The software industry is continually challenged by the need to convert data into useable information and several years ago that challenge took shape in the form of dashboards – graphical representations of key information that was being generated by various software programs.
In essence, the dashboards were bottom line indicators of performance on the key metrics that top executives considered valuable and important to their overall management of the company.Heretofore those dashboards were mostly targeted at top executives who needed summaries and forewarnings of potential underlying business problems.
The people actually running the various components of the business weren’t always included in the dashboarding effort, leaving them on their own for creating information relevant to their operational component.
Dashboarding has also typically been a monthly exercise to pull together key metrics, so the potential for near realtime information to manage the business has not existed.Today’s software solutions offer broader opportunities for the utilization of dashboards throughout companies, to have the effect of increasing overall business IQ.
For utility companies, this broader utilization comes with some difficulty because of the way that information is spread throughout the organization. But there is growing realization that spreading the use of dashboards, from the accounting and senior management offices to everyone – civil and electrical engineers, technicians, planners, operations, customer service representatives, safety officers and others – empowers excellence and improved performance throughout the organization.
It’s my hope you’ll enjoy learning more about the democratization of Business Intelligence efforts throughout the enterprise. The white paper includes case study examples of Italy’s Edipower and Hong Kong’s CPL Group, along with a number of views from analysts at Gartner and IDC Energy Insight and consultants at Accenture. – Larry Cochrane
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About MSPowerUtilities
Welcome to the Microsoft Utilities Industries Blog!
My Name is Jon Arnold and I am the Microsoft WW Utilities Industry Managing Director, one of four people who will be serving as author of this blog.
Our blog aims to provide readers with frank discussions of utility industry issues and our view on them as a provider of software solutions.
Blogs are often judged by their level of authenticity and the absence of marketing content. We will make every effort to shape this blog accordingly.
However, and I don’t mean to be immodest here, but Microsoft software helps nearly every utility around the world run their business. If our comments on this blog provide our users with extra insight and knowledge about our products – even if some readers get turned off by inadvertent marketing – we take comfort in the fact we’re doing our job, serving our clients.
But in a larger sense we think this blog will serve an important role in educating and informing most everyone, as power hungry businesses, industrial operations and consumers create ever more demand pressure, and as environmental issues, regulations and higher fuel costs squeeze utilities’ production. Just as technology has increased modern economies’ productivity over the last 25 years, so too will it address these new challenges.
The Microsoft WW Utilities Team is comprised of myself, Larry Cochrane and Larry Kuhl, or, as I refer to them, Larry West and Larry East, as Larry C is in Redmond and Larry K is upstate New York. We work closely with Microsoft industry resources around the world including Ray King of the US Utilities group who resides here in sunny Florida with me. I’ll include all our bios in another post.
Our goal as a team will be to offer thoughts about how utilities can use technology to improve cost efficiencies, enhance service reliability, improve customer service and add to the bottom line. Just as important, we want to provide our views on how utilities can compete in a turbulent future brought on by the carbon challenge and global supply chain competition. We will do this by changing the way people work, through the most comprehensive software they need to be successful, and thereby change the utility organization itself.
We already have an extensive set of information about how we and our partners are helping utilities become more successful. You can find this information and more about the kinds of products and services provided by the Microsoft Utilities team at this link.
I strongly encourage your feedback and suggestions so please, do not hesitate to contact me at: Jon.Arnold@Microsoft.com or call me at: 904-280-5406
Jon C. Arnold
WW Utilities Industry Managing Director
Worldwide Utilities Industry
Microsoft Corporation
Office & Mobile: 904.280.5406
Fax: 425. 708.5902
jona@microsoft.com
On the internet at: www.microsoft.com/utilities
