SAPinsider Technology Executive Forum Issue 1 2021

The digital transformation focus of Potter and Thames Water is the second wave of change that the business has experienced. In 2017 Thames Water real- ized that its technology operations were not fit for purpose, and a major refresh of the technology estate was instigated to make the business more efficient. “The technology performance was not there. Availability of service was a significant issue and the technology was not meeting the needs of the business. Now there has been a huge investment into the infrastructure and networks, and all the technol- ogy hygiene that is essential has been done. Step two, which we are working on now, is how to better serve the business through application and data.” Making a Modern Thames “We are moving towards these large-scale platforms, and that means we are going to end up retiring a lot of the work that was done in 2018,” Potter says of how data centers and mainframes that had to be updated are now being surpassed by the platforms from SAP, Microsoft, and Salesforce. “It was the right thing to do at the time, as the business just could not run without that modernization.” Potter adds that the platform move he is leading today has required a step-change in aptitude and that in 2017 and 2018, the business did not have that capability, so the modernization of mainframes and data centers protected the business and, in effect, bought time to prepare the develop- ment of new skills and resources in the business. “This is all part of a five-year investment plan, including two years to get the modernization done, and now three years to negate the need for less effi- cient technologies.” Now, says Potter, the focus on platforms will reduce the operational cost of technology. “Thames Water can drive a dramatic reduction in cost so the business can take advantage of the benefits from our progressive retirement of those initial investments. Thames Water should not be running mainframes,” he says with a smile. Dragons as Friends Thames Water began using SAP technology in the mid-2000s, and as part of the major modernization that took place in 2018, became an early adopter of SAP S/4HANA hosted on Microsoft Azure. SAP, Azure, and Salesforce are therefore becoming the three core technology platforms that operate Thames Water. Potter describes the trio, along with Amazon, as the big dragons that currently rule the land, and that a technology leader’s role is to choose the right dragons for the business strategy. “You will see their footprint grow, and we will all have to work out who the winner is, and then we will grow with them,” he says. Potter cites recent vendor activity such as Salesforce buying Slack as an example of how the platform providers will acquire or build out the capabilities onto their platforms that organizations require for their digital journey. SAPinsiderOnline.com 33