One thing the COVID-19 situation has shown us all is the need to react quickly to change. The change in customer demands, energy use, market prices, environmental factors, and many other things. Energy is a fast-paced industry, and the ability to adapt to change is more crucial now than it ever has been.
We don’t yet know how COVID-19 will affect the energy sector in the long run, but it’s fair to say that even a global pandemic won’t change the need for more adaptable systems and the ability to react quickly to unforeseen circumstances.
But the IT systems that many companies depend on? They’re old, slow, clunky – not really adaptable to the fast pace of the industry in the 21st century. Like a horse-drawn carriage compared to an electric car.
The problem is that there’s no “one size fits all” solution for energy companies. Each has their own unique processes that standard software packages just can’t handle.
As Patrik Forslund, Systems Manager at Jämtkraft, put it:
“If you’re a technician repairing a fridge, it’s quite a simple work order flow. It’s not as intense in reporting and control as we have when we’re working with high-power electricity. We have many more regulations than a standard service technician has. So, we needed to be able to build our own process steps: what to report when and so on.”
So what’s the solution? Build your own system? Well… yes and no. You need a system that fits your unique processes. But building that system from scratch is a huge and daunting project, with a lot of room for error. And the system might be outdated before you even start using it.
Energy companies need two things to be successful today:
- a strong, reliable foundation of data
- a nimble, adaptable way to change their processes
Here at Novacura, when COVID-19 hit, we quickly built an app for employees to maintain social distancing by checking in and out of the office. Since then we’ve built more apps to help our customers manage their response to COVID-19.
(By the way: if you’re a Novacura customer, click here to download your free response management apps.)
The point being: we were ready for change because we had the tools in place to make quick changes as needed.
It’s hard to predict the future with any kind of accuracy. But what you CAN do is equip your business with the tools to react quickly (and easily) to whatever is around the corner. For energy companies, this means having tools in place to react to changing customer demands, environmental and financial factors, and the need for increased traceability (among many other things).
Want to learn more? Download our free webinar on the future of the energy sector. We show you how Nordic energy companies have used IFS Applications and Novacura Flow to:
- consolidate business systems
- streamline business processes
- improve data quality
- get on the path to a safe, sustainable, digital future
…all while cutting IT maintenance costs and increasing productivity.