Utility Week

I N T E R V I E W transformations with their businesses. I think we are ahead, though not that far ahead, but I don't see us behind anyone, and I do see us probably at the forefront of most. As CIO, I would argue there are three things you need to have working in harmony. You need the technology to be the right technology – which is quite a skill picking the right solution. You need the right business process to wrap round that technology, so that you can get the best out of it. And you need the right people capability to get the best out of the process and the tech. Fail to get any of those right, and you'll never get to the end game of end-to-end digital. I work very hard with my business colleagues and my team to ensure we're doing the best we can in all three of those. One of the things I'm proudest of is the digital academy we set up that will give our people the knowledge and capability they need – it's open to everyone in the business. We also sponsor many PhD students and graduates. Q How are you working to take on board new technology? We've got a strategic partnership with Microsoft. ey're clearly a big partner across any corporate, and they were a big partner in my previous company. e one thing I like in all our strategic partnerships, and we only have three or four of them, is that they start from the CEOs down. ere is a handshake with the partner that allows us to talk about common issues and the ways that we might help each other in the marketplace. I like the fact that Microsoft has a deep and rich portfolio and covers all the areas an entity like Centrica would be interested in: cloud platforms, the focus on data and so on. e collaboration stack they've got with Office 365 I think is unparalleled in the market. eir CEO Satya Nadella has changed the nature of how they look at their services. One of the technologies we've implemented with Microsoft is to move our operations to the cloud (Microsoft Azure in the UK) to again give ourselves a little more agility, elasticity and speed. Because it's always there, you tend not to suffer infrastructure problems, so you can be guaranteed that you've got an operation that's always going to be up. Working with Microsoft over the next couple of years will transform how we plan and dispatch work for our teams of engineers across the country. Q What are you planning to do with your data? Another area we are looking at with Microsoft is the collection and use of data. I'd like to think we've learnt from one another in that space, which is what partnership means to me. When I arrived here, I inherited a sophisticated team that has a pretty good lead in this space [around data]. We've had a data lake for a number of years now, and we're moving that data lake into Azure. As you know, a data lake takes structured and unstructured data, and it takes it at volume in real scale, and then it allows you to use tools to scan that mass of data to draw out the analysis that you're looking for. For example, we have rolled out in the UK some six million smart meters, half of all those installed in the UK. is has given us unique data sets for our consumers. And almost all that data goes into our data lake for analysis. We are able, thanks to analysis, and some complicated algorithms that we have IP-ed ourselves, to establish whether a consumer's fridge or freezer has a condenser that is about to fail. We're able to ring up and say: "We've been looking at your smart meter, and it's telling us that your condenser is failing on your freezer – can you test the temperature just to confirm that that's the case? We can have an engineer to you tomorrow morning if you need one." at's one example of the nirvana of where we're trying to get to in the data space. e other thing is that we've put intellectual property on data that we've been using for a number of years now in a separate company we own called 'Io-Tahoe', which provides GDPR discovery tools to blue chip type corporates. Whoever thought a utility company would own a data company? Q What technology will make an impact in the future? ere are three that I think will make a big difference in our sector. Firstly, cognitive assistants are going to change the way that we are going to engage with the customer. Secondly, the emergence of blockchain as a vehicle to aid renewable energy sources and to support electric vehicle charging; and finally, AI/machine learning to further enhance the personalisation of products and services to the customer. Q Is there anything that has surprised you about the utility sector? It's slower than you think. And then you find out that slow is not necessarily bad. Because obviously slow in the energy sector also takes into account the safety parameters within which you must work. Most industries are safe in that regard, but in the energy arena, you can't afford to do some things quickly. And some of the processes aren't as fluent as I thought they might be. And then, of course, there are regulatory and other aspects to what we do that genuinely slow things down as a consequence. And it's a bit clunky too. Q Finally, you've had a wide-ranging career – has anything you'd learnt in previous careers helped you in this role? Discipline! Keeping your chin up, trying to be constructive, and a team player. One of the things I've tried not to do, which I probably did earlier in my career, is to appear too authoritarian. It would be very easy to revert to being a soldier and say "I'm not asking for a discussion, go and do this, etc...". You have to recognise that with the capabilities in some corporates, this one included, often there are secret skills you're not aware an individual has. So, I've had to shape my interaction with people. 16 www.utilityweek.co.uk/fLeX

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