| | APRIL 20189CIOReviewAn imperative that is much easier stated than accomplished, since we are now looking not only at changing core technologies in the utility, but changing the culture along with it. Changing technology and culture ­ potentially at the same time ­ leads to questions such as:· Do we first introduce the new technologies and then train our employees to be comfortable with them? (change management approach)· Do we first empower our employees to execute agile methods and let them drive the new technologies? (agile approach)· Do we drive this change simultaneously in all parts of the organization or do we lead with "pilots?"One promising answer to these pertinent questions is adopting and rolling out the analytics function across the organization. Faced with the question of installing either a central analytics group or a decentralized group, an answer can be found by balancing a central Analytics Center of Excellence (CoE) with a distributed Community of Practice (CoP). While Analytics ­ under that name ­ is a relatively new field, practitioners close to the customer and the equipment have employed techniques and tools resembling analytics for decades. Reporting and data-driven decision making are by no means a recent invention. It is therefore advisable to not centralize these "embedded" analytics experts, who bring their techniques to bear on their domain of knowledge, such as customer segmentation, renewable energies and distribution planning. Yet, these "distributed" experts suffer from not sharing insights and knowledge with each other. They also lack the time and resources to stay abreast of the newest tools and methods in the area of analytics.The CoE comes in by continually following the development of new tools, methodologies and techniques that all employees interested in analytics can use, across the company. Further, the CoE organizes knowledge exchanges between the distributed experts to facilitate the dissemination of highly specialized insights from one end of the company to the other, by creating electronic and physical meeting places for the community of practice (CoP).While this approach will not work universally, it represents one way to solve the dilemma of interaction between technology and culture change. By addressing these facets as one, we position employees to succeed in a rapidly evolving environment. The CoE comes in by continually following the development of new tools, methodologies and techniques that all employees interested in analytics can use, across the company | | APRIL 20189CIOReview
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