Procurement logic ≠ operational logic ≠ value realisation
Utilities are not short of technology. They are short of technology that actually gets used to its potential. Across power, water, and gas utilities globally, a familiar pattern repeats itself.
Large technology investments are approved, implemented, and proudly showcased—yet years later, only a fraction of the promised value is realised. Dashboards exist but are rarely opened. Advanced modules remain unconfigured. Field workflows revert to spreadsheets and phone calls.
This is not because utilities are incompetent or resistant to change. It is because three fundamentally different logics govern the lifecycle of technology—and utilities often assume they are the same. They are not.
The Three Logics That Never Quite Align
1. Procurement Logic: “Is It Safe to Buy?”
Procurement decisions in utilities are shaped by institutional risk, not operational outcomes. Key drivers include:
- Compliance with tender norms and audit defensibility
- Vendor size, longevity, and referenceability
- Feature completeness as written in RFPs
- Lowest-risk choice rather than highest-impact choice
The safest decision is often the one that looks best on paper and withstands post-facto scrutiny. Whether the technology will be deeply used later is not the primary concern now.
Procurement optimises for defensibility, not utilisation.
2. Operational Logic: “Will This Work on Monday Morning?”
Operations teams live in a different reality altogether. They care about:
- Fit with existing workflows and constraints
- Data quality and latency
- Ease of configuration, not just functionality
- Training effort and cognitive load
- Whether it actually reduces firefighting
Many enterprise platforms arrive feature-rich but operationally heavy. They assume ideal data, stable processes, and abundant change bandwidth—conditions utilities rarely enjoy.
So operations quietly adapt:
- Using only 20–30% of the system
- Building parallel Excel-based processes
- Treating the platform as a reporting tool, not a decision engine
- Operations optimise for survivability, not theoretical capability.
3. Value Realisation Logic: “Are We Getting Outcomes?”
Value realisation is often assumed to be automatic. Once a system is:
- Procured
- Implemented
- “Go-live certified”
…the organisation mentally moves on.
But value does not emerge from deployment. It emerges from:
- Sustained usage
- Behavioural change
- Process redesign
- Continuous tuning against real-world conditions
Most utilities do not have a formal owner for value extraction. Project teams dissolve, vendors move to maintenance mode, and business units are left with tools—but no mandate to extract outcomes.
Value is expected, not engineered.
The Result: Technically Deployed, Practically Underused. This misalignment produces a predictable outcome:
- Procurement declares success
- IT declares closure
- Operations declare “it’s too complex”
- Leadership wonders why benefits are elusive
The technology isn’t failing. The governance model is.
Why This Problem Is Structural, Not Accidental?
Utilities are long-cycle, asset-heavy, risk-averse institutions. Their governance frameworks evolved to manage infrastructure—not software that changes behaviour. Three structural gaps persist:
- RFPs reward breadth, not depth of use
- Implementation success is mistaken for business success
- No one is accountable for post–go-live value extraction
Until these are addressed, under-utilisation will remain the norm—regardless of vendor, platform, or budget size.
What Forward-Looking Utilities Are Doing Differently?
Some utilities are beginning to close the gap by:
- Designing use-case-led procurement instead of feature-led RFPs
- Piloting operational adoption before enterprise rollout
- Assigning internal “value owners” beyond project completion
- Measuring success in decisions improved, not modules deployed
They recognise a hard truth: Technology value is not purchased upfront. It is earned over time.
A Closing Thought for CXOs and Vendors
For utility leaders:
The question is no longer “Did we buy the right system?” It is “Are we structurally capable of extracting value from any system?”
For vendors:
Selling capability is easy. Designing for sustained utilisation is the real differentiator.
Until procurement logic, operational logic, and value logic are deliberately aligned, utilities will continue to own powerful technology—while using only a small fraction of what they paid for. And the gap between digital ambition and operational reality will quietly persist.