Spending on IT systems by utilities is relatively meager―less than 5 percent of revenues―when compared to industries such as telecommunications, where IT spending approaches 25 percent of revenues, according to Gartner Group figures. This frugal tendency in utilities, however, promises to change, and indeed is already changing. Increased spending on IT is due to the growing realization that advanced technology is not so much an expense as an investment―an investment that is becoming more and more critical in the newly-competitive electric utility world. Automated work management systems (WMS), for example, can boost organizational productivity and efficiency dramatically by automating such time-consuming tasks as manual scheduling, ordering, dispatching, and the like. Systems free up staff for other, more productive activities; highly integrated systems driven by high-quality data free up staff resources even more. Investing in system and data-integration strategies that make internal processes more efficient has clear benefits in a market driven by deregulation, reregulation, and performance-based rate-making.
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