Water Leaders Chart the Digital Transformation Journey for Utilities

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Water Leaders Chart the Digital Transformation Journey for Utilities

International Water Association (IWA) and Xylem White Paper Maps Digital Adoption Trends and Identifies Key Learnings to Help Drive Migration .

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The International Water Association (IWA) and global water technology company, Xylem today released a comprehensive white paper titled: “ Digital Water: Industry Leaders Chart the Transformation Journey. ”

Examining how digitalization is transforming the water sector, this important resource provides utility decision makers with actionable learnings to accelerate their adoption of digital solutions and address critical water challenges. The paper also introduces the Digital Water Adoption Curve, a valuable new tool to help utilities assess their digital maturity and map their digital future. Water thought leader and author Will Sarni, CEO, Water Foundry , served as a key author of the report.

Global water challenges, like climate change, population growth, increasing urbanization and aging infrastructure, continue to intensify. The latest UN data estimates that 3.6 billion people – almost half the global population – live in areas that are potentially water-scarce at least one month per year and by 2050, more than 5 billion people could suffer water shortages due to climate change, increased demand and polluted supplies. Against this backdrop, water and wastewater utilities are turning to new and innovative solutions including digital technologies, to drive sustainable water management.

“At a time when global water challenges are escalating, digital solutions offer communities around the world bold, new ways to optimize, manage and conserve this most precious resource,” said Kala Vairavamoorthy , IWA Executive Director. “‘Digital Water: Industry Leaders Chart the Transformation Journey’ leverages the insights of IWA members to help utilities learn from their peers, harness the power of digital technologies and enable communities around the world to become more water-secure,” states Kala Vairavamoorthy. “Only together can we shape our water future.”

Patrick Decke r, President, and CEO of Xylem said, “The world has to think and act differently about water. There simply is no other choice. Water challenges like scarcity, affordability, and resilience are placing millions of human lives at risk, endangering our environment and the global economy, and impeding social progress. These urgent threats are not some far-off problem in the future. They are upon us and growing by the day. We need step-change, and digital innovation is the answer. This paper is a call to action to water stakeholders around the globe. We have the opportunity of a lifetime to solve water and to change history – let’s seize it.”

Key takeaways from the report include:

  1. Build a holistic digital roadmap and a clear business strategy: Utilities must create internal consensus on how the digital journey will unfold, maintain the customer and business outcomes as focal points throughout the digitalization process, and educate key stakeholders (consumers, politicians, shareholders, management and employees).
     
  2. Create an innovation culture: Utility operators, IT staff, finance, technicians, executives, and others have to be the scouts for identifying new technologies. However, to drive adoption, utilities must focus on fostering an organization-wide curiosity and competency for embracing digital innovation.
     
  3. Leverage pilots for an agile mindset: Pilot projects offer a means to explore new technologies, build momentum, and create a more holistic understanding of their physical and financial effects on operations before committing to large-scale implementation.
     
  4. Develop architecture for optimizing data use: Developing a data warehouse, where operational data sets become available to functions such as finance, engineering and IT specialists who can use the data to optimize business processes, is critical to creating value from data and effectively digitalizing utility infrastructure and connectivity.

The primary authors for this report are:

About the white paper:

The Digital Water Report kicks-off the knowledge sharing and generation in the IWA Digital Water Programme . The Programme acts as a catalyst for innovation, knowledge and best practice; and provides a platform to share experiences and promote leadership in transitioning to digital water solutions. By sharing experience on the drivers and pathways to digital transformation in the water industry, the programme is consolidating lessons and guidance for water utilities to start or continue to build their journey towards digitalization.

Find the white paper on DIGITAL WATER attached below. 

Source: IWA

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