Thought leadership

Enterprise GIS

Realizing the dream

Today’s changing business and regulatory environment has required utilities to become more diligent about their IT investments. Pressure continues to mount on functional groups to do more with less, requiring them to make more effective use of the limited capital that is allocated for IT-enabled business change programs. This downward pressure on IT capital budgets is at odds with industry-wide challenges that include:

• Competency retention with an aging workforce
• Optimization in light of regulatory pressures and compliance issues
• Transforming the business to be fit for purpose
• Business simplification through performance improvement
• Improving the performance of support functions.

This has meant that the functional groups within a utility must now compete for their share of a limited, and often shrinking, capital IT budget while striving to improve performance through better use of information technology.

One technology in particular offers a utility an enterprise-level opportunity to help overcome a number of the operational challenges they face – Geographic Information Systems (GIS). This is a mature technology that is well understood by GIS practitioners. Ironically, many utilities struggle to make the case for implementing an enterprise-wide GIS. Instead, they act tactically and build siloed applications in each department, often on different GIS technology platforms, and with little regard for data-sharing, standardization or data stewardship across the enterprise.

This paper will provide an overview of one approach to building an end-to-end ROI-driven enterprise GIS strategy for utilities seeking to improve operational effectiveness, safety, and environmental and financial performance across a number of business processes through the appropriate use of geospatial or related technologies.