The Key Metrics to Measure Performance Success for Energy, Utilities, and Resources Organizations Colin Beaney The energy, utilities, and resources sector (EUR) is one of the few industries where financial control means managing high-value capital assets and equipment, and a large diverse workforce, which both have a huge impact on productivity and profitability. Combine this with a volatile and changing market climate and the need for solid supporting software implementation becomes crucial. My company, IFS, has done recent industry research to pinpoint the key metrics EUR organizations must be able to quantify in order to track success—right down to every asset, worker, and contract. There are a many areas of common ground across the spectrum of EUR organizations when it comes to running their businesses. Most deal with high volumes of mission-critical capital assets and equipment, and most employ a vast workforce that comprises different skill levels, areas of expertise, and even contractor specialization. Crucially, these common areas have a direct impact on productivity and profitability. When looking at business software that supports these key operational areas, the slightest improvement can translate into quantifiable benefits for EUR organizations—
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extending asset service life, improving workforce efficiency, and boosting the bottom line.
An Industry Bracing for Impact and Crying Out for Visibility
In its new report, “2020 Power and Utilities Industry Outlook,” the consulting firm Deloitte explains: “New technologies, evolving customer preferences, and the changing competitive landscape are leading many water and power companies to explore new business models. Some models may help utilities further enable a clean energy transition, and some may also provide new revenue sources.” Exploring any new business model means being able to accurately measure success and failure. The visibility into these metrics can be provided by enterprise software designed with EUR operations in mind. For this reason, a white paper was recently commissioned1 to find a comprehensive view of the key areas that EUR customers have focused on, and the key metrics they have tracked when deploying enterprise software. Across such a varied industry, this meant working with a number of customers who manage similar pain points, including efficiently managing critical assets, optimizing a large workforce, and comprehensively supporting business operations.
Key Focus Areas of Study From their extensive feedback, it’s possible to map out the key focus areas these customers outlined, as well as the quantifiable results they have achieved when addressing them with their enterprise software implementations. Better Asset and Equipment Management Software It’s been established how EUR organizations must protect revenue and manage costs, while operating and maintaining capital assets. This equipment is expensive to buy, operate, and maintain, and is on the front line of many EUR operations. This could span organizations that operate ports and rely on complex, modern installations with fully automated assets to offload and transport containers and bulk goods, to a company in power generation, or oil and gas, where assets are directly linked to the safe and reliable operation of a plant. In the white paper, the analysts found that a number of EUR organizations have successfully managed to extend the service life of key assets and increase uptime and availability. One customer highlighted better asset, part, and workforce tracking as improving the maintenance of business equipment by stating that, “The software helps us extend the life span of capital assets. I think it’s around 10 to 15 percent longer because of higher maintenance quality and assessments.”
IDC white paper, sponsored by IFS, “The Business Value of IFS Enterprise Application Solutions with Industry-Specific Use Cases.” August 2019.
52 August 2020 • Florida Water Resources Journal
