We have been holding the SAP for Utilities event for the past eight years now and I have had the pleasure of attending all eight SAP for Utilities events. This October will be my ninth event and as a former Utility Customer, this is one of my favorite events and Huntington Beach is one of my favorite locations.

Just south of Los Angeles, Huntington Beach allows the traveller to discover the best of Southern California culture.  Offering the authentic surf lifestyle, coupled with 10 miles of uninterrupted coastline, Huntington Beach can truly be called Surf City USA.  Warm weather and year-round sun offer the perfect setting for outdoor activities such as beach bonfires, beach yoga, volleyball by the pier, biking along Ocean Strand, stand-up paddle boarding in Huntington Harbour, or strolling down Main Street. 

While Huntington Beach is a great place to visit as a tourist, it is an even better place to be from October 9^th to 12th, 2016 when you can unite with the next generation of utilities professionals for the 9th annual SAP for Utilities event  - a collaboration between the Americas’ SAP Users Group (ASUG), Eventful Conferences and SAP. 

In my role at ASUG as part of a team of Community Advocates and as a  “Community Builder and Evangelist”, I work very closely with the Utility Community and helping drive our  Digital Transformation Program.

In this blog I share insights from past conference attendees relative to what the upcoming SAP for Utilities 2016 event is all about, why you should attend and how to maximize your return on investment as an attendee.

THE THEME - " THE REIMAGINGED UTILITY”

As the utility industry continues to transform and evolve the way it interacts with customers, data and assets, it is more important than ever to hear solutions and expertise from your peers on how to drive success with new technology and digital innovations. SAP for Utilities is the most comprehensive SAP for Utilities conference in North America uniting over 1,000 utility professionals from across North America and the globe. Join your peers from all sectors of the industry—including power generation, transmission, distribution, retail, gas, water, waste, recycling and more—to embrace innovative solutions, fresh ideas and thought-leading insights to improve your business performance. Come and participate in hands-on workshops, in-depth interactive sessions and SAP expert presentations. 

LOCAL KNOWLEDGE - THE INSIDE SCOOP FROM THOSE IN THE KNOW

Here is a sample of some of the great feedback from attendees over the past eight years. Participants keep on coming back and most importantly have experienced a great return on investment from their participation. A great ROI even makes “ Three Perfect Days “ even more perfect.

Before sharing with you the details of this itinerary, it is important to understand how this program was created for you.

OUR PROGRAM - HOW WE DETERMINED WHAT " THREE PERFECT DAYS” WOULD LOOK LIKE

This year Eventful Conferences along with SAP and ASUG conducted an extensive research project with multiple utility industry ecosystem stakeholders. The project included North American customer focus groups with 60 customers and 25 utility organizations, as well as multiple one-on-one conversations. The goal was to understand the most pressing challenges and opportunities that Utilities are facing in 2016.  The viewpoints and topics from these research groups are summarized in the hot topics report.

We then had a committee made up of 15 utility organizations representing both large and small utilities including public sector help us determine what our program would look like.

Special thanks to the following participants:

As a result of this research, the highlighted topics outlined below were identified for the 2016 SAP for Utilities conference agenda.

OUR EVENT EXPERIENCE - WHAT YOU WILL EXPERIENCE DURING OUR " THREE PERFECT DAYS "

At this event you will tap into the collective wisdom of experts, senior leaders, decision-makers, business process owners, analysts, super users, support teams, solution providers and more from the utility sector.

OUR EVENT - YOUR " THREE PERFECT DAYS " PROGRAM AND SCHEDULE

At the SAP for Utilities event you will connect with a network of professionals and experts who you can call on year-round. It’s time to reimagine the industry!

Our program includes an excellent lineup of keynotes speakers:

Learn how utility organizations are disrupting the industry

- Disrupting the Utility Industry & Addressing Today’s Transformational Energy Challenges Mary Anne Brelinsky - President, EDF Energy Services

- Utilizing an Agile Methodology to Challenge the Way Utilities Do Business Paul Caffery - Senior Director Enterprise Mobility Strategies, PG&E

Understand how to prepare for the threat of cyber security (one of the top 5 issues from our customer research)

- You’ve Been Hacked: How to Protect Your Company, Employees & Shareholders Mark Weatherford - SVP & Chief Cybersecurity Strategist, vArmour; First Deputy Under-Secretary for Cybersecurity, U.S. Department of Homeland Security

