Energy and Utilities

Energy and Utilities

The global energy market is evolving towards a more open and competitive approach, which means that large companies must completely change their business models in order to continue to play a leading role in the future.

The empowerment of consumers, their communication habits, and use of technology require new ways of managing and organising marketing, which end up having an impact on the entire value chain.

+17,000 km of infrastructure

Our clients manage +50 million supply points

+ 8,000 million readings a year

New capabilities for new scenarios

New scenarios should take into account general factors such as climate change, the acceleration of urban development, demographic changes and technological advances. There are also disruptive factors that must be closely followed, such as the new behaviour of the residential consumer and SMEs, the new distribution channels, the new production service models and, of course, the new governments and regulations that have an impact on the economic model and financial performance of investments.

Of all these factors, Babel brings its capabilities and experience in the field of digital technologies to energy marketing and distribution network management activities.

Our focus on utility clients

Smart grid and smart metering

In marketing for the residential segment and SMEs, the client is the focus, so personalisation and trust in the relationship is the key to success in a more fragmented and competitive market. 

New relationship models along with new products and services must respond to new client needs and behaviour in the face of issues such as eco-energy, concerns about optimising and predicting consumption and spending, self-consumption, self-management and the 24×7 immediacy offered by digital channels. 

All this, given the high volume measured in millions handled in this sector, requires a complex strategy combining the existing capacities in the market provided by transversal technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning, the data provided by additional technologies in the energy field and IoT such as smart metering or smarthome, and the talent available in each company.

The asset is the focus in the management of distribution networks, not only in an attempt to optimise recurrent investment and expenditure for its maintenance, but also to maximise its performance and ensure the quality of supply to be provided. In this case, the new financial and management models associated with assets will require increasing performance and lower expenditure, a scenario that again requires a combination of big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and cybersecurity capabilities with the data and management capabilities provided by smart grids and smart metering. In this area, the inclusion of other technologies more closely related to physical distribution in the territory, such as 5G and drones, will also be important in the combination.

Maintaining the dominant role of large companies in the energy sector will depend heavily on the capabilities to incorporate strategy, business and talent with new digital technologies.

Value propositions in Energy and Utilities

Digital relationship management

Today we can say that energy companies are organisations with millions of digital relationships with third parties: customers, suppliers, business partners and operating systems such as digital meters. It is also remarkable the role that these organisations play as a hub for the relationships that also exist between their third parties, such as when the customer receives the data from their remote reading, or when a maintenance technician closes and executes an activity at the customer’s home to check their installation. The continuous emergence of disruptive technologies that impact on new relationship models, forces energy companies to continuously innovate to incorporate technologies and relationship operations in areas such as mobile payment, the conversational channel, augmented reality, 5G, etc.

In our view, this transformative innovation must be carried out under a strategy that places the customer at the centre with the aim of continuing to improve the customer experience in any contact with the energy company and the third parties with which it interacts.

BABEL provides companies in the energy sector with a broad portfolio of digital transformation services, including its conversational channels, mobile payment, online channel and mobile channel.

Smartmetering

One of Babel’s bets on this sector is to streamline the processes related to the electricity supply in our homes, and for this it is necessary to understand the concept of Smart Metering, which is based on the use of Smart Meters that collect information on energy consumption to send it securely to an operations and monitoring centre of the Smart Grid network. In this way, both the grid operator and the consumer achieve great benefits that are reflected in improved energy efficiency and therefore in economic savings. Using real cases, a consumer can, for example, consult how much energy they are consuming in real time to make decisions and an operator can have complete control of the electricity supply (registrations, cuts, cancellations, tariff changes, etc.) without the need for any physical displacement of any operator.

Field operations management

Field operations management is one of the areas in which digital transformation can have a significant impact on priority objectives for companies in the energy sector, such as increasing customer satisfaction, increasing organisational efficiency and reducing operating costs. The penetration of high-speed communications in field internet access such as 4G or 5G, the exponential increase of devices in the home, industries and cities and society’s habit of online consumption of services and content from smartphones or tablets, are creating a scenario of a significant increase in investment plans in new technologies to achieve what we could call Digital Field Service.

