AXXCON supports on the way to the “digital municipal utility”
AXXCON supported one of the largest municipal utilities in Germany, with over 700 employees, in developing into a “digital municipal utility”. The aim was to develop a “Digital Agenda 2024” strategy and make data and information usable in such a way that real added value in the form of digital products and innovations can be offered both internally to the municipal utility and to its customers.
Initial Situation
The “municipal utility” business model is undergoing radical change due to an increasingly complex real-time energy industry. The pressure on municipal utilities to transform is high and not every driver of change can be tackled with traditional, investment-, process- and project-driven approaches. Topics such as the changes in network operation due to the OPEX pillar, the real-time energy industry and blockchain technology, for example, will be of great importance in the future. Only those who accept this and embrace digitalisation will survive. In particular, the expected reversal of the value chain by prosumers will make it necessary to actively shape the customer interface. This is no longer just a matter of competing with traditional competitors, but also with technology groups, appliance manufacturers, the housing industry and potentially also the skilled trades.
From our customer’s perspective, there was uncertainty about the right path and the right use of their own resources. This was based on the fact that the dependencies and complexity of information management and the interfaces to the specialist departments had grown more and more over the years, which also increased costs and made projects take longer.
As part of a digital strategy “Agenda 2024”, AXXCON laid the foundations to secure our client a leading position in the energy industry in the future and supported it in its transformation to a “digital municipal utility”.
Our Approach: Digital Agenda 2024
In order to be able to react to the high level of uncertainty in the market environment, the necessary changes in information management had to be implemented with a digital agenda. With the aim of creating a digital municipal utility, the project set out to design efficient, flexible and consistently orchestrated information systems and to consolidate them in the organisation through implementation expertise and enablement. The previous approach of the municipal utility “IT is only a means to an end in the respective situation” was abandoned. Instead, a platform approach was anchored, which was accompanied by the transformation of IT systems, the development of demand management and implementation skills as well as a strong anchoring in the organisation.
The Result: A digital agenda enabled by digital platform
AXXCON designed a digital agenda that:
- Enabled the development of a modern, lean and, above all, integrative digital platform and implementation in a digital lab.
- Held the continuous development of innovative energy services and offers for customers as the primary goal.
- Was designed to be feasible and affordable for the municipal utility and supported by the employees.
This Digital Agenda 2024 was made possible by a digital platform that followed three guiding principles:
- It saw itself as an enabler for future energy services.
- It enabled far-reaching savings to be made and IT efficiency to be increased (e.g. silent go-live, phasing out applications to be replaced).
- It ensured better data management and enabled efficient information management across all parts of the company.
Our Conclusion
The transformation to a “digital municipal utility” required a comprehensive digitalisation strategy that defined the goals and the path to achieve them. A digital platform and digital agenda made it possible to implement the strategy with concrete instructions that could secure the customer interface in the long term and enable new business models. AXXCON was able to provide expertise and energy in all steps of strategy development and implementation support, bringing the Agenda 2024 to life.
Find out more about digital transformation at AXXCON.