- Practical Implementation of Threat Based Security Operations Scott King – Director, Information Security, San Diego Gas & Electric

Develop overall leadership & well-being practices

- The Professional Advantage of Mindfulness Joe Burton - Founder & CEO, Whil Concepts, Inc. and Rudy Wolf - Director, Enterprise Change, PG&E will join Joe to share how PG&E is using some of these practices at their organization

- Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less Greg McKeown - CEO, THIS Inc  Best-selling author

Our Schedule

Day 0

- Welcome Reception and Networking, Jumpstart Keynotes

Day 1

- Keynotes , Exhibition Hall, Evening Reception

- Four Track Streams Covering: Customer, Operations, Finance, Technology

- ASUG Community Roundtables

Day 2

- Keynotes, Exhibition Hall

- Five Track Streams Covering: Customer, Operations, Procurement, Data & Analytics, Organization

Day 3

Four Full Day workshops:

- Asset Data Management: Deep Dive into Master Data, Asset Intelligence Network & Spatial

- Essential Strategies & Solutions That Business & Operations Managers Need to Know to Successfully Engage the NEW Energy Customer

- Mobility Workshop

- Agile Development & Analytics: The New Way of Doing it with HANA Cloud Platform

OUR MANY SUCCESS STORIES - YOUR " THREE PERFECT DAYS " SHARED LEARNINGS NOT TO BE MISSED

Attend the conference to hear numerous customer success stories including:

- Integrating SAP Hybris Billing for Non-Utility Product Billing & Invoicing Zankhana Kapadia - Manager, Billing Solutions & Muneesh Narakula - Architect, TXU Energy

- Integrating SAP ISU/PM & ESRI GIS by Utilizing SAP’s Geographic Enablement (GEO.e) Technology Tommy Acers II - ERP Technical/ Functional Analyst, SAP, Metropolitan Utilities District Omaha

- Change Leadership & the Mindset Shift… It’s Bigger Than You Think David Hilario - Change Leadership Consultant & Traci Krueger - Change Leadership Consultant, PG

- Spectra Energy’s Success Story Deploying Ariba’s eSourcing & Contract Management Christopher Collins - Manager Procurement Systems, Spectra Energy

- An Inside Look: How a Cloud-Based CIS will Support Sharyland Utilities’ Business, Now & Later BJ Flowers - Director, Operations Intelligence & Charlie Bratton - Director, Customer Operations, Sharyland Utilities

OUR EXPERTS - YOUR " THREE PERFECT DAYS " TOUR AND LEARNING GUIDES

Joining us are 57 customer speakers including 9 international speakers. All of our stories this year will focus on actionable practices that lead to returns on investment for attendees.

OUR " TOWN HALL " - YOUR GATHERING PLACE IS OUR SOLUTION SHOWCASE

Every town has its community meeting place and ours is theSolution Showcasewhere you will find leading technology and service providers who have setup shop at our event.  In our SAP for Utilities meeting place you will find the " who's who " of the SAP Utilities ecosystem featuring SAP, Utegration, SUS, HCL, PwC, KPIT, Vertex One, Cognizant, Avertra and many more.

The Americas' SAP User Group (ASUG) will also have a booth in theSolution Showcase. Definitely be sure to visit the ASUG booth to learn about the power of the ASUG Network.

With all of these impressive SAP and SAP Utility experts in the solution showcase there is no better place to learn about solutions to help your business and it's also a great place to stop by booths for what I like to term "free" onsite consulting – an opportunity to pick the brains of leading experts to get your questions answered.

One of my favorite parts of the event is connecting with Henry Bailey who heads up the SAP's Global Utility Industry Business Unit and his team of experts that are in attendance every year. I enjoy heard their insights not just on SAP solutions but on what they are seeing in both other Utilities and Utility markets around the world.

OUR EVENT - " THREE PERFECT DAYS " AT OUR CONFERENCE VENUE - HYATT REGENCY HUNTINGTON BEACH

If you are interested in learning more about “ The Reimagined Utility “ as well has how to digitally transform your utility, Huntington Beach is the place to be for Utility professionals from October 9 – 12, 2016.

I hope that you can join me there along with the other members of the SAP Utilities Community at what should be a transformative SAP for Utilities event.