In our view, this investment in transformative technologies should be carried out under a strategy that places the field technician at the centre, just as in the field of customer management it is being approached from a customer experience strategy in which the customer is placed at the centre.

Babel brings to the energy sector its Mobile Field Service Management solution, specially designed to incorporate digitalisation into field

IoT solutions

Privatisation and deregulation have opened up the market to intense competition, giving consumers and businesses more options to meet their energy needs. Increasing scrutiny from investors, regulators and customers regarding social responsibility, sustainability and environmental issues has put considerable pressure on service providers to reduce distribution costs, improve system reliability and transparency, conserve valuable finite natural resources and reduce carbon emissions.

On the other hand, there is constant pressure on capital expenditures to renew or replace old grids and power plants, and remove major bottlenecks in both transmission and generation. In addition, distributed renewable generation and electric vehicle charging are starting to make the supply and demand situation much more volatile and unpredictable.

Babel is aware of this major challenge and implements IoT-based solutions that make the organisation more competitive, increasing and shielding the value of its business.”

New energy markets

The challenges of the market continually push utilities to adapt their business models, making it a challenge for large corporations, knowing that:

Renewable energies have changed both the generation and distribution of energy, making it necessary to define new business models.

Distributed generation includes the customer in the upstream and midstream, and modifies commercial models. This requires smart grids that bring the business and information closer to the customer.

All this in an uncertain regulatory and competitive framework.

With a paradigm that has completely changed the customer experience, it will be necessary to adapt quickly (automation of predictive models, adaptation of markteting automation, digital marketing).

To do this, Babel makes use of four transformation levers: the search for efficiencies, improved productivity, new lines of business and we try to give visibility and control in the operations that each client is carrying out in their projects.

Process automation

The Energy and Utilities sector is immersed in a process of digital transformation that is modernising and changing the models that have traditionally governed the way these companies operate.

In this context, process automation and connectivity are playing a very important role in energy retailers. The demand for immediacy, the need to serve an increasing number of customers and other issues such as compliance with various regulations, make process automation a key point in adapting to the market.

We find ourselves in an environment in which consumers need to understand in the best possible way the services they have contracted in order to know if they are really adapted to their needs. In addition, they are faced with a market with a multitude of existing offers, so offering added value is more than necessary to achieve customer loyalty.

The various advantages and benefits offered by technology in customer interactions can help marketers on the road to customer loyalty.

To respond to these challenges, Babel offers its services in different ways, such as outsourcing services, technological tools and solutions based on AI (Artificial Intelligence) or RPAs (Process Automation) that help human resources in the release of repetitive and tedious tasks and free up time to focus on those tasks that truly provide a differential value.

Cybersecurity
“Cybersecurity is not just a technology, it is not just a product, it is a constantly evolving process necessary to secure the assets of any company or organisation”.

The convergence of operational technology (OT) and IT systems can optimise production, drive innovation and increase sustainability in utilities. However, this can also increase their vulnerability by introducing new attack vectors, while making security threats to technology infrastructures even more difficult to detect, investigate and correct.

From Babel’s point of view, industrial cybersecurity aims to protect the information handled in OT (Operation Technology) environments, both in the systems and devices that manage the information (SCADA Servers, Historian Servers, OPC Servers, PLC, RTU, DCS…) and the infrastructures (generally critical) that house these systems.

Babel has a catalogue of services to analyse the specific case of each organisation according to the perceived needs, multiplying the protection of its networks, systems and infrastructures, thus shielding the value of its clients’ business.

Big Data and Machine Learning

Companies in the energy sector, with the introduction of sensor-based technologies such as smartmetering, smarthome and smartgrids, are committed to creating new organisations and strategies to make the most of all the information that is continuously being generated with the aim of offering new products and services to their customers, as well as making their operations more efficient. In this process of adding value, BigData and Artificial Intelligence technologies are essential, both from the perspective of computing capacity and data ingestion and storage.

According to our point of view, this process of adding value must be led by each of the company’s business areas, with the centralised support of a Data and AI area that allows connecting experiences from different areas.

Babel provides companies in the energy sector with its experience in designing and carrying out ad-hoc projects in this area to achieve business objectives, making the most modern cloud infrastructures and services available to its clients.

Babel

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