Advancing Go-to-Market Approaches
Tom Flaherty is a Senior Advisor to Strategy&, part of the PwC network, with over forty years of experience consulting to utilities. Most recently, he has focused on disruptive technologies and innovation models.
Utilities are expecting innovation prowess to provide the foundation for future growth. While they aren't always sure where growth will come from, they're confident it will emerge from sources never tapped before.
To-date, the industry's focus has been on improving business operations through deployment of new technologies (incremental approach). Innovation's next stage is just beginning to focus on leveraging technologies to deliver creative solutions to customers (advanced approach).
The final and most valuable stage of innovation redefines how utilities will elect to compete and changes the nature of value sources available. This stage will cause adoption of new business models and expansion of how value is created (breakthrough approach).
Business Model Direction
Utilities need a coherent way of thinking about business models since terms of art are imprecise and lack a true blueprint. But this doesn't require an elegant definition nor trendy tag-line phrasing.
Business models are designed to match choices made for 'where to play', 'how to play' and 'how to win'. Specific 'go-to-market' adaptations reflect commercial characteristics that shape how utilities need to compete.
These underlying positioning
elements frame market responses for: natural roles; portfolio composition; capabilities mix; market partners; channels adopted; and profit models employed.