HomeUtility Leaders Expected to Take Capital Investment to the Next Level in 2020
Capital Planners Need a Consistent Framework to Determine Investment Decisions
ATLANTA – (December 10, 2019) – As finance leaders and capital planners look ahead to the next decade, utilities must proactively plan future investments, while balancing competing priorities, reducing risk and maximizing ROI.
Many utilities reach investment decisions through a labor-intensive, manual process, striving to manage concurrent projects with competing agendas and constrained resources. Since each department and line of business have different needs and goals, it becomes increasingly difficult for finance leaders to determine the investments that offer the most benefit to the entire organization and its stakeholders.
“Most teams find the process of prioritizing investments to be cumbersome,” said Rick Fisher, Director of Utility Strategy at PowerPlan. “This often involves several people and extensive spreadsheets, making it painful to evaluate and ultimately decide which investments are most critical.”
To address the issue, Fisher recommends that the office of the CFO reevaluate current processes and workarounds that might be in place. “Teams are often surprised at the red flags their current systems pose and how little transparency they have in their decisions. In addition, utilities using manual processes cannot dynamically respond to budget changes or the market,” added Fisher.
Finance teams need a consistent framework to visibly measure and demonstrate how their investment decisions align with business goals and make the best use of available capital. To learn how your utility can optimize long-term investment decisions, join PowerPlan’s webinar this Thursday, December 12 “Clarity and Confidence for Multi-Year Capital Allocation,” here: http://bit.ly/2LDN7ul.