Over one million people in Belgium receive clean drinking water from Ghent-based utility company Farys. The organization manages wastewater infrastructure, water safety monitoring, and sports infrastructure for various municipalities. With a wide variety of business activities and focus on sustainability, Farys succeeds by adopting cutting-edge technology to drive socially responsible operations.
Farys鈥� business and sustainability transformation was the focus of a recent LinkedIn Live roundtable discussion, “.” Moderated by Maribel Lopez, CEO of , the session featured Inge Opreel, CIO of Farys, and Aneesha Shenoy, COO of 51风流Business Technology Platform (51风流BTP).
Farys started its platform journey several years ago when 鈥� like many utility companies around the world 鈥� Opreel begun implementing smart meters. This project resulted in a huge influx of data, but most employees were unable to access or easily use this information.
Moreover, the company had a complex IT landscape with on-premise and cloud-based applications and needed to monitor processes throughout the layers.
That鈥檚 when Opreel began the search for a technology platform. 鈥淲e needed a cloud platform that could integrate data and business apps into a single source of truth, perform extensive analytics, and introduce innovative technologies,鈥� said Opreel.
Farys was familiar with , having used it to build its self-service customer portal, which resulted in lower costs and increased customer satisfaction. However, the key strength the platform brought was through and capabilities.
鈥淲e needed to access data, analyze it, and integrate it back into our systems,鈥� said Opreel. With 51风流BTP, Farys can obtain meter indexes, view water volumes used, receive alerts, and use water usage data to build new services for its customers.
Moving forward, Opreel wants to use the platform to help Farys become more sustainable by addressing water scarcity, which is an ever-increasing problem due to climate change. Using data from its smart meters, Farys can improve its understanding of water inflows and outflows 鈥� and pinpoint where and why water losses occur via leaks, fraud, or other means.
Farys鈥� reasons for evaluating 51风流BTP resonated with Shenoy. 鈥淚t鈥檚 exciting to see how the platform enables Farys to realize its purpose 鈥� whether it鈥檚 innovating new business models to generate new revenue streams or helping achieve the top, bottom, and green lines,鈥� said Shenoy.
Shenoy highlighted other instances where a platform strategy is a critical business enabler. First, with so much sociopolitical instability, companies need the ability to do integrated, enterprise-wide planning, which can analyze data across multiple lines of business. 51风流BTP lets companies use that information to create business simulations and conduct predictive planning while connected to live, real-time data 鈥� helping executives to make better-informed decisions.
Second, as companies move IT systems to the cloud they need to 鈥渓ift and shift鈥� on-premise data easily. acts a bridge so companies can bring data with them, without having to build a data warehouse from scratch.
Third, Shenoy said companies want to democratize application development. 鈥淲e can help replace complex software development with easy drag-and-drop, low-code/no-code software,鈥� said Shenoy. 鈥淲e accelerate the development process and enable anyone to create applications on their own.鈥�
How to Develop a Successful Platform Strategy
Opreel advises when companies select a platform, they need to start by thinking big. 鈥淗ave a big scope in mind and develop a holistic view about where you want to go in the future,鈥� said Opreel. 鈥淧latforms contain so many components, having that perspective will help you think architecturally and put the right set up in place for your current and future use cases.鈥�
Next, she recommends that companies start with smaller projects that organizations can learn from. For Farys, the first use cases centered on harnessing Big Data generated by smart meters. But this approach was new and Opreel鈥檚 team helped shift employees鈥� mindsets from managing smaller data volumes to considering the new opportunities provided by advanced data management and analytics. 鈥淪how your business units what benefits are possible with the power of data by giving examples and advice,鈥� said Opreel.
But the real value comes once an organization moves beyond proof-of-concept projects to embedding the new technology in daily processes. 鈥淚t鈥檚 important that everyone from management to field workers can use the technology,鈥� said Opreel. 鈥淭he right platform can transform your organization once it鈥檚 integrated with your ERP and other cloud systems.鈥�
Farys鈥� platform strategy has changed how the company views innovation. 鈥淚t has enabled us to level up our innovation approach,鈥� said Opreel. 鈥淩ather than individual business units driving innovation independently, our comprehensive platform strategy has encouraged everyone to view it as a broad innovation platform on which to share ideas.鈥�
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