Telecom operators once viewed their network as infrastructure essential for providing connectivity to customers. Digital transformation changed that equation, with the network itself becoming their product. Operators now offer network capabilities as programmable services in their new business model. The shift opened a new revenue source for operators while providing enhanced experiences to customers.
That is the story that energy and utilities can learn from as they accelerate their digital transformation journey. The grid can no