The UK’s premier water industry event
2021
London
The UK’s premier water industry event
Future of Utilities: Water brings you a jam-packed programme over 2 days filled with new ideas, top-level speakers and sessions you won’t find anywhere else to help you deliver on your innovation commitments and improve your customer service, resilience and affordability.
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2019 Speakers
Chris Jones
Chief Executive Officer, Dwr Cymru Welsh Water
Nigel Watson
Group Chief Information Officer, Northumbrian Water Group
Steve Trippier
Chief Information Security Officer, Anglian Water
Eliane Algaard
Operations Director - Distribution South, SSE
David Elliott
Group Chief Innovation Officer, Wessex Water
Bob Taylor
Chief Executive Officer, Portsmouth Water
Ross Simson
Head of Data Factory, Thames Water
Mel Karam
Chief Executive Officer, Bristol Water
2019 Agenda
Day 1
Tuesday, 19 November 2019
19 Nov
Day 2
Wednesday, 20 November 2019
20 Nov
Welcome address and chair's opening remarks - Karma Loveday, Editor, The Water Report
Stepping up to the innovation challenge
Keynote address
Locating the sweet spot between long-term investment and affordability
- How can water companies sustain a low-cost-to-serve approach whilst investing more?
- Adapting the mind-set: responding to immediate challenges with an eye on the long-term
- Innovating to meet PR19 priorities: leveraging new technology and fresh thinking to cut costs
- Sustaining a customer-centric approach: ensuring customer consent on big-ticket spending
Chris Jones
Chief Executive Officer
Dwr Cymru Welsh Water
Innovating with confidence to deliver affordable and sustainable value for customers
- The challenges of innovation: how to step change with confidence
- Cracking the innovation-affordability conundrum: pushing boundaries while reducing risk and cost
- Turning innovation into implementation: ensuring benefits are realised from innovation
- Adopting a joined-up approach: using Systems Thinking to drive the step change
Maxine Mayhew
Managing Director
Costain
Keynote address
Foster-create-collaborate: creating the right ecosystem for open innovation
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Creating the right culture for innovation to flourish
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Developing the appropriate platforms to explore and test new ideas
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Looking beyond competition towards true collaboration
Shaunna Berendsen
Head of Innovations
Anglian Water
Leaders’ Forum
Preparing for a brave new world: the post PR19 outlook
- Innovation, customers, cost-cutting and resilience: how can the industry meet PR19 promises?
- Understanding what customers want: how can water become a customer-centric industry?
- Does water need to address cultural challenges before implementing new tech?
- Is competition or collaboration the ultimate way to motivate effective innovation?
- What are the limitations to collaboration under the current system?
- How will the new approach of PR19 impact the industry?
- How will a reduced WACC change the culture and management of water companies?
Chris Jones
Chief Executive Officer
Dwr Cymru Welsh Water
Bob Taylor
Chief Executive Officer
Portsmouth Water
David Elliott
Group Chief Innovation Officer
Wessex Water
Emma Lampert
Head of Customer Success
Localz
Jason Tucker
Director of Strategic Delivery & Commercial
Anglian Water
Optimising assets in the 21st century | Striving for customer excellence
Blue Stage: Optimising assets in the 21st century
Chaired by
Paul Horton
Chief Executive Officer
Future Water Association
Case study | Portsmouth Water
Leveraging customer engagement and tech to drastically reduce leakage
Cutting leakage rates remain a huge priority for WASCs and WOCs alike as the sector transitions into AMP7. In this session, Bob Taylor will explore how Portsmouth Water’s relatively low-cost approach to this thorny issue has been a ground-breaking success. Through a mixture of underground sensor technology and public engagement to identify leaks faster, the company has seen a 40% reduction since 2015.
Bob Taylor
Chief Executive Officer
Portsmouth Water
Panel discussion
Managing assets in the digital water era
- The power of predictive analytics: proactively monitoring the network to prevent incidents before they happen
- Driving asset efficiency: to what extent can the capacity of assets improve without physically changing?
- Extending asset-life with new technologies: what are the options?
- Building a picture of your assets: what is digital twinning?
- Has ‘digital water’ encouraged more maintenance of existing assets or building from scratch?
- Where is partnering and collaboration critical?
Bob Taylor
Chief Executive Officer
Portsmouth Water
Nigel Watson
Group Chief Information Officer
Northumbrian Water Group
Ivan Stoianov
Senior Lecturer in Water Systems Engineering
Imperial College London
Red Stage: Striving for customer excellence
Chaired by
Karma Loveday
Editor
The Water Report
Defining a fantastic customer experience in water
- How can water companies better identify what their customers want?
- Going local: why is reflecting the regional priorities in your customer service so critical?