In July 2015, process data infrastructure provider, OSIsoft, and ERP provider SAP, announced a significant technology partnership. The goal of the partnership is to greatly simplify integrating operational data from the OSIsoft PI data infrastructure with the SAP HANA in-memory computing platform. The resulting SAP HANA IoT Connector, kointly developed by both companies allows process industry companies - and particularly those that already use SAP and OSIsoft - to make their operations more proactive to improve uptime and help reduce operations and maintenance (O&M) costs.

ARC's Peter Reynolds has authored a whitepaper detailing this subject.

To access your complimentary copy go to link.

When discussing on SAP for Utilities features and use cases we mostly focus on electricity. Topics such as energy billing, smartgrid, unbundling, prosumers or smart meters get most of the attention while tending to forget that water and its specific subjects  and requirements have also accommodation in SAP portfolio combining the need to introduce new water specific business processes together with the needs of leveraging costs, improve efficiency, compliance with regulatory requirements, improve customer service and consolidate information systems.

Result is that from 1.600 + Utility companies using SAP portfolio applications and technologies 200+ are Water and Waste Water companies.  In order to support the knowledge management on this Sector, at the Planet Utilities jam site there is an updated repository of information on use cases and detailed pitches on how SAP portfolio supports Water Value Chain processes. (click on the highlighted text to access)

Screenshot of the Water page at the Planet Utilities Jam Site. It also contains content sections with References, Success Stories, Customer Presentations and Videos.

And this portfolio of applications has been successfully implemented in water companies around the world. A business system which can support in a single instance and integrated datamodel all processes of a company, this is the Backoffice, Commercial System and Analytics, with more than 20 years in the market provides a great assurance to get all functions and features needed, knowledgeable resources to support implementation and maintenance, high standardization and low TCO.

Support of SAP Portfolio of the Water Value Chain. High level conceptual view, the “integrated platform concept”

The idea of adopting a complete integrated platform to manage their specific business processes is still unique in the market after nearly 20 years of availability. This period of time has proven useful to show that while the application and technology Portfolio provided by SAP evolves on yearly basis companies can benefit by adopting new pieces of technology and functionality available or upgrading regularly their systems. This is the case of the water company of the city of Manila (now as Maynilad Water Services, Philippines), which implemented SAP ERP and IS-Utilities in early year 2000 and, based on such evolution, recently performed a major system upgrade which was awarded for its innovative approach and outstanding results. Or the case of Farys (former TMVW, based in Gent, Belgium ) which recently presented a use case of their roadmap evolution at on occasion of their upgrade to S4Hana

Farys roadmap, summary snapshot presented at the the 10th SAP International Utilities Conference, Le Hague April 2016. 

Adoption of SAP ERP portfolio to manage these business processes which are independent of the industry, such as Financials, controlling, purchasing or inventory management (this is known as Backoffice processes), is the largest component adopted  among water companies worldwide. One reference use case recently published is Empresa Pública Metropolitana de Agua y Saneamiento, this is the water company of the city of Quito, the capital of Ecuador,  where its CFO quoted that they selected SAP “because we want to be the best”

Aguas de Quito, use case brochure. Available in spanish

A focus area of the Backoffice is Human Capital Management where the adoption of Success Factors is helping companies to manage processes of Personnel Administration and Organisation management with more transparency and easy use. This is the case of the Metropolitan Utilities District, that operates the drinking water and natural gas systems for Omaha, Nebraska and surrounding areas.

Metropolitan Utilities District presentation at the SAP for Utilities Conference, California, 2015.

Getting into the portfolio of applications and functionalities to manage the technical assets in its full lifecycle, this is from investment to commission and maintenance, there are complete use cases presented by companies in order to face challenges such as the lack of visibility into its own network assets, improve the management of leaks or improve the accuracy of the equipment, such as valves, pumps or meters.

However, current trend is more focus in the pursue of the assurance that ongoing and future water supply big capital investments to manage and improve current infrastructures ( many of them being very old ) have to be effectively implemented and traced: Portfolio Management, Construction process support, Financial Asset Management, Technical  Master Data Quality or efficient maintenance approach using mobile technologies are part of the scope.

Publiacqua Workforce Management Project use case. SAP for Utilities Conference,  Manheim 2014.

