E.ON SE pursues a digitalized future

Driving innovation with digital transformation

As a global energy supplier active in 12 countries, E.ON provides solutions fit to modern expectations while making sure that every action maintains a clear focus on its customers, whether they are individuals, families, large or small businesses, or even entire towns and cities. E.ON has operated as a leader in the transition to a sustainable, clean energy system as well as the use of digital technology within the utilities industry. These ambitions have been underpinned by a multi-year digital transformation program aimed at improving the experience for both employees and customers.

Beginning in 2016, E.ON shifted its focus and made digital technology a priority for the future. Digital value pools were quantified, and initiatives identified, prioritized, and integrated into a transformation program. A new department was formed to be headed by the newly created role of a Chief Digital Officer. However, digital transformation is split into two dimensions: the WHAT, which technologies to deploy, and the HOW, which covers the actual process of change. While E.ON had achieved clarity on the technological priorities, it had yet to fully wrestle with the exact nature of how it would realize its plans for a digital future. To this end, based on a longstanding and successful relationship, the organization selected Capgemini as its partner for the set up and development of a digital transformation office (DTO).

Digitalization and cultural transformation

E.ON asked Capgemini to help set up and develop a new Digital Transformation Office (DTO) to implement the digital program along four pillars: program management, portfolio review and alignment, rollout support, and change management. Program management began with a workshop series involving Capgemini experts and E.ON’s digital transformation team. With these events, the partners clearly established the DTO’s objectives and requirements in order to develop a governance and operating model. This structure involved the definition of roles and responsibilities within the DTO as well as clarity on reporting, alignment, and the ways in which the office would coordinate decision-making and collaboration between the central project teams and decentralized product owners.

As E.ON and Capgemini continued to lay out planning for the DTO, they defined a roadmap and work packages. To ensure a smooth ramp-up and progression of initiatives, the partners developed management and monitoring practices. Finally, the organizations determined the exact skills and knowledge the team would require in order to fulfill its objectives and began to recruit based on these profiles, all while supporting capacity and resource management.

With a plan for the DTO’s creation developed, the partners prepared a set of guidelines and procedures for the review of E.ON’s digital portfolio. By doing so, Capgemini and E.ON ensured that the DTO had a clear approach in place by which it could evaluate digital initiatives and define priority initiatives that were well-aligned with stakeholder interests on both the regional and corporate level. Finally, Capgemini and E.ON set up tools and processes to enhance performance metric monitoring. With roles clearly established and portfolio management in place, the organizations then defined an approach to the rollout of the program and initiatives across regional and business units. With the solution and its delivery plan created and agreed upon, E.ON and Capgemini then transitioned their focus to supporting a cultural transformation to ensure that the desired change took place and led to a lasting impact upon the organization. This was comprised of four levers:

Communication

• Multi-channel communication directed to the growing digital team as well the wider company and the public
• All hands meetings, the intranet, a regional roadshow, fairs, conferences, and media
• Definition and promotion of the new digital target culture to foster a digital mindset shift
• A change story to position the program within the broader context of digitalization

Employee Engagement

• Introduction of a regular, Group-wide employee survey on digital change and culture topics to give employees a voice, understand their needs and track progress of change efforts
• Set-up and facilitation of a digital ambassador network to increase reach and make employees owners and disseminators of change

Capability Building

• Initiating central digital upskilling
• Development of a Digital Academy concept and learning prototypes

Governance

• Ensuring coordination and transparency
• Definition of digital KPIs and governance structures as described in program and portfolio management.

Digital opens new doors to the future

One year later, E.ON’s digital transformation has taken off. Already, the business has made substantial progress working with its governance and operating model for digital transformation, which enabled it to establish a digital portfolio structure to scale and continuously review initiatives. Today, the DTO works to identify priorities for further transformation and enable additional digital projects to launch. In addition, E.ON and Capgemini have overseen a substantial cultural transformation and digital upskilling initiative that has provided employees with the tools and knowledge needed to properly operate in the changing environment.

With the DTO in place, E.ON no longer needs to worry about the future of its digital innovation. Drawing upon the team’s expertise and enthusiasm for transformation, the organization can now be assured that it will always have new opportunities to improve itself with digital technology in the future. In this way, E.ON will continue to identify new prospects for digital innovation and remain on the forefront of digital transformation within the utilities industry.