- What is the role of customer segmentation in improving services?
- Implementing real-time response to challenges: meeting the modern customer expectations of service
- Ensuring customers walk away satisfied: designing successful feedback mechanisms from customers and the frontline
Eliane Algaard
Operations Director - Distribution South
SSE
Digital Transformation at Waternet
Mervyn Audhoe
Product Owner Process Innovation
Waternet
Becoming a customer native: speaking the language of customer-centricity
- What does customer-centricity mean in practice?
- Why should water seek to become more customer centric?
- How do you demonstrate to customers that they are your top priority?
- Reviewing the annual billing process: can the industry design a more customer-friendly approach?
- Moving away from ‘them vs. us’ language: complaints handling 101
Helen Gillett
Managing Director
Affinity for Business
Data-driven decision making for improved incident response | Insight-driven customer experience
Blue Stage: Data-driven decision making for improved incident response
Case study | South East Water
Assessing the impact of smart networks when it matters most
Richard Sands
Head of Asset Management
South East Water
Using technology to bolster responses to major incidents
Ross Simson
Head of Data Factory
Thames Water
Reacting to extreme weather occurrences: perfecting the real-time response
- Predicting supply and demand with closer accuracy: preparing for a more uncertain future
- Ensuring you have capacity for a quick real-time response
- Encouraging wider engagement to help identify leaks faster
- Learnings from Beast from the East and the heatwave: is the industry ready?
Jason Tucker
Director of Strategic Delivery & Commercial
Anglian Water
Red Stage: Insight-driven customer experience
Realising the capacity to turn data into insights
Simon Sear
Chief Innovation Officer
BJSS
Panel discussion
Keeping pace with the customer revolution
- What does the ‘customer revolution’ mean for water?
- With customer preferences and behaviours evolving so rapidly, what are the key challenges when it comes to effective communication?
- Getting the digital strategy right: what are customers expecting when they google your name?
- Speed, convenience or engagement: what’s the secret to an amazing digital customer experience?
- What do current customer experience offerings lack and is new tech the best solution?
- Which communication tools should water companies have a handle on, and where should they be looking to next?
- Raising the benchmark: what are the benefits to looking outside of your own industry?
- Taking the right advice and implementing the right tech: what can the industry learn from third parties?
Caroline Black
Head of Customer Service & Experience Management
Business Stream
Kit Wilson
Head of Transformation
Dwr Cymru Welsh Water
Dawn Creighton
Head of Customer Strategy & Experience
Northumbrian Water
Progressing toward a smarter water industry | The keys to customer engagement
Blue Stage: Progressing toward a smarter water industry
Panel discussion
Systems thinking: joining up the dots for a connected, intelligent infrastructure
- What does ‘systems thinking’ mean for water?
- How can companies leverage existing data to its full potential?
- What are the best ways to extract data out of silos?
- How can you effectively utilise data-driven predictive analytics for meaningful insights?
- Linking up sensors, communication channels and data centres to create a truly ‘smart infrastructure’
- The coming of 5G: how vital will this be in creating a smarter, connected infrastructure?
- A case for legacy overhaul: are current IT infrastructures fit for purpose?
- How can collaboration and third parties help to inform strategic decision making?
Ross Simson
Head of Data Factory
Thames Water
Jeremy Heath
Innovation Manager
SES Water
Chris Thomas
Head of Business Improvement and Innovation
Bristol Water
Dave Ogden
Associate Director
Atkins
Red Stage: The keys to customer engagement
Inclusive engagement
Anna McKeon
Head of Engagement
Traverse
Panel discussion
Outlining a strategy for sustained engagement
- What are the existing engagement strategies and how could they improve?
- How did the PR19 customer consultation impact customer engagement approaches?
- What lessons can be learnt from the ‘fine to flush’ campaign when it comes to collaboration?
- If price doesn’t incentivise lower consumption, is environmentalism a better strategy?
- To what extent will customers lack awareness of consumption challenges as long as water goes unmetered?
- Establishing a culture of customer participation: select panels, site visits and local community engagement
- Is there a case for a renewed use of behavioural economics and nudging to reduce consumption patterns?
- Facing vulnerable customer challenges head on: does responsibility fall solely on industry shoulders?
Alun Shurmer
Director of Customer Strategy and Engagement
Dwr Cymru Welsh Water
Rachel Dyson
Behavioural Change Programme Manager
Anglian Water
Head of Water
Business in the Community
The road to trust and legitimacy
Using Data to Improve the Public Image of Water
In this session, we will cover how utilities organisations are becoming more data-driven in order to forecast, manage equipment, detect fraud, reduce hazards, and improve customer service.