Metering and Supply Data Management have shifted in the last years from an efficient mechanical meter management, not only device specific processes but also meter reading organisation and control, towards an approach on improving the processes (and the costs) of water consumption. This is from the water sampling analysis along the whole network, as the case of Mekorot in Israel, to link onsite the process of metering and billing – invoicing using mobile technology as the case of ONEE in Morocco or the opposite, this is the implementation of water smart meters in order to trigger new efficiency processes such as water demand side management (change customer consumption behavior) or a more effective and proactive leak detection and calculation.

     Enemalta. Water Smart metering use case.

When considering as “Backoffice” all support to processes used by all companies, this is non industry specific such as purchasing and financials, the application which supports the Meter to Cash process, this is  Customer service, Billing and collections, is known as “Commercial Backoffice” and the possibility of a joint integration (physical or logical) of both systems  (ERP and IS-U) is the largest value proposal of this platform. As can be seen at the below copied screenshot from a use case presentation of Acueducto de Bogotá (Colombia), the implementation of SAP portfolio enabled not only the physical integration of their commercial systems into one single data model but to have a complete end to end process coverage of the meter to cash process. While System integration is one of the main drivers of triggering implementation projects, currently the goal of water companies to become customer centric organisations, had raised the need to implement processes and systems focused on the customer and find that SAP Portfolio can help delivering a an end-to-end customer centric solution for marketing, quotations, contracts, customer service, billing, payments and credit management.

Empresa de Acueducto y Alcantarillado de Bogotá ESP. Use Case presentation, Guadalajara 2008.

Technology and Functions for comprehensive Reporting and Analysis is a proof of reliability of the Platform. While a consolidated system in a single datamodel may improve the efficiency, Analytics help Improving business decisions by “presenting the right information to the right people at the right time and in right way”:  Dashboards, self service “slice and dice” as well as detailed drill down reporting can be tailored to each role or position in the organisation. As can be seen in the screenshot below copied from Water of the city of Köln (Germany), such reports help improving the technical asset maintenance and not only gather data from the IT platform but also acess reporting insights via maps and some operation data, this is IT – OT integration.

     Stadtentwässerungsbetriebe Köln use case, SAP Enterprise Asset Management Conference 2011.

Once completed the review in high level of the basic components which configure the SAP for Water platform, it is the place where to provide a conclusion:  Is this a platform for the future? . There are several are areas and use cases which may help to evaluate and enable to reach a conclusion. One of them is the technology shift, by adopting the S4Hana Platform, which may bring a wave of simplification and new functions and features for the future. As can be seen in the Farys example above, some companies already moved in order to take benefit of these features, such as simple finance or Fiori User Interface. Another benefit is the tight integration with other systems and platforms of the company landscape, not only IT applications but Operationals, such as Geographical Information Systems (GIS) through the Geonablement capabilities of the platform, or SCADA systems in order to trigger condition based or predictive maintenance strategies. However, seems tha tthe area which may indicate how this platform is ready for the future may be on the adoption of market liberalization practices in the water market.

Thames water use case presentation. Compilation of slides in a summary snapshot. Presented at the the 10th SAP International Utilities Conference, Le Hague April 2016

As can be seen in the picture above of the use case presented  by Thames Water (London Region, UK), water market liberalization is not only an idea but it is becoming a fact in some countries and requires not only to change the culture of the water companies, as electricity and gas have been experiencing since market liberalization and unbundling processes started in some countries around the world, but also need to adapt and evolve their IT platforms in order to fulfill such new requirements. And we think we can help.

Dear Utilities Community,

I'm pleased to let you know that our next International SAP Conference for Utilities will take place in Lisbon, from 28-30 of March 2017.

Save the dates today to ensure to get the latest news about the industry trends and innovations.

Ourconference website is already live and informs you what you can expect during the 3 days: inspiring keynotes, a revamped and interactive agenda, new user case studies, the latest industry trends and updates, exciting demos and offsite networking receptions. Th website will be updated regulalry with the latest news.

Below are some key figures about the networking event for Utilities in 2017:

You would like to contribute to the event? You have any SAP for Utilities experience to share? Please get in contact with me.

