Western European utilities will invest the most in cybersecurity in the next 12 months, IDC said in a latest report.
Entitled as IDC Energy Insights, the report showed that the investments particularly be in areas such as data loss and leakage prevention, mobile security, and cloud security.
The research agency estimated utilities’ software spending in Western Europe at about $3.2 billion in 2015. Major areas of software spending for these utilities were customer care and billing and enterprise resource management.
Further, the report showed that meter data management, engineering and design, and plant maintenance are the line-of-business IT solutions with high investment potential in the next 12 months for utilities’ asset operations.
“With smart meter deployments picking up again in countries such as France and the U.K., Western European utilities will focus their IT solution investment potential on adopting new MDM solutions and, to a lesser extent, on enhancing/upgrading their existing MDM solutions in the next 12 months,” said Gaia Gallotti, IDC Energy Insights Research Manager.
Regarding utilities’ customer operations, IDC said, workforce mobility has the highest investment potential. Also, customer care solutions will be a high investment priority, expected to attract the most investments in new solutions, while billing solutions will attract the most investments in enhancements/upgrades.
Finally, IDC said, Western European water utilities will invest the most in MDM and asset management solutions.
Arya MM
