UK utilities are starting to drive real business change through digital transformation.
Leveraging IoT, blockchain and robotic process automation in particular decades of customer data is now starting to be exploited by the utilities industry using data analytics.
Although this change to digital provides a real opportunity to attract and retain new staff through digital services and learning, it isn’t without its challenges. Many organisations often rely on legacy applications and infrastructure that are problematic to transform, making it harder to strengthen organisational security against the ever-increasing threat of a denial-of-service attack.
What our customers say
SARAH YATES
Customer Services Manager
UNITED UTILITIES PLC
Your challenges
Gain predictability of operational costs
Attract and retain resources with technical and digital skills despite an impending skills shortage
Digitally transform to be more competitive through the use of innovative technologies
Improve the customer experience to maintain and attract customers in a competitive market
Meet the increased demand for services by ensuring the stability and availability of resources
Protect organisations, networks and data to ensure service delivery and preserve reputation
Our key Energy and Utilities solutions
Energy and utilities organisations have to provide infrastructure platforms that can securely and resiliently store their customers’ data, but also be agile enough to scale with their expected business growth to a digitally-enabled organisation.
SCC provides two key services to support the transformation of organisations across the sector. The first is Oworx, a subsidiary business to SCC that provides a complete suite of cloud enablement services. The second key service is Managed Colocation, a secure and flexible arrangement where organisations can host their own infrastructure and hardware in SCC’s accredited data centres.
In addition to these, we also provide a wider range of technical services and facilities to ensure organisations get a hybrid cloud solution perfectly suited to their needs. These include:
Data centres
We operate three Tier-3 data centres in the UK
Hyperscale partnerships
Our strong relationships with Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services expand the breadth of our offering
Network operations centres
We support 24/7 infrastructure monitoring and management from bases in the UK, Romania and Vietnam
Consultancy
We work with organisations to determine their ideal solution, based on our extensive public sector experience
The benefits
- Consume cloud services rapidly and securely
- Transition to an infrastructure with at least 99.9% availability
- Increase future agility and scalability of the IT environment
- Enable and accelerate effective workload provisioning
- Right-size support levels, from simple maintenance to full managed service
- Cut costs through shared platforms and infrastructures
- Improve cost visibility through consumption-based reporting
Investing in exceptional people with modern technology and processes is essential for business stability, growth and success. This can improve workplace productivity by giving employees the right tools and technologies to keep them connected, and enables them to be productive anywhere, at any time, using their chosen device.
We leverage all our 45 years of expertise, and our status as a long-standing Microsoft Gold Certified and Competency Partner, to help our customers transform their productivity, and transform how their Microsoft environments enable that productivity:
M365 Transformation
Our consultants engage with our customers to develop solutions and strategies that revolutionise user experiences. We design, test and deploy Windows 10 and Office365 platforms that include unified communications strategies, enterprise collaboration platforms and application integration.
Microsoft Evergreen
Our Microsoft Lifecycle as a Service (MLaaS) facility makes it easy for organisations to maintain and securely manage all of their Microsoft environments.
The benefits
- Design and deploy your future workplace with world-class professional services
- Leverage the latest Microsoft technologies
- Use established, proven processes around deployment
- Support future workplace environments with cost-effective managed services
As a major holder of consumer information, energy and utility organisations are challenged to maintain the security of the data they hold about customers in whatever format it is stored, against a backdrop of increased regulation and the ever-growing threat of cyber-attacks and fraud.
Our range of Document Services equip organisations with innovative digital document management solutions that support more integrated, agile ways of working:
Managed Print Rooms
These specialist resources and operatives help organisations move away from paper-based processes and workflows, towards digital transformation strategies that help messages be conveyed more effectively.
Managed Post Room
Our digital post rooms and processes minimise the processing time of inbound and outbound mail, while improving its quality at the same time. These managed services help support the adopting of quicker, more agile and more efficient working practices organisation-wide.
Secure Scanning Services
Secure record scanning services, smart digital working methods and highly skilled resources can be deployed to reduce overall print volumes and improve accessibility to important data.
The benefits
- Streamline workflows and processes
- Create a single, integrated view of data
- Rationalise property assets
- Support sustainability agendas
- Increase information accessibility, including historic documentation
- Enhance protection and security of sensitive data
Energy and utilities organisations are constantly seeking to cut costs so their budgets can be focused on core services and project delivery. However, they require a complex estate of software vendors to operate effectively and managing that estate can be time-consuming and expensive. SCC’s Software Asset Lifecycle Management service involves working with organisations to evaluate their technology and licensing contracts, assessing software usage and identifying any issues and commercial risks. Providing insight into their software estates puts organisations back in control and highlights areas of rationalisation to provide savings, while ensuring compliance with both vendors and legal regulations. To ensure our customers can achieve optimum value from their software estates, we deliver clear management reports and recommendations for improving efficiency and mitigating risk. We can also provide best-in-class tools to monitor and track usage effectively, ensuring compliance with vendor licensing requirements, where non-compliance carries significant fines and reputational risk.
The benefits
- Encourage new ways of interacting with other departments, partners and supply chain companies
- Gain complete visibility and control of the software estate
- Predict software spend accurately
- Enable collaboration and cost certainty with a common multi-agency software platform
- Increase compliance and licence optimisation
- Reduce costs through SCC’s buying power and licence optimisation
The UK is facing a nationwide digital skills shortage, as technology innovations drive the requirement for more and more digital expertise. However, many commercial organisations may not be able to take advantage of innovations such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Robotic Process Automation, due to an inability to attract and retain the resources required.
