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Over the past 18 months or so, vendors have pushed a bewildering number of options for managed services into the market to help utilities manage their business operations and technology infrastructure costs. A new report from IDC Energy Insights lays out what services are out there and takes the guesswork out of picking the right one.

The report looks at managed services options that are relevant to the challenges the North American utility industry has to contend with, and provides guidance on how to determine which ones are worthy of investment with the least risk.

"IDC Energy Insights sees security services and AMI network services as sure bets for utilities now, with other services becoming established in the next three to five years."

The report, Vendor Assessment: Emerging Managed Services – Place Your Bets, categorizes and classifies managed services offerings by how ready for market they are based on interviews with utility professionals and the solutions providers. Intended for utility smart grid, marketing and IT professionals, it includes concrete help on how to engage vendors while reducing risk exposure.

Some key findings from the vendor assessment report:

·         As mentioned earlier, security operations center and AMI managed services are "sure bets" since they are well-established. And network operations center solutions, smart metering, data management and energy efficiency software as a service are "up and coming"

·         No single solutions provider dominates at this point, and many vendors are experimenting with services other than established ones

·         Utilities need some degree of customization, and a majority of solution providers noted that software has to be customized to provide the needed functionality

·         Utilities are unlikely to forward control data to a hosted environment because of security and compliance requirements, with the result being utility professionals are selective about the use of software as a service

The report also addresses the variety of uncertainties in the market, such as the absence of documented benchmarks, the lack of a standard contract length and the risk of providers abandoning their managed service.

Click the link below for more details on report content or to order.