Top 20 Utilities Technology Solution Companies - 2013

Traditionally, utilities have had little experience with competition or strategies for winning new customers. Consolidation and globalization have changed that, as the industry transforms into a more dynamic market-driven environment with fewer, larger companies.

Deregulation has opened up new opportunities and new threats, forcing utilities to expand their focus from simply providing energy, to rethink their strategies and align them more closely with customer needs. Utility providers are therefore renewing activity directed at improvements in operations, use of information technology and automation of business processes. Additionally, more cross-functional business processes and customer service-focused solutions are being introduced to improve operational efficiency and maintain and expand the customer base.

As customers and business partners increasingly demand greater empowerment, utilities companies seek to improve interactions and relationships in their entire business ecosystems by enhancing software capabilities for collaboration, gaining deeper customer and market insight and improving process management.

In the last few months, we have looked at hundreds of solution providers and consulting companies and shortlisted the ones that are at the forefront of tackling the challenges of the utilities industry.

In our selection we looked at the vendor's capability to fulfill the needs of utility companies through the supply of a variety of services that support core business processes of utilities, including innovation areas related to smart grid, smart energy services, smart generation, and smart customer management.

We also looked at the service providers' capabilities related to the deployment of cloud, Big Data and analytics, mobility, and social media in the specific context of the utilities business.

We also evaluated the vendors support for utilities bridging the gap between IT and Operations Technology. We present to you CIOReview's 20 Most Promising Utilities Technology Solution and Consulting Providers 2013.