Gary Stimson
Regional Sales Director
Informatica
Pramod Tiwari
Senior Director – MLEU Vertical
Cognizant Consulting UK&I
Defining and implementing a social contract for water
- What is the social contract in the context of water?
- Building a cohesive national framework with regionalised priorities: what are the challenges?
- Should water companies wait for the regulator or should they act themselves?
- How will a social contract approach help to meet PR19 and environmental priorities?
Alex Plant
Director of Strategy and Regulation
Anglian Water
Chair’s closing remarks and drinks reception
Chair’s opening remarks - Paul Horton, CEO, Future Water Association
Addressing the regulation challenge
What can we learn from past approaches to water regulation?
Nick Fincham
Strategy and Regulation Director
Thames Water
Delivering on PR19 promises
Moving beyond smart metering: Waterfall: the intelligent water solution
Steve McCorry
Chief Technology Officer
Creative EC
Panel discussion
Challenging the status quo: the who, where and how of innovating
- What are the current barriers preventing greater cost-efficiency and innovation?
- Taking the lead from regulation: is it wise to make risky choices without explicit consent?
- How could cross-industry technology trailing and better standardisation cut costs?
- Is it a question of revolutionising existing practices or making incremental changes?
- Should stakeholders be involved to help drive more innovation or is it an internal process?
- How can companies take a new supply-chain approach without risking inflated costs?
- Schmoozing start-ups: what are the risks and benefits involved working with new suppliers?
- DPC vs. single tender: could a fresh approach to procurement drive change?
Mel Karam
Chief Executive Officer
Bristol Water
Nick Fincham
Strategy and Regulation Director
Thames Water
Nathan Marsh
Chief Digital Officer
Costain
The innovation zone
Case study | Northumbrian Water Group
The Innovation Festival: an after-party debrief
- Post-Innovation Festival: what interesting connections and collaborations have been made?
- What makes the Innovation Festival so successful at drawing out new ideas?
- How can water companies become more closely involved with the festival?
- What’s the benefit to having conversations with out-of-industry players?
Nigel Watson
Group Chief Information Officer
Northumbrian Water Group
Demo | SuDsPlanter
A cleaner, greener way to tackle urban drainage
SuDsPlanter provide local communities with solutions to their urban drainage challenges in an environmentally sustainable way. The SuDsPlanter is a ‘Sustainable Drainage System’, designed to manage rainwater run-off from domestic, commercial and industrial roofs. It reduces the risk of flooding in the sewer network and improves water quality to our streams and rivers, creating a healthier, more sustainable environment. Lorna Davis will discuss how SuDsPlanter’s experience demonstrates the vital role small-scale suppliers can play in creating a more environmentally focused and locally engaged water industry.
Lorna Davis
Co-Founder
SuDsPlanter
Innovation vs Cyber Security: how to avoid the fun police
Technology and process innovation provides huge opportunity using of cutting-edge technologies including cloud computing, (I)IOT, remote asset control and AI & machine learning systems. Many of these can also create massive exposures to cyber-attacks, data loss/theft and unauthorised control of critical assets. Join this presentation to explore the threat landscape, look at why innovation creates additional risk and explore how you can ensure that your cyber team can work with you and avoid becoming the “fun police”.
Steve Trippier
Chief Information Security Officer
Anglian Water
A strategic vision for a sustainable economy
Panel discussion
The role of water in the circular economy
- What does the ‘circular economy’ mean and how does it relate to water?
- What is the role of sustainable accounting and catchment management in a circular economy?
- What opportunities are there for a new market from chemical extraction in wastewater?
- Is there a sufficient level of cost-effective technology that could drive the growth of a market?
- What can be learnt from the Netherlands model of a circular economy digital marketplace?
- How can learnings from the bio-resource market apply to the wider circular economy market?
Dan Green
Head of Innovation & Sustainability
Wessex Water
Gordon Rogers
Head of Sustainability
Yorkshire Water
Building a cost efficient, stable non-household water market
MOSL’s plans for the future and its visions for the water industry
Sarah McMath
Chief Executive Officer
MOSL
Taking a long-term view on the water resource challenge
Case Study | Water Resources in the South East
Planning for a more resilient future: the secret to successful regional integration
- Has WRSE proved a successful model in encouraging regional long-term resilience planning?
- What are the challenges to regional agreement and how do you balance competing priorities?
- How has input from local stakeholders impacted the process and outcome?
- What are the benefits to giving regional committees more teeth and what are the challenges?
Trevor Bishop
Organisational Development Director
Water Resources South East
Chair’s closing remarks and end of conference
“Some lively debates and a great opportunity to connect with people in the Water Industry to discuss the latest topics and challenges.”
Chief Executive, Wave
Who Attends