Using tried and trusted EUC Consult methodology, our skilled Professional Services architects and consultants engage with customers to provide a full-spectrum approach to transformation across seven key areas:
Transformation Solutions
Design and deployment of transformation programmes, strategies, roadmaps and target operating models, with experience in the challenges of moving complex workloads to the Cloud.
Technology Adoption
We combine in-house training and communication skills and use our deep understanding of IT transformation, so customers can adopt new technology faster, deliver improvements to customers and maximise ROI.
Transformation Delivery
Delivery of exceptional governance and control through a highly experienced team of project and programme managers that help ensure outcomes are delivered on time and on budget.
Office365 and Collaboration
Support for introduction and deployment of Office365, unified communications (Skype for Business and Yammer), enterprise collaboration (Sharepoint, Teams, OneDrive, Exchange) and application integration using PowerApp and PowerBI.
End-User Computing
Delivery and management of digital workplaces to take full advantage of Windows 10, modern application support services and enterprise management toolsets, including large virtual desktop environments.
Networking and Security
Deployment and management for every network requirement, across local areas, wide areas, mobile and wireless, along with dedicated Security and Event Management (SIEM) services for security assessment, detection and resolution.
Enterprise Platforms and Data Consolidation
A tailored approach to storage, compute and business continuity, based on in-depth knowledge of many key providers (HP, DellEMC, IBM, HDS, NetApp) and trusted relationships with global infrastructure solution providers.
The benefits
- Access industry-leading digital transformation expertise
- Leverage technical skill sets as and when they’re needed
- Rely on trusted programme managements
- Release resources to focus on innovation and development
- Use projects and work packages on an outcome, fixed-cost basis
Energy and utilities organisations are constantly looking to improve their productivity and to reduce their cost base, including within the management of their IT asset estate.
SCC offers flexible options to ensure our customers always have the right devices, at the right time, with security, viability and sustainability always in focus:
Device as a Service (DVaaS)
Deploying DVaaS simplifies the purchasing, management and refresh strategy of an organisation’s devices. We provide state-of-the-art devices chosen from a mutually agreed service catalogue, and collect them for secure wiping at the end of the term.
Supply Chain Services
We provide a comprehensive service across all six key stages of the supply chain: Procurement, Configuration, Data Security, Storage, IMAC Services (Installs, Moves, Additions and Changes) and Recycling. This is based around our LifecycleTM catalogue tool where customers can conduct product and service transactions online, our Commissioning Centre for all types of hardware and peripherals, and our zero-landfill Recycling Service for secure data erasure and destruction of end-of-life devices.
The benefits
- Enjoy a fully managed asset lifecycle service
- Benefit from our accreditation with Tier 1 manufacturers
- Manage costs effectively through our internal financing solution
- Meet sustainability goals through refurbishment and recycling services
- Maintain a secure, up-to-date, flexible estate of assets
With cyber threats and attacks on the rise, businesses in this sector must take a proactive approach to finding and resolving vulnerabilities. Achieving this is critical to minimising any risk to customer data, the business’s financial standing or its reputation.
SCC helps customers develop a comprehensive security strategy that encompasses every stage of the security lifecycle. This portfolio spans four vital areas:
Predict
A consultative approach where we work with our customers to assess and evaluate their current security position.
Prevent
In the current marketplace, changing business models can indirectly cause an organisation’s attack surface to grow.
Detect
SCC’s Cyber Security Service (CSS) ensures customers get access to best- in-class threat detection services, delivered by a dedicated and experienced operations team.
Respond
We provide incident response services and remediation tasks, so that customers can prepare for security breaches, minimise their impact, and take their protection and risk management to the next level.
The benefits
- Protect the reputation and productivity of the organisation
- Secure valuable confidential information, software and networks
- Cut the cost of security monitoring, risk assurance and in-house skills
- Enable a proactive approach to cyber security
- Tailor a service to the maturity of a particular security strategy
- Support ongoing compliance strategies
Every day, employees in the energy and utilities sector challenge their organisations to deliver an improved service and resolve problems rapidly and permanently, so that organisations can focus on their core objectives rather than the day-to-day maintenance of their infrastructure.
Our service desk offering combines traditional and next-generation services with our own innovative virtual agent platform:
Service Desk
SCC’s Service Desk, built on 20 years of experience, blends modern technology with standards-based, proven service management practice to ensure that our services align to an organisation’s objectives, culture and infrastructure.
TrinITy Virtual Agent
SCC’s affordable virtual agent gives users interactive, AI-based support through access to instant, automated self-help services. TrinITy can understand complex enquiries and deliver clear answers that are personalised to the individual user, while learning over time to constantly improve the service it can deliver.
The benefits
- Scale as required and only pay for what they need
- Drive continuous service improvement through ongoing learning and knowledge base development
- Access new services quickly through rapid transitioning
- Right-size support, from consultancy to a full managed service
- Use solutions accredited to ISO 20000-1, ISO 9000 and ISO 27001 for Information Security
Energy and Utilities Brochure
SCC Energy & Utilities brochure
Explore how SCC can help overcome your challenges within the Energy & Utilities sector.
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