Digitisation and Business Intelligence - Supporting Affordable Water Reform

Pete Brooks (AECOM), Tim Ingram (AECOM), Deborah Lind (AECOM), Cecily Canning (AECOM) and Allan MacMaster (Scottish Water)

The New Zealand water industry is undergoing significant change. Effective management of change is critical to the success of the Affordable Water reform and, to ensure key stakeholders and the New Zealand public are informed, accurate data and business information will be heavily relied upon. 

The digital challenge of the data management lifecycle (collation, storage, update, disposal, and security) whilst ensuing its consumers and users have access to the latest accurate data, whilst maintaining its credibility, is widely recognised by users as an area of concern. Legacy corporate data enterprise, relationship management systems, and local data storage databases and spreadsheets have resulted in disconnected and duplicated data sets that have morphed into a hybrid model of secure and non-secure data, with variable integrity. Users’ trust in available data and information is often depleted.

There is an opportunity to continually embrace data and information digitisation to enable access to up-to-date Business Intelligence (BI) for effective change management, planning, and efficient stakeholder communications, whilst ensuring decision making is timely and fact-based. This approach can greatly assist with efficiency and, as a result, ease the load on resources during the current skills shortage. It will also support an integrated approach as organisational activities are planned and transitioned into new Water Service Entities. Shared and common data enables efficient transition planning and execution, whilst maintaining critical services to New Zealand customers and stakeholders’ and incorporating provisions relating to Te Mana o te Wai.

This paper will explore data management though a change management lens. It will discuss the importance of data accuracy, commonality, security, and currency of data, as well as the value of ease of user access to data and business information.

Strategic and operational pitfalls and benefits of data digitisation and the information lifecycle will be explored, with local and international examples referenced based on extensive organisational change and asset and programme management experience. Opportunities for a digital strategy and BI-centric approach to form the foundations for performance monitoring and cross entity benchmarking as the industry reforms will be discussed, as will challenges and opportunities associated with data identification, sourcing, collation, and management including planning and harmonised approaches, shared data with common analytics, change management, data security, confidentiality, business
intelligence access and user interaction.

The paper explores effective processes relating to reform activity collation, integration and progress tracking, and risk and opportunity management associated with accountability shift including wider stakeholder management, IWI / Hapū and environmental commitments, service performance and continuity, and workforce safety and wellbeing.

Ultimately, the audience will gain a greater appreciation of how a digitised data and business intelligence approach will reduce the workload of key stakeholders reduce service continuity risk and, as a result, benefit everyone associated with the Affordable Water Reform.