SAP SE (NYSE: SAP) and Accenture (NYSE: ACN) announced they are co-innovating and co-developing the new SAP® Cloud for Utilities solution to help companies more effectively manage business processes and customer experiences. The initiative aims to elevate energy transition and customer experiences, helping companies quickly adapt and thrive in changing times.
“SAP Cloud for Utilities is our strategic cloud solution, designed to support lead-to-cash processes that can enable utilities to capture new opportunities and develop fresh business models in the dynamic market for innovative commodity and noncommodity products,” SAP Industries Co-President Peter Maier said. “The industry needs to create great customer experiences with integrated solutions for short time to market and low cost to serve.”
SAP Cloud for Utilities will be an end-to-end integrated solution born of Project Elevate, announced in May 2019. The solution is designed to be deployed in a cloud or hybrid environment to help utility companies automate sales processes, freeing up more resources to create meaningful customer experiences that can result in loyalty and revenue. SAP Cloud for Utilities can incorporate intelligent technologies and real-time business insights, offering extensive capabilities around marketing, service, commerce, product bundling, self-service, fulfillment of complex services and subscription billing for commodity and noncommodity products.
The solution will be built on the market-leading SAP C/4HANA® suite, SAP S/4HANA® Cloud and SAP S/4HANA and will use deep product knowledge and industry and customer management capabilities from Accenture Technology and Accenture Interactive.
Developers and industry specialists from SAP and Accenture are working together in order to help create unified, authentic and personalized customer touchpoints. Their mission is to provide unique industry insights, agile methodologies and integration capabilities that accelerate the advanced features of SAP C/4HANA and SAP S/4HANA across marketing, sales, commerce, service, billing and revenue management and customer data. SAP and Accenture also plan to integrate data from Experience Management solutions from SAP with existing operational data, with the goal of helping utility companies to manage their end-to-end core processes, networks and employees more efficiently.
“Working with SAP and our utility industry co-innovation group to accelerate developing SAP’s cloud-based platform for utilities can enable our clients to better create new experiences for their customers while streamlining back-office operations,” said Jean-Marc Ollagnier, group chief executive for Accenture’s Resources business. “These benefits are important for utilities to be more competitive in markets that are under growing pressure due to advancing technology and changing consumer preferences, including better home energy efficiency and increased interest in renewable energy sources.”
This initiative also includes the formation of an industry co-innovation group comprised of leading global utility companies to help define and design SAP Cloud for Utilities. Fifteen utility companies representing over 100 million customer contracts globally have already joined the co-innovation group, including EDP, rku.it, Conergos, Innogy and MVV. The co-innovation group is still open for utility companies to become early adopters and active contributors.
This agreement further advances SAP’s long-standing collaboration with Accenture, building on years of successful co-development and go-to-market activities related to SAP S/4HANA and collaboration across multiple industries.