Addressing this challenge requires a shift in how transformation is managed. Leading utilities are beginning to treat these efforts as an integrated portfolio, with clearer enterprise ownership, more coordinated decision-making and stronger alignment between investment, capacity and value. Further, given today’s uniquely fluid technological landscape, utilities cannot afford to simply plan and execute their transformations, as they have likely proposed to do in their rate case – they need to evaluate their investments, both in-flight and planned, to determine if there are platform-centric artificial intelligence opportunities and avenues they can pursue related to data availability that will set them up for agentic solutions in the future.
Utilities recognize that maintaining reliability and affordability requires continued investment and modernization. The question is how to execute multiple transformation efforts in a way that sustains value while maintaining stability across the organization.
The challenges facing utilities
Through an EY analysis, six recurring challenges surfaced in organizations attempting to execute multiple large scale transformations in parallel. While the root causes differ, ranging from regulatory mandates to aging platforms and a range of customer expectations and resource constraints, the failure patterns are consistent.
1. Portfolio myopia: Programs launch without an enterprise perspective
Utilities often manage multiple major transformation efforts at the same time, including customer platforms, enterprise and grid initiatives. Yet, far fewer can point to a clearly articulated enterprise level strategy that connects these programs into a transformation portfolio.
In many cases, programs are approved and mobilized independently, each with its own governance, vendors, timelines and success metrics. The result is a crowded transformation field where interdependencies are discovered too late, shared resources are overcommitted, and architectural decisions made in one program may limit or undermine others.
Regulatory funding dynamics further intensify this challenge. Utilities must justify large capital programs through rate cases, often years in advance. Interviewees consistently noted that when transformation initiatives are presented as disconnected projects, regulators are more likely to question their necessity or reject funding altogether. One utility describes submitting multiple technology initiatives for approval independently, only to face resistance when regulators struggle to understand their collective value. Reframing these programs as components of a single enterprise roadmap materially changes the funding conversation. In this sense, portfolio clarity is as much about external credibility as it is about internal management.
2. Disjointed design governance: Decisions fragment across programs
Most utilities have governance structures in place, including steering committees, design authorities and executive review sessions. In practice, however, these structures are often siloed within programs and functions, resulting in governance that can facilitate coordination within a program but fails to create design cohesion at the enterprise level. This often leads to design decisions that negatively impact other parts of the organization, or even contradict direct needs in other business areas.
Interviewees consistently note that while cross‑functional forums existed, critical architectural and sequencing decisions continue to default to individual programs. Design choices are made within delivery silos, limiting the organization’s ability to enforce enterprise standards or deliberately manage program interdependencies. Program teams are either left to resolve issues informally, leading to sometimes inefficient outcomes, or they escalate issues only when they hit their breaking point, leading to necessary workarounds with technical debt or delays that could have been avoided had the issue come to light sooner. Over time, fragmentation weakens the confidence in governance and encourages teams to optimize for local program objectives rather than enterprise outcomes.
When design governance is fragmented, transformation slows and complexity compounds. Conversely, when design decisions are governed cohesively at the enterprise level, governance becomes an accelerator rather than an obstacle.
3. Single threaded subject-matter specialists and staffing optimism
A recurring operational risk across interviews is the overreliance on a small number of subject-matter specialists who hold deep knowledge of legacy systems and processes. In many utilities, these individuals are simultaneously supporting multiple programs, day to day operations and regulatory activities. When they retire or become unavailable during critical phases, progress stalls.
Several utilities recount situations where legacy knowledge left the organization before a system upgrade began, forcing teams to rely heavily on contractors. While external support can fill immediate gaps, it often fails to transfer institutional knowledge back to the business, perpetuating dependency and weakening long term capabilities.
Visible early wins play an important role here. Several interviewees highlighted targeted initiatives delivered within the first six months of a broader transformation that demonstrated tangible value to the business. These early successes can help build confidence, reduce resistance and create momentum while larger, more complex programs continue to mature.
4. Value theater: Benefits overstated, value undermeasured
Another common pattern is the disconnect between promised benefits and realized outcomes. To secure approval, internally and through regulators, programs often overstate benefits or frame value in abstract terms. Once implementation begins, attention shifts to the cost and schedule, while benefits tracking fades into the background. Several leaders observed that once programs moved into execution, the focus shifted almost entirely to delivery milestones, leaving benefits articulation underdeveloped, particularly in conversations with regulators and finance teams.
Dedicated value management capabilities can help shift conversations from the program cost to enterprise outcomes, supporting both internal prioritization and external regulatory narratives. Additionally, while utilities should remain cautious about “double counting” the same benefits from multiple transformations, there are numerous examples of where new benefits are unlocked explicitly because transformations are running simultaneously. A focused look at benefits can not only put emphasis on the true outcomes associated with programs, it can also uncover compounded benefits that arise across programs.
5. Change saturation: When individually reasonable, programs overwhelm the organization
Utilities frequently underestimate the cumulative impact of running multiple transformation programs in parallel. While individual initiatives may each have reasonable change, communications and training plans, their combined effect often exceeds the organization’s capacity to absorb change.
Across interviews, leaders describe environments where multiple programs simultaneously introduce new systems, processes, roles and ways of working, often impacting the same functions and individuals at the same time. Because these initiatives are planned and governed independently, change impacts accumulate without a clear view of the total organizational load. Employees are asked to navigate overlapping communications, repeated training cycles and shifting expectations while continuing to meet operational, regulatory and customer service demands.
This pressure can be especially pronounced during post‑go‑live periods. Interviewees note that stabilization and hypercare require more time and effort than leaders often expect, yet resources are frequently redirected to the next initiative before issues from the prior rollout are fully resolved. As a result, workarounds, unresolved defects and fatigue are carried forward, compounding the risk across subsequent programs.
6. Rigid execution in a rapidly evolving technology landscape
Utilities face an inherent tension: Transformation programs often span five years or more, yet technology, particularly AI enabled capabilities, is evolving at an unprecedented pace. Interviewees describe programs that are designed around current platforms only to feel outdated before the full deployment.
Vendor complexity adds to this challenge. Utilities frequently engage multiple system integrators and software providers across parallel programs, relying heavily on external partners without building internal ownership or adaptability.
The implication of this lack of intentionality is clear: Successful transformation is no longer about delivering a single future state system. It is about building an operating model and technology foundation that can evolve as the environment changes.
Creating order from these challenges
The challenges outlined above are not isolated issues. They reinforce one another across the transformation lifecycle, making incremental fixes insufficient.
Most utilities are well into some sort of transformation roadmap, and pausing is not an option. Nevertheless, no matter what point utilities are at in their journey, they can take both immediate and more forward-looking steps to address these challenges.
Addressing these challenges requires a combination of near-term actions that increase visibility and coordination, along with more fundamental shifts in how transformation is governed at the enterprise level.
