IT officers are getting more efficient, but guess what keeps them up at night?
Ever-present security concerns are keeping utility chief information officers up at night. With their IT budgets under constraints in a back-to-basics era, four CIOs speak out about their concerns over funding, staffing, and the future.
Experts predict the top issues that utilities will have to weather this year, and beyond.
A soup-to-nuts preview of the next 12 months that touches on spinoffs and interest rates, climate change and New Source Review, the future of nuclear, investor returns, and natural-gas price volatility.
Utilities place billion-dollar bets on infrastructure, but the deck may be stacked against them.
Something seems deeply disturbing about the utility industry these days. An almost palpable tension rises whenever the utility CEO is asked how he will build enough power plants to meet the skyrocketing demand for power. Some consultants predict that sometime after this decade the time will come when utilities won’t be able to build enough to meet demand, no matter what they try.
Leadership requires alignment between performance measurement and strategic priorities.
A defense of the total return to shareholders (TRS). Our authors use TRS as the bottom-line performance indicator, and come up with a number of performance insights.
Superior asset management, exceptional cost discipline, and magnificent growth opportunities define the winners of our second annual financial ranking.
(September 2006) Consistent performance over time is the Holy Grail of corporate management, and a focus of many of the executives who made this year’s Fortnightly 40 ranking. Who returned to the list, and who fell off? And more important, why?
Developments in IT, outsourcing, customer information and customer relationship systems are challenging long-held notions on essential operations.
New developments in IT, outsourcing, customer information systems, and customer relationship management are challenging long held notions about utilities’ essential operations.
Banks are reshaping the energy-trading landscape. When the dust settles, utility companies will face different strategic horizons.
Utility executives face volatile energy markets, skyrocketing fuel prices, and changing federal energy policies. How are utilities benefiting from the turnaround in energy trading?
The way senior tech executives and business managers define success has changed.
Alignment of the business and the information technology (IT) functions within a company is critical to the effectiveness of any strategic initiative. Three years ago, our research identified a number of best practices in IT integration, as they affected M&A execution. What changed, according to our new survey, is the way senior IT executives and senior business managers define success in a merger transaction. With so much at stake in any merger, the distinctions between these two important management constituencies are critical.
Does your company measure up?
Few companies achieve sustainable high performance. Markets change but companies fail to adapt, and investors are unforgiving. Utilities, and new entrants, learned this lesson during the first competitive market cycle of the late 1990s and early 2000s, when few companies sustained a high-performance leadership.
Which is the best energy company?
(September 2005) Top honors in our first annual financial ranking go to those staying with the basics and to those dealing with soaring commodity prices.