Adopting agile technologies is a necessity in the current energy landscape

The energy landscape is undergoing significant shifts due to increasing prominence of renewable energy including wind, solar, nuclear, and the emergence of shale gas in the U.S. The difference in energy costs from renewable sources is narrowing faster and solar power is likely to be 10 per cent cheaper than coal power prices by 2020. In addition, based on other recent market developments, the energy industry now faces major challenges due to enhanced needs of asset productivity, agility, process efficiency and sustainability to provide cost effective energy and electricity supply to customers.

Organisations need to aggressively pursue adoption of smarter technology across the asset lifecycle. They also need to facilitate development of innovation centres in their organisations to continuously research and explore application of new-age technologies in bringing disruption in their existing business and operating models.

However, increased intensity of cyberattacks is also being witnessed alongside the adoption of emerging technology (cloud, mobility, analytics, smart devices and IoT) across the industry, which are being driven to bring in efficiencies across processes. The challenge that the industry faces is that upgrade/deployment of new technologies, if not managed well from a cybersecurity perspective, may lead to heightened risk exposure for organisations.

Hiran Bhadra,
Partner & India Lead – Strategy & Operations Consulting
KPMG in India