The Energy and Utilities Industry’s Unique Data Challenges
Over the last decade, the energy and utilities industry has undergone massive changes—privatization, deregulation, consolidation, and a collapse in market valuations. These changes have spawned challenges that stem from data—its massive volume, its complexity, its questionable quality, and its many sources.
These companies need to be able to access, integrate, and trust their information assets so they can increase operational efficiency, better comply with a growing number of government and industry regulations, and respond more effectively to dynamic market changes.
Increase Operational Efficiency
Faced with rising worldwide demand, your energy company needs to explore new, more efficient ways of increasing supply. Your company needs to invest in new technologies to streamline operations, but you’re faced with limited IT budgets, erratic price fluctuations, and an aging physical and technology infrastructure.
How does your company handle its huge volume and variety of data—everything from supply availability and system capacity information to real-time market price data? How does your company deal with data in multiple formats, with multiple data definitions and varying degrees of quality? How do you incorporate data from new applications, such as intelligent grid systems, smart metering, and sophisticated exploration applications, with data in your legacy systems?
Informatica can help.
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“Informatica’s solution has allowed us to create an information management environment that enhances the efficiency of our customer billing operations.”
- Derek Johnston
Application Development Director, ScottishPower | |
Better Manage Regulatory Compliance
Your company must comply with industry standards—including those guiding security, pipeline integrity, reliability, environmental protections, and trading—and with government regulations, such as the U.S. Energy Policy Act and Sarbanes-Oxley. Your company handles compliance reporting and management in discrete categories—by geography, business unit, or business function. This decentralized approach is insufficient in meeting new and more stringent requirements.
How does your company simplify and accurately report on regulatory compliance issues? How do you retrieve, compile, and integrate emissions, pricing, and trading information, from many disparate sources, to provide federal and state regulators with current information on the state of your business? How do you provide your frontline managers and executives with real-time access to reliable, accurate information so they can react quickly to potential compliance issues?
Informatica can help.
Respond More Effectively to Market Changes
Your company needs to improve the way it responds to changing energy policies, supply management issues, and price fluctuations. It must be agile and flexible in the face of tighter competition, more operational complexity, and seasonal business cycles. You need to understand your customers better so you can improve service and take advantage of new market opportunities.
How does your company harness data locked in customer information, billing, risk management, and financial trading systems to create single, accurate views of your customers? How do you ensure that this data is consistent and complete? How does your company transform raw data into a strategic asset so that it can maneuver adeptly and gain competitive advantage?
Informatica can help.
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Valero Energy Corporation relies on the Informatica platform to bridge the gap between SAP and non-SAP data and provide a comprehensive window into the business for its decision makers. This unified view has helped the company not only stay competitive but also grow the business, enter new markets, improve profitability, and increase market share. | |