I look forward seeing the utilities community again ... this year in Portugal's beautiful capital Lisbon,

Melanie

Follow me on LinkedIn :me@LinkedIn

Follow me on Twitter : @MelanieFiolka

As the utility industry continues to transform and evolve the way we interact with customers, data and assets, it is more important than ever to hear solutions and expertise from your peers on how to drive success with new technology and digital innovations. SAP for Utilities is the annual go-to event that unites over 1,000 utilities professionals from across North America and the globe. Join your peers from all sectors of the industry—including power generation, transmission, distribution, retail, gas, water, waste, recycling and more—to embrace innovative solutions, fresh ideas and thought-leading insights to improve your business performance. Now in its ninth year, SAP for Utilities—a collaboration between SAP, Eventful Conferences and ASUG—is poised to unite the next generation of utilities professionals!

Key highlights of the conference will include keynote speakers such as Peyton Manning speaking on leading a team to championship and Mark Weatherford, from the Department of Security addressing cyber-security on how to protect your company, employees and shareholders.

Track breakouts will include topics focused on customer, operations, procurement, data and analytics, finance, technology and the organization.

The conference focus will be on digital transformation within the utilities industry….why?

Ten billion people – that’s the global population projected by 2050. Some experts say the demand for electricity, natural gas, and water will double or triple as billions of people join the digital economy, and the use of energy and water will grow while vehicles and mass transit go electric. One thing is clear – the digital economy needs clean, dependable, and affordable electricity.

This should be a great outlook for power generators, distributors, and retailers, but de-carbonization, deregulation, and decentralization are disrupting the century-old utilities hierarchy. We see a “Digital Energy Network” emerging that reflects new structures of power generation, transmission, distribution, and retail. It will foster new business models and processes and transform work in a competitive and collaborative digital economy.

The consequences are dramatic. Proven utilities business models based on trillions of dollars worth of plants and grids collapse. New market entrants, such as Google and Tesla, disrupt the value chain. Rapid technical and social innovation puts new capital investments at risk. Consumers, communities, and companies go “off the grid” with new wind, solar, and storage technology.

The industry is currently balancing the efficient operations of its existing infrastructure with the need to adapt to the volatile market environment. Leading utilities are re-evaluating their physical assets and customer relationships to:

• Reimagine business modelsto find new revenue and profit sources by offering innovative supply, load balancing, and smart home/business energy services
• Reimagine business processesand use digital technology to optimize business outcomes by converging information and operational technologies
• Reimagine the role and structure of the workforceto support future business by incorporating wearable technology, 3D printers, and geospatial technologies

“Reimagining” the utilities business will shape the Digital Energy Network that overlays and complements the power supply system. All participants – utilities, consumers, and new non-utility players – will use digital innovation to anticipate real-time demand and supply, operate self-healing grids, and innovate the customer experience.

Our vision is to help the world use energy and natural resources responsibly today and tomorrow while providing reliable, sustainable, and affordable energy for all people. This requires access to the Digital Energy Network for all participants. We will offer the digital foundation and the digital gateways that integrate the core solutions of each market participant to the Digital Energy Network.

We look forward to seeing you and hearing your stories on October 9-12 in Huntington Beach.

Register here.

Also, take your complimentary Digital Readiness Survey to see how your company ranks against your peers. Be part of the Digital Readiness Challenge.

Few can argue that the past several years have been the most dynamic in the history of the Utility industry globally.  Almost every utility has been affected by the proliferation of renewable energy, advancements in battery storage, new customer engagement methods and disruptive business models accelerated by the Internet of Things (IoT).  Every utility needs to be thinking about their digital strategy and how it will transform the century-old business model into their digital roadmap for the future.

Every business will need a digital core infrastructure to efficiently and securely connect key business processes into the enterprise. This can be completely on premise, cloud or a hybrid approach. More and more utilities are adopting a cloud and/or hybrid strategy (on premise core with cloud solutions integrated) moving past the Cap/Ex and cyber security hurdles as business models and regulatory obstacles ease around cloud investment. Many utilities start by moving common business processes such as workforce engagement, suppliers and networks, customer experience and Internet of Things into a secure cloud delivery model, while continuing to keep core processes on premise in a real-time platform.

SAP has been working hard to help the Utility industry achieve their digital roadmap.  SAP S/4HANA is the next generation of SAP solutions to allow utilities to achieve their goals by simplifying the landscape and creating the real-time platform to run their business better. During the SAP for Utilities conference being held October 9 – 12, 2016 at the Hyatt Resort and Spa at Huntington Beach CA, Dieter Koerber and I will be showing the SAP S/4HANA roadmap for Utilities.  We will also demonstrate a new tool for helping customers understand and prepare their own SAP S/4HANA roadmap for digital transformation with SAP.

