EP 48 - Acceleration Strategy - Impact on Our Strategies

VERN: Hello and welcome to the ninth in a series of podcasts that we are doing for the employees of NISC. The main purpose of these podcasts is to help our employees understand a pretty significant piece of strategy that has been implemented and approved, and now we're tasked with carrying it out and that is called an acceleration strategy. And with me today I have Todd Eisenhauer, and Todd wears two fairly distinctive hats in his responsibilities here at NISC as a Vice President. He's in charge of product for engineering and operations, which is an area of growth for us, an area where there's just alot going on with the emergence of a smarter grid and opportunities that we have to better serve our Members. The other side of Todd's responsibility is on the strategy side. We have found that over the years, and this has kind of morphed over the years, but making sure that we're establishing strategies, establishing a direction for this organization and then making sure that we're carrying it out, that we're accountable back to our employees, back to our Board of Directors, and certainly back to our Members. Todd is kind of the glue that holds all that together. As all of us have strategies and responsibilities throughout the organization, it's Todd's area that kind of brings that together in a way that produces a dashboard that we know exactly where we are in terms of our strategies and who is responsible for what. There's certainly a really important accountability piece. So within NISC Todd has very much become kind of the strategy champion. And you know, Todd, the strategy piece really kind of precedes our budget, right? We get that in place. We agree with our Board of Directors that these are the main strategic initiatives for the year. And then based on those initiatives is how we kind of go into the budgeting process and build a budget, and we've done that. We did that in early 2017. We've been carrying that forward starting July 1st of 2017, and the fiscal year ends at the end of June in 2018. But we kind of threw you a curve ball I think this year where strategies were in place. We have talked about some of the very dynamic and volatile things that are happening in the marketplace, the strength of NISC financially, the strength that we're seeing in our pipeline.    It really caused us as a Vice President group to step back and say "you know what, I think we have to be fairly agile here; I think we need to reassess the strategies that were put in place like 18 months ago." So, Todd, you're going down the road pretty well following and tracking these strategies, and then we kind of did a time out on you. We said we really need to accelerate our development. We need to accelerate the level of support that we provide. We need to accelerate the capacity that we have in this organization to meet the demands that we're seeing in the marketplace for our software, which is a very good thing. So like I said, that kind of tossed you a curve ball, but you're a veteran here and a trooper in understanding the importance of not only having a strategic plan, but also realizing that from time to time we have to be able to shift gears. That's exactly what has happened with this acceleration initiative. So, Todd, tell us what does this do to the strategy area of NISC for the next 12 to 18 months?  TODD: Well, Vern, you know as you mentioned, we had a lot of initiatives in place and every area was responsible for items going on. We were tracking, whether it was in Capturis, or in our cybersecurity area, operations, etc. But as we went through our planning this year in December with managers and leaders in the organization, this thought, this idea, just started to emerge on how we really needed to, not really a pivot, just put more definition and focus around it. And I think the acceleration plan encompasses alot of initiatives we had going on, especially as we talk about Connect and operation solutions and moving those ahead. But it really has helped define and focus that. I think if we were honest with ourselves it would be hard pressed to name all the initiatives that we had going on as an organization, and this is a great opportunity for us to recalibrate and refocus. Everybody is rolling in the same direction because it is our acceleration strategy. Had we taken advantage of these changes in the market. And the last time we probably had something like this was with Project Discovery, when we first began to think about iVUE. At that point in time we were on the wrong side of having to change our software out. Today we're on the right side of that, and it's just a great opportunity for us to move ahead. As I said, focus everybody in the organization on developing the killer app, the really killer enterprise for our industries, which is the multi-service utilities provider - utility being from trash can pick up to broadband communications and natural gas and electric - the whole nine yards. We've got an opportunity now with this to really do what nobody else is doing. VERN: Todd, you mentioned the early days of iVUE, back then we called it Project Discovery, and we're in such a different place today. I just can't help but think of, I mean we had half the employees, actually about a third of the employees, that we have today. The financial resources are deeper. I mean we really have the ability to be assertive in this project like we've never been. I think my favorite saying out of all these discussions, Todd, has been the phrase "we're moving from defense to offense." We have always been kind of a defensive organization, and this is a time for us to lead, for us to be offensive, for us to be more aggressive in the marketplace, for us to be more aggressive in our product development. I look at the engineering area, Todd, and the development that's going on there. I look at our partnership, our equity ownership in EDD, and how that really is bringing products to market that aren't a "me too" product but literally a product that we've never seen before, that the industry has never seen. So it's really defining the industry. We have an opportunity to be on that leading edge, to be on the offensive. So what does this acceleration program do for product development in engineering and operations? TODD: Well, kind of along the same lines as the strategy, we're really focusing. So the operations area, whether it's the EDD solution that's providing tools that our Members have never seen before to even AppSuite and getting that out so we have more and more operations staff utilizing that on their day to day. As those applications have grown, it pointed out some problems, things we're not doing really well. But everybody is onboard with this, "Hey I'm doing enterprise. We're doing this together. We're building a crew." When somebody in ABS "Well, that's the same crew we're using in OMS, that's the same crew we want to utilize in our Trouble Ticket, we want to utilize in AppSuite." Bringing those solutions together, it's allowing everybody to see the benefit, just the idea of do it once and it goes everywhere. On the EDD front, our distribution analytics, we're seeing today that if you haven't heard the word smart grid, you've probably not been watching much in the industry. It is providing the tool to allow us to allow our Members to be progressive in their areas, to provide solutions. I was reading a little article the other day, and we had a system in Iowa that took three Iowa State students all summer long to do a solar planning study that EDD would allowed them to do in about 30 minutes. And so we're going to provide tools that the industry hasn't seen. It's fun. Technology is moving in a hurry. What people do in the field today is not what they did five years ago and for sure not what they did 20 years ago. VERN: What was the saying, Todd? It's easier to create the future than predict it. (Laughter) I mean that's really what we're looking to do for our people. The talent of our people and the opportunity that they have to truly do work that's important work, is creating some great opportunities for all of us. You agree? TODD: Most definitely. I mean this is really allowing us to bring us as an organization together, like creating the future. We're bringing talents together that thought "you know, this is my area. This is the industry I work in." Guess what? There's things your industry needs that my industry needs. There's things that you're doing that we've been doing for a while. You're just starting so how can we bring that together? So these opportunities that we're looking at, we've had discussions on Trouble Management and iVUE Connect phase three, it's a great opportunity to bring not only functionality out of Outage but Trouble Management. And guess what? Provide that to municipal Members who have natural gas because what our Trouble Management is today for a communications company is great for these other type services. So it's just the sharing of knowledge, bringing things together, working with the AMS composition group. We know a lot of our electric Members have spent a lot of time and effort because that paper bill is still the one monthly touch point they have with their membership. It's that key touch they have in making a great impression. We're leveraging some of that knowledge in the 600 or so electric bill prints, and how can we enhance what's happening for our telecommunications bill prints? Just provide that X because their business is changing; it's not how many long distance telephone calls that I make. It's what's my internet usage like? What's my broadband usage? Who in my house is hitting my data cap? Those types of things. Bringing those together is just really exciting. This is a unification plan for us in a way too.  VERN: I remember in the early years of NISC bringing those organizations together, blending the culture was important. Our goal there was to kind of move all of our utility customers to