Technology Corridor

Mobile workers provide the next opportunity for utility productivity gains.

Field workers at many electric, gas, and water utilities have not realized the benefits of their company's substantial investments in office-based information technology (IT) systems for work and asset management, customer service and billing, geographic information systems, mobile technologies, or even e-mail. When mobile field workers do not have access to these systems, they continue to rely on systems that are paper-based or offline, accessing critical information only when they are at the service center or corporate yard.

Without access to the information held in these systems, field workers and the business they support often face needless challenges, including poor coordination and communication with the field. Field staff cannot access needed data, and supervisors cannot easily coordinate their work and that of contractors. Trips back to the base or home office become necessary to collect work orders and documentation, and to return job completion details and time sheets.

The growing challenge for the chief information officer (CIO) is to have a detailed understanding of the requirements of the business at the front line. The work of the field staff and others in the organization performing basic operations is where innovation can reap the greatest reward for the business. In this environment, a CIO with an innovative outlook shared by the rest of the company is in a position to become a value creator. This is a significant departure from the conventional view of the CIO as a mere steward of assets.