SAP S/4HANA Roadmap Tool

We are very excited about the SAP S/4HANA solutions for Utilities and looking forward to providing the solution roadmap as well as helping all of our customers on their digital journey! We are looking forward to seeing you.

Henry and Dieter

Follow us on @SAPIndustries #SAP4UTL and SAP for Utilities LinkedIn group to get more information regarding the conference.

Every year since our inaugural SAP for Utilities Conference in 2007, SAP has made sure to recognize the amazing contributions that utilities organizations have on the communities they serve.  We're truly lucky to work with an industry that continually meets the evolving demands of their customers, and embraces digital disruption as the best way to do so.  While each utility we work alongside has a reason to be recognized, we have narrowed down the nominations to include twenty unique and exceptional organizations.  It is our privilege to announce the 2016 SAP4U Excellence in Utilities Award Nominees, and ask that you help us honor them by castting your vote today!

Utility of the Year Award

Customer Engagement Award [NEW!]

Digital Disrupter Individal Award [NEW!]

SAP Partner of the Year Award

Rookie of the Year Award [NEW!]

Each unique winner will receive a complimentary pass to SAP4U, an award, and big-time conference recognition at our Evening Under the Stars reception.

If you've yet to register for SAP for Utilities, join us! Already, over 700 utility professionals, thought leaders, partners, and SAP experts have booked their flight to the beautiful Huntington Beach, California - where we will be hosting our 9th annual conference.  All in attendance will have the opportunity to:

     -Choose from over 60+ content-rich sessions that span the entirety of the utility organization, from procurement and analytics, to HR and finance.

     -Take part in a charity 5k run/walk on the beautiful beach boardwalk during sunset - all proceeds benefit local non-profit, 2-1-1 San Diego.

     -Hear from leaders at EDF Renewable Energy, PG&E, the Department of Homeland Security, and special keynote - a 2-time winning Super Bowl ChampionQuarterback.  Curious who? Find out!

Again, congratulations to all of our nominees! Voting will close on Sunday, Septembet 18 - and winners will be notified that same week.  Thank you to all those who participate, and can't wait to see you in October! Vote Today!

Susana Zanders is currently holding the position as Solution Owner in the Industry Business Unit Utilities for two Business Priorities, Customer Experience and Billing and Revenue Management. Besides being responsible for the Go to Market communication and supporting strategic deals, she is also leading the Utilities pilot for the Board level project on roadmap, integration, service and value. "Love what you do, do what you love" is her motto.

I had the chance to interview Susana about her interesting life story, challenges and her attitude.

Tell us about your life before joining SAP.

I grew up in Singapore and upon graduation took up a job with AMEX Singapore. During my vacation in New Zealand, I fell in love with the country’s beautiful sceneries and the friendly Kiwis. I decided to quit my job and venture out on my own to NZ. Thanks to my bilingual capability and my sales experience in Singapore, I got myself a job within a week upon arrival in Auckland, a job as the marketing executive of a local Mandarin Newspaper publication. During my free time, I worked as a volunteer at the Auckland Citizen Bureau as a translator to the lawyers who offered free legal advice to new immigrants. After a couple of years, I was headhunted to join a computer training center as a sales executive. The plus of that job was the ability to attend all classes for free to learn about the applications offerings. That was my first exposure to the world of application software and technology certifications. I worked hard and become one of the top sales people in the company within 6 months. In this job, I begun to develop a passion and curiosity for computer technology and information systems. I also started to learn about Enterprise Software for Business and Consumer Software for private individuals. I strongly believed that we can leverage on computer technology to make life easier and increase productivity, my desire to go into software development was seeded. My chance came when I was introduced to join a consultancy company in New Zealand who has just won a major contract to implement SAP and in particular, ISU-CCS 1.1A. I took the opportunity and started devoting myself to becoming an ISU-CCS expert. My studies in the University on Business Process Reengineering and Information system helped me to do my job well and seen thru several end to end implementations, both successful and not so successful. For those not so successful projects, I would stick around to handle escalations and even will go to the floor to work with the end users until the new system was stabilized. My passion for the job and the people made me trusted as an advisor in the projects I was at. I became team lead for the Customer Service module and later worked for utilities companies in ANZ and Asia.

