Australian Utility Sector ICT Spending is set to exceed A$1.9 billion by 2018: Smart Grid, Smart Meter and Smart Utility Investments Still Slow

The Australian Utility sector ICT spending growth will remain moderate at 2.0% five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) to 2018. IT investments by utilities companies remain focused on delivering cost savings and efficiency gains, but change is in the wind. Utility sector business priorities highlight the increasing importance of customer related initiatives. These changes are also reflected in the role of IT amongst utilities organizations which is moving from being about productivity improvement to creating new customer engagement points and operating models. In 2014, the Australian utility sector ICT spending reached A$1.7 billion, representing 4.0% of the total Australian ICT spending. It is forecasted to grow to A$1.9 billion by 2018. IT services represents the largest spending category valued at A$7.6 billion, also with the strongest 5-year CAGR growth of 3.5%.

“Although overall IT priorities amongst utilities organizations in Australia are conservative – we are seeing investment in 3rd platform technologies continue, as companies seek to drive efficiency across all parts of the business. In particular we are seeing IT workloads moving into the cloud, investment in mobility technologies, – particularly across field teams,  and an ongoing increased focus on driving excellence in customer experience.”, says Emilie Ditton, Head of Asia Pacific Energy Insights.

The utility sector in Australia is continuing to change – organisations are transitioning from being engineering focussed government enterprises, to privately owned organisations that place customers centrally in their operations and are challenged by the dynamics of competition.  Energy sector utilities are facing considerable challenges competing and managing uncertainty in a market environment that involves more off-grid generation, more non-fossil fuel generation, new sources of energy supply and requirements. Providing consistent, reliable energy to Australian consumers and businesses will be increasingly challenging and will require a whole new set of investments.

Amongst strategic priorities security and cloud investments are the leading priorities, reflecting the fundamental role that data and data integration will play in the operations of utilities organisations. Changing requirements around utility network management, fulfilment and customer experience will have implications for the importance of data integration across systems and processes. Utilities organisations will need to have in place consistent and forward looking data strategies enabling approaches to data collection, storage, access and utilisation across IT and operational environments, that will support steps to build out the operational transparency and agility that utilities organisations require.

“Being a services sector, utilities organisations will increasingly strive to deliver to the expectations of their customers – to provide accurate and timely information and quality services. For most utilities this is less trivial than it sounds and data will be the foundation that these capabilities are based on,” says Head, Asia Pacific IDC Energy Insights, Emilie Ditton.

This media release relates to document: Doc #AU251024, Australia Utilities ICT Market 2014–2018 Forecast and Analysis.