Development of a strategy for a municipal utility
Challenge
The energy transition, security of supply, digitization, distributed generation, mobility and, last but not least, social changes together with the deluge of new legal and regulatory requirements are presenting municipal utilities with unprecedented challenges. Other contributory factors are the high expectations of customers with regard to uninterrupted supplies of electricity and water, constant availability, and instant solutions for every problem.
Getting to grips with all of this to successfully manage a utility demands a robust strategy. Its methodical development while maintaining consistency of content requires a great deal of experience and know-how coupled with in-depth market and industry knowledge. FMC was commissioned to advise a Swiss municipal utility on the development of its new strategy.
Solution
This project was handled in three phases. Following the project’s initialization and mobilization, the first phase comprised analyzing the corporate landscape and the utility itself, identifying trends and their repercussions, and deriving the lessons thereby learned.
In a second phase, strategic directions were determined and strategic goals formulated along the balanced scorecard. This objective is supplemented by the partner ecosystem, which reveals the company’s orientation at a glance, including its make-or-buy strategy.
The final phase was to develop the measures, projects and plans required to achieve the objectives. By formulating profiles, problems and solutions were presented, milestones and a timetable were set, responsibilities and KPIs were defined, and a roadmap for implementing the new strategy was drawn up based on this.
Conclusion
By applying tried-and-tested methods adapted to the specific case, a strategy was developed for an energy utility that will be sustainable over the coming five years. The operational focus also ensures that this strategy can be implemented and the envisaged optimization can be realized in day-to-day business.
