Digital transformation at Anglian Water wins second excellence award
A digital transformation programme at Anglian Water supported by consulting firms Cognizant and Curzon & Company has won yet another award for the best practice demonstrated in planning and delivery. After already winning awards for the programme’s excellence in the area of cloud, project management and customer services, it has now won an award for execution excellence in the IT industry.
Water companies are looking to harness emerging automation technology and smart data to transform their services. Often this requires a new way of working, closely focused on defined business outcomes, effective innovation and proper collaboration.
The cross-section of specialties needed for such a transformation means that water companies often engage consulting firms in their digital transformation programmes, as illustrated by Thames Water’s professional services framework in 2017. More recently, this was also seen with Scottish Water tapping Capgemini and Atos earlier in 2018.
In line with this, Anglian Water has overseen a digital transformation guided by transformation consultancy Curzon & Company. The consultancy helped Anglian Water to build the digital business case, sharpen the project strategy and support the organisation in effecting new ways of working. The changes saw Anglian Water create two bespoke smart systems called Grosight and Inflow, which are now live across the utility’s operations, while IT development was led by technology consultancy Cognizant as part of Anglian Water’s Enterprise Works Management Alliance.
The systems fully digitise the application process, planning and asset delivery while enabling for better site visibility and greater insight into the needs of property developers. The systems also aid sustainability initiatives such as water reuse, while cutting the cost of late changes. Furthermore, the changes provide advanced geospatial capabilities, and offer automated workflow management. The transformation is expected to deliver process efficiencies and more than £20 million in savings over the next five years.
Commenting on the project, Edem Eno-Amooquaye, Managing Consultant at Curzon & Company, said, “Grosight and Inflow are equipping Anglian Water with the capability to take a strategic approach to asset planning across the entirety of a water resource zone and recycling catchment area, reducing design costs by identifying site clusters and efficient solutions.”
The digital transformation project has already been lauded by a number of industrial bodies. Anglian Water has been named winner of the Most Innovative Cloud Product of the Year at the 2018 Cloud Excellence Awards, as well as triumphing at the Institute of Asset Management Awards, picking up the Project Achievement Award. Most recently, the Developer Services Digital Transformation programme won ‘Digital Project of the Year’ at the UK IT Industry Awards, the largest technology awards of its kind in UK.
According to a recent study by Atos, utility providers are facing a “race to transform” – with those companies able to understand and respond to the rapidly evolving market in the best position to win. However, water companies are often criticised for their privileged position in the UK, as they operate regional monopolies, so whether the savings of £20 million will be passed on to customers remains to be seen.
Price rises exacerbated by this lack of competition in water provision have long been used by the sector’s detractors to call for re-nationalisation. Debt for water use is now the most common form of arrears among the UK’s poorest households. When the only water tariff in England and Wales that had no standing charge – a product of Anglian Water – was withdrawn in 2016, two-thirds of customers saw their bills rise as a result. The 300,000 people impacted in Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk, unsurprisingly, were unable to change providers.
