The “Yes, and…” moment has arrived in the transformation of multi-utilities organisations.
“Yes, and...” is a simple principle. It acknowledges what's already true and builds on it.
Many Independent Distribution Network Operators (IDNOs) and Independent Connection Providers (ICPs) are reaching their own “Yes, and…” moment.
Yes, we've invested in digital.
Yes, we've modernised systems.
Yes, we've improved access to data.
Yes, we've automated parts of the business.
And… now what?
Because it turns out that digital transformation was never the destination.
No investor ever asked for a more sophisticated workflow tool. No customer chose a provider because of its system architecture. And very few boards care which CRM platform has been implemented.
They invested to support growth, improve performance, strengthen control and create a business capable of scaling successfully.
So, the “And” can be an easy place to stumble.
Most multi-utilities have already started investing significantly in their digital foundations. Now, the challenge is ensuring those investments are genuinely reducing complexity and improving scalability.
Growth creates its own challenges:
- More customers.
- More assets.
- More projects.
- More utility services.
- More data.
The real test of digital transformation is whether the business has become easier to scale.
Now it's time to make sure the “And” delivers the payoff it promised.
1. Growth changes the nature of the challenge
Many IDNOs and multi-utility providers have grown rapidly, expanding their asset bases, broadening their service offerings and attracting substantial investor backing. Today, IDNOs serve ~1.5 million customers in Great Britain and adopt ~70-80% of new electricity connections.
Growth remains firmly on the agenda. Housing development, electrification, EV infrastructure and wider investment in the energy transition continue to create demand for new connections and network infrastructure.
But the growth that has made these organisations successful is also changing the nature of the challenges that they face.
As organisations expand into new services, acquire businesses and onboard increasing numbers of customers, projects and assets, complexity accumulates.
Each step makes perfect sense in isolation. Collectively, however, they create a business that is more difficult to coordinate, manage and control.
Leadership teams need visibility across a wider range of activities. Decisions increasingly cut across multiple teams and functions. Dependencies multiply. Small inefficiencies that were once manageable begin to have a noticeable impact on performance.
This is where digital investment should begin to prove its value.
But…is it?
The question multi-utility providers should be asking themselves is:
Can your business double in size without doubling complexity?
2. From shared delivery to shared information
The First Generation of Multi-Utilities Shared Trenches. The Next Generation Will Share Information.
Much of the success of the multi-utility model was built on a simple idea: bring multiple utilities together and deliver them more efficiently.
By coordinating electricity, gas, water and communications infrastructure through a single delivery model, multi-utilities created a proposition that was compelling for developers and differentiated from traditional utility delivery approaches.
One relationship. One provider. One trench.
But the challenge doesn't end once the trench is backfilled.
It’s time to consider the opportunities beyond the site. To focus on how information is used to support planning, delivery, operations and decision-making long after construction is complete.
That is easier said than done. Multi-utilities operate across different utility services, each with its own regulatory requirements, operational processes, systems, data and performance measures. Those differences are both necessary and unavoidable.
The challenge is bringing them all together.
As organisations grow, decisions increasingly sit across utility boundaries rather than within them. Investment prioritisation, delivery performance, customer outcomes and operational risk all require information to flow effectively across teams, systems and services. Leadership teams need a coherent view of performance across the organisation rather than within individual utilities. The more the business grows, the more important those interfaces become.
This is often where complexity begins to emerge. Information becomes harder to connect. Priorities become harder to align. Small inefficiencies that were once manageable become increasingly visible.
Leadership teams must measure how effectively the business operates across utility boundaries, not just how effectively each utility performs in isolation.
The organisations that pull ahead over the next decade are likely to be those that can integrate information, planning, assurance and operational insight as effectively as they once integrated construction activity.
The first generation of multi-utilities integrated delivery.
The next generation will integrate operations.
3. Capabilities create value, not systems
The success from investing in systems, digitising processes and improving access to data is not even across the sector.
Similar organisations with similar technologies often find themselves in different positions. One appears to absorb growth while maintaining visibility, consistency and control. Another finds that every increase in scale also creates new coordination challenges, more management effort and increasing complexity.
The technology matters, but it is rarely the thing that explains the difference.
Investing in the best software can help, but software ≠ capability.
The organisations that realise successful outcomes from their investment are focused on the outcomes that matter most to their customers and leadership teams.
How quickly can quotations be produced? How easy is it to understand delivery progress? How predictable are timelines? How much effort is required to do business with the organisation?
Equally, how confidently can future demand be forecast? How effectively can investment be prioritised? How well is operational risk understood? How easily can a growing portfolio of work be governed?
These are the things that determine whether a business scales effectively.
Technology plays an important role, but it's only one part of the answer. Strong capabilities emerge when technology, data, processes, governance and ways of working combine to consistently deliver an outcome.
With growth this only becomes more important.
The capabilities that matter to a business with 50,000 customers are not necessarily the same as those that matter to a business with 500,000. Forecasting, asset assurance, investment prioritisation and portfolio governance become progressively more important as scale increases. The cost of poor decisions, weak controls or inaccurate information becomes significantly higher.
Customers don’t experience systems; they experience the capabilities those systems enable: faster responses, greater certainty, better communication, and more predictable outcomes.
Leadership teams are no different. They're not trying to manage a collection of systems. They are trying to run a business.
Organisations scale by developing stronger capabilities, and better software is only one part of that.
Delivering on the promise of the “And…”
The sector has already invested heavily in its digital foundations. Systems have improved, processes have been digitised and access to data has increased significantly.
The next challenge is understanding whether those investments are delivering the outcomes that matter most. Is complexity becoming easier to manage? Are decisions becoming easier to make? Is the organisation becoming easier to scale?
Perhaps the most useful questions for leadership teams are:
- Where is complexity accumulating?
- Which capabilities will determine the next phase of growth?
- Where are information and operational interfaces creating friction?
- How much of the value expected from digital investment is being realised?
Answering those questions starts with understanding where the organisation is today.
A Digital Maturity Assessment provides an evidence-based view of current capability, constraints to growth and priorities for improvement. More importantly, it helps leadership teams understand whether digital investment is genuinely making the business easier to scale.
Reaching the "Yes" was the first step. Making sure the "And" delivers is what comes next.
If you'd like to understand where your organisation stands today, our Networks team can talk you through what a Digital Maturity Assessment could look like for you. Get in touch with Mark Hewett to start the conversation.