How did you come to SAP?

In one of the Go-Live reviews from SAP at the customer in New Zealand, I met a couple of ‘very cool’ IBU experts from SAP HQ, who has inspired me to want to work directly for SAP because I was impressed by their system knowledge and also their industry knowhow. I was also very excited to see that these IBU experts had access to developers and were giving them feedback and fixing bugs. Those colleagues later became my managers in SAP.

In 2001, I married a German and moved to Germany. I took 6 months intensive German course at Goethe Institute and found a job with SAP German Consulting. During that time, I was offered a job with Deloitte for higher pay but I choose to work for SAP because I wanted to be close to the development and understand how software is developed and delivered. My first customer was EnBW and a year later I joined the IBU and since then I never looked back.

What are the challenges of your job and the industry andwhat makes you stay in the Utilities industry so long?

No year equals the last one. Utilities @ SAP is showing thought leadership since decades now by permanent business investigation and transferring findings into industry trends powered by our solutions. Especially in our todays 4.0 full service provider transformation with its disruption and revolution. I am excited about my work at SAP and I want to work with my customers to help them in their transformation journey.

Use one word that best describe yourself?
PASSION – I believe that with Passion, you can create new opportunities and move mountains tirelessly. With Passion, you can affect people positively and influence them to connect and form a community to get things done.

What did you take away with you in the different countries you have lived in made an impact?

I have connected the different stations in my live to my today’s inner self that makes me the perfect fit to the multi dimensions of my business challenges: Singaporean discipline and team spirit, Kiwis boldness and the willingness to go beyond borders paired with German correctness and engineering perfection. To manage a full time high impact job with 5 kids may sound impossible for many but I am actually enjoying it and managing it well.

SAP for Utilities – Huntington Beach, CA – Oct 9 - 12

Are you planning to be at SAP for Utilities in Huntington Beach this year?

If so, stop by our SAP Innovation Lounge (and if not, there is still time to register!)  New this year, the SAP team will be showcasing a fun, interactive area we are calling the SAP Innovation Lounge, with the goal of allowing our customers to experience our unique vision for the industry. We will be working in the areas of IoT, Cloud, Work and Asset Management, Customer Engagement, and including a guest appearance by the SAP Digital Boardroom.

Here are a few highlights planned from this area of the conference:

SAP4U Steps for Charity Challenge:
Utilities are all about power, motion, and serving communities across North America.  As such, we wanted to come together as an industry and give back to the Southern California community for hosting us at SAP4U.  We have set the goal of walking 2.11 million steps over our 2 day conference, in supporting local charity of choice, 2-1-1 San Diego.  If we – as an industry – can hit this goal, SAP will donate $10,000 to this great cause.  Be sure to register your wearable device, or download Jawbone’s mobile app to track your activity upon arrival to the conference! Information will be provided at registration. 

SAP Power Play: The ‘Run Live’ Challenge
Are you better than your fellow utility brethren? Experience the Power Play ‘Run Live’ Challenge to find out. This will be a hands on, timed obstacle course, utilizing IoT components and connected devices. A score board will be maintained, so you will instantly be able to see how you stack up against industry colleagues. Prizes will be awarded to those most nimble!

Customer Track Tour:

Inside the lounge, there will a series of showcases, displaying a variation of customer centric scenarios.  Scenarios will entail our cloud based solutions used by your agents as well as your customers. Tours are planned to leave each day at 10:45 AM and 2:15 PM on Monday, 10:30 AM and 2:00 PM on Tuesday. Open house will run each day from 3:05 PM until 4:30 PM on Monday and from 3:25 PM to 5:00 PM on Tuesday.

Assets Track Tour:

Inside the lounge, there will be a series of showcases, displaying a variation of work and asset centric scenarios.  Scenarios will include Asset and Performance Management, Maintenance, Fleet management, Wearable technologies, and cloud based scenarios. Tours that are asset centric are planned to leave each day at 11:35 AM and 3:05 PM on Monday, and 11:20 AM and 2:50 PM on Tuesday. Open house will run each day from 3:05 PM until 4:30 PM on Monday and from 3:25 PM to 5:00 PM on Tuesday.

