UK utilities are starting to drive real business change through digital transformation.
By leveraging IoT, blockchain and robotic process automation, combined with decades of customer data, the utilities industry has started to exploit the benefits of 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
How to support the UK’s plan for energy independence and the government’s commitment to a fully decarbonised power system by 2035
Protect organisations, networks and data to ensure service delivery and preserve reputation
Attract and retain resources with technical and digital skills, despite an impending skills shortage
Modernise and transform the underlying infrastructure and legacy applications to take advantage of innovative technologies
How to become more competitive and secure more customers through service excellence and diversification
Changes in consumer opinion around green energy, ethical suppliers and practices
Our key Energy and Utilities solutions
The current economic and regulatory climate, as well as changes in customer and employee expectation are driving Energy and Utilities companies to transform working practices to become more agile, competitive and drive cost savings. Digitisation offers the opportunity for Energy and Utilities companies to embrace new technologies that can enable them to engage with customers proactively and drive better outcomes throughout all phases of the customer lifecycle.
Bringing siloed data together onto a cloud platform will enable companies to increase process optimisation through the deployment of digital innovations such as Robotic Process Automation, Internet of Things and Data Analytics. Cloud solutions enable them to bring the full power of legacy data to front-line employees, connect customers, employees and partners across the ecosystem in real-time.
The ability of Energy and Utilities organisations to move to the cloud will be impacted by their current legacy infrastructures. To offset this risk, many organisations will gradually move to the cloud, combining aspects of on-site storage, public cloud and private cloud. SCC’s Cloud Readiness Assessment services can help to match workloads to the most appropriate cloud service.
Our cloud and on-premise storage solution portfolio includes:
- Colocation – Energy and Utilities organisations can maximise the return on investment of current compute and storage infrastructure by hosting it in SCC’s UK based enterprise data centres.
- SCC Hyperscale – SCC’s Hyperscale Service allows customers to seamlessly host applications and workloads from multiple public cloud platforms, including Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud. This SCC service provides ongoing management, support and optimisation of an organisation’s cloud environments.
- Cloud+ – SCC’s secure multi-tenant cloud platform Cloud+ delivers a catalogue of cloud based compute and storage services based on a consumption model. This allows customers to host services in an enterprise data centre environment without large capital outlays.
- Sentinel – Sentinel by SCC is an enterprise level, fully certified OFFICIAL/OFFICIAL SENSITIVE Community Cloud platform, built specifically for customers with high security needs.
The benefits
- Embracing new technologies such as cloud will enable Energy and Utilities organisations to increase their data analytics and therefore support reaching the government’s ambitions to meet net-zero requirements.
- Cloud services allow for greater connectivity between employees, customers and partners across the system.
- To offset the risk of unstable data centre migration journeys, SCC offer a gradual move to the cloud, combining on-site storage, public and private cloud.
- Maintain a competitive edge and build an advantage through the ability to access technological innovations.
Utilising the latest IT technologies is key to the success of Energy and Utilities organisations’ long-term business transformation plans, however legacy environments and outdated IT kit are holding Energy organisations back from achieving their full potential. At a time when margins need to be protected, investing in IT equipment which will rapidly become outdated and depreciate in value, will not be high on the agenda of many companies despite the benefits of modernisation.
SCC’s DVaaS is a new way for Energy organisations to effectively procure, maintain and securely manage the lifecycle of IT equipment. Benefiting from commodity pricing, organisations are able to free up cash for investment and projects which will drive improved profitability and growth. The SCC DVaaS service can provide Energy and Utilities organisations with a cost-effective and simple way to be equipped with the latest technology without Capex expenditure.
DVaaS works by providing customers with a mutually agreed service catalogue of IT bundles, each with clear fixed term monthly charges. All selected IT equipment bundles are configured with a customer-specific image and can be bulk delivered to a centralised location or individual users. During the agreement, SCC will provide full support and hardware maintenance for the DVaaS equipment.
The benefits
- Protect profits and free up cash for business investment.
- Meet the changing expectations of customers by utilising the latest IT innovations.
- Support sustainability objectives through the circular economy of the SCC service.
- Purchase IT as and when it is required, with stock secured in SCC’s bonded warehouse.
Energy and Utilities organisations are a high-profile target for cyber-attacks. Forming part of the UK’s critical infrastructure, 24% of all cyber security incidents in the country last year were aimed at the Energy sector. Energy and Utilities organisations must invest in advanced cyber security solutions to ensure operational compliance and to protect their proprietary data.
SCC helps our Energy and Utilities customers to develop a comprehensive security strategy that encompasses every stage of the security lifecycle. Our Managed Security Incident and Event Management (SIEM) service provides access to best-in-class threat detection services, delivered by our dedicated and experienced operations team. It delivers a complete view of the visible and ‘invisible’ threats facing an entire organisation, reducing detection times and improving defence capabilities.
We collect, store and analyse security event data, consolidate log events and network data from customer devices, endpoints and applications distributed around the infrastructure. This data feeds into SCC’s enterprise class platform, where an advanced Sense Analytics engine normalises and correlates the data to identify anomalies, uncover advanced threats and remove false positives in real-time. The platform is managed from SCC’s Cyber Security Centre by a team of Security Analysts 24/7. This team actively seeks to provide advice to customers on the best course of action following detection of a threat.
The benefits
- Save time and resource with SCC managing the collection, storage and analysis of security event data, endpoints and applications distributed around the IT infrastructure.
- A market-leading advanced analytics engine providing real-time analytics of log data and network flows to identify malicious activity.
- Reduce risk with 24/7 proactive security event monitoring and alerting with Security Experts on hand in our Security Operations Centre.
- Detailed event correlation and automatic prioritisation – supplying organisations with proactive advice on the best resolution routes.
- End-to-end security service reporting and service level agreements, ensuring regulatory and security compliance requirements are met.
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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