| | 9CIOReviewDECEMBER 2020overnight, and introducing a new level of uncertainty, it's imperative that IT leaders of public utilities take a hard look at systems and processes to begin the process of digital transformation now. It's no longer a question of if you'll undergo digital transformation; it's now a question of when. And the "when" is usually because of outside pressure. According to an article in one of the premium publications, only one in ten pursue digital transformation outside of pressure from regulators, customers, or competition. The article also states that only a quarter of major U.S. public utilities have" made meaningful progress in developing future-oriented business models." The goal shouldn't be a forced transformation to adhere to outside forces, but a thoughtful and measured business-driven approach. When I took on this role five years ago, my first goal was to modernize MWRD's aging IT environment and revamp our entire IT model. While inventorying assets and auditing costs, I uncovered a juggernaut of wasteful spending on our core SAP enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. When MWRD originally licensed its SAP products, the vendor oversold us. Portions of what we bought had never even been implemented due to the need for heavy customizations, and more than a quarter of our software maintenance budget went to SAP support. We were spending tons on this, but not realizing the actual value of our full investment. Further, my team wasn't happy with the quality of vendor support they were getting. Concurrently, we were facing the loss of veteran SAP expertise. With a brain trust of company familiarity built over 20 years of service and hard-to-find SAP know-how, these retiring team members would be difficult to replace. The Road to Digital Transformation I determined that switching to third-party support approach would address both issues ­ improve the quality and responsiveness of support for our SAP applications, and provide the expertise needed to run a modernized IT environment. We sought a support provider with a great track record and after careful consideration; we selected Rimini Street Support for our SAP suite of applications including SAP Business Suite 7/SAP ECC 6.0, Business Warehouse, and Business Objects. A key element of success was focusing on the people factor. Often digital transformation projects stall, not because of technology, but because of people's unwillingness to embrace change. Throughout the process, our team maintained constant communication with key stakeholders to establish and reinforce strategic partnerships. By applying a full-fledged change methodology, people were better prepared for the upcoming changes. Independent, third-party support for SAP helped us access ultra-responsive, premium-level support, exit SAP's upgrade cycle, and avoid a potentially costly and risky upgrade to S/4HANA ­ SAP's cloud architecture, which involves a complete "rip and replace" of your current ERP system. We had a lot of pent-up demand for support fixes that we didn't have the skill sets to complete, and it was just too expensive to contract it out to SAP. Working with our new support provider, we quickly cleared a 17-year backlog of IT requests delivering critical, long-awaited functionality to our users. Achieving Tangible Digital Transformation Results In addition to completely transforming the technology landscape and impact of IT across the organization, we instantly cut our annual maintenance fees in half. The savings funded a new IT service management solution (ITSM), ITIL certification for the whole team, and investments in end user computing modernization. The cloud based, ITSM application formalizes the design, delivery and monitoring of the organization's complete portfolio of IT services for more structure around service and support. And the organization recognizes the shift. Once implemented, managed services quickly began delivering value not only from an IT perspective, but also from a customer support and end user support perspective. Only 60 percent of users were satisfied with IT service before the transition. After the transition, our scores are now consistently above 93 percent of users who are satisfied with our IT team's service. Our primary goal was to completely transform the IT landscape of the institution. By adding more responsive support and cutting maintenance costs for our SAP applications, we were able to undertake this IT transformation much more quickly than we had anticipated. I'm proud that we've been able to achieve this. Beyond the organization, the industry has also taken note of the strides that we've made. Our approach and results have helped position MWRD as a role model for digital transformation in the utilities sector. It's no longer a question of if you'll undergo digital transformation; it's now a question of when. And the "when" is usually because of outside pressure John Sudduth
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