SAP Digital Boardroom:

Digital boardroom is a breakthrough in digital approach that aims to contextualize and simplify performance reporting across all areas of business in real time. Stop by to see our vision of how a utility would leverage this new technology. Tours that are Digital Boardroom centric are planned to leave each day at 1:25 PM Monday and 12:10 PM Tuesday. Open house will run each day from 3:05 PM until 4:30 PM on Monday and from 3:25 PM to 5:00 PM on Tuesday. 

Design Thinking Creative Area:

Inside the lounge, we are also planning to have a creative meeting area where we will be hosting hands on Design Thinking exercises with a number of SAP for Utilities attendees. There will also be creative sessions daily from our sponsors Utegration and SUS. Each day there will also be sessions on how to deliver more impactful presentations, as well as sessions on how to use SAP Education more effectively.

As you can see, we are busy planning for your arrival to Huntington Beach! We know there is an awful lot to see at this event, but make it a point to find us in the SAP Innovation Lounge – you won’t regret it!

See you in a few days!

SAP Utilities Team

I say HARDLY -

Some would cast suspicions towards the growth of renewable energy sources as a causal factor in grid disturbances.  We have all heard of the megawatt draining clouds and the calming winds that drop outputs.  Still this week's specific event in Southern Australia cannot become a weapon to whip renewable energy around!

There is no disputing the hub and spoke model that was practical and visionary in Edison's day needs some re-tooling to be able to cope with the injection of energy from the newest crops of suppliers.  While it is agreed by most that the complete rip and replace of the grid isn't going to happen, the deployment of smarter, faster and more data intensive solutions and devices will allow the peaceful and reliable co-existence of carbon and carbon free energy.  Even with the latest technology, we still we have "Acts of God" that challenge the coping of the networks.  So in light of the progress that we have made on renewable energy, we just need to guard against and educate those that would "throw under the bus" renewables any time there are notable grid events.

So how can we separate the fact from the fiction and give the emerging and rapidly growing renewable energy sources a fair shake when it comes to grid stability?

Let's take a recent and ongoing case in point - Southern Australia Power Networks - serving 1.7 million customers and located in South Central Australia with multiple interconnections to adjoining states.

So what happened?  It seems that they were rocked by significant weather that toppled transmission towers and brought down many miles of distribution lines leaving the states capital Adelaide and surrounding areas without power.

                                                                                                                                                           SA Power Networks Outage Map

Immediately customers, regulators and critics start looking for the "culprit" to hang such an event on.  When the power is off in a widespread urban area someone has to pay, and many believe that there must be a single cause to point the finger towards when economic impacts from lost production, spoiled stocks, wages and the like mount quickly.  Couple those losses with the recovery costs to erect towers and restring wires which given initial estimates of the damage will most likely will end up in the tens or more of millions.

SA Premier Weatherill went on record stating essentially that damage to critical infrastructure caused protection devices to act which in turn triggered the widespread outages.  So what does that have to do with renewable energy and why would some see this as a chance to point fingers towards renewables?

Recently SA has seen a marked increase in renewables while coal facilities have been recently cut out of the generation mix as of May.  Now that the area and its citizens are powered by Gas, Solar, and Wind renewables can become an easy target when things go bad.  Still it seems and according to local experts the weather event would have netted the same result even with the generation mix of by gone days.

Now the focus is on the recovery which is being hampered by a lack of sufficient "boot strapable" energy sources that will supply power to the generators to start their plants again and recover the grid.  It's a bit of a catch 22 position that they find themselves in - still the renewables are not the culprit, in fact they are standing by to contribute energy. 

My prediction is that the investigation will show that the severe weather coupled with out of service interconnections and grid elements ultimately led to the acting of grid protection devices to prevent further damage.  Could there have been faster protection schema elements to mitigate the event or should the utility have more boot strapping generation sources prestaged at key generation stations?  Probably and most likely given the weather they would have mitigated but not prevented these outages.  Still these are all questions that will undoubtedly be hashed out in board rooms, court rooms and I would argue best handled over coffee with engineers that understand the need for balance in reserve while we learn and grown a healthy future that has carbon free renewables front and center. 

In a closing recommendation - to augment the obvious physical improvement and recovery, I'd suggest bringing in solutions and engineers that understand the tremendous amount of data that is available for their analysis and operational needs.  Implement tools that bridge the ITOT worlds into one and allow insight from mass data to be turned into action to make smarter decisions.  Look to SAP Hana and PdMS to enable a movement known as "Insight to Action".

Until Next Time - 73 - Rory