achieve their corporate objectives since the market offers suppliers that blend the best attributes of major brands, such as innovation, robustness, and solid TCO benefits, while also being recognized as new market disruptors.

Open, the software provider, is a prime example since it offers a modern CIS that extends its capabilities to three dimensions: digital customer experience (DCX), metering data management (MDM) and workforce management (MWM), to cover critical aspects of Utilities customers’ operations.

The company serves clients in 19 countries, including the US, offering a solution that includes features such as cloud deployment, mobility, artificial intelligence, incorporation of digital adoption solutions, low-code tools, business rules engines, automated workflows, among other tools that provide to the utilities reliability, innovation and continuous improvement. Proving that the solution goes beyond the meter-to-cash processes and recognized for its flexibility, dedication, and personalized approach to each project. This is evidenced by its 5-star rating in Gartner Peer Reviews and its inclusion in the “Frost Radar” for innovation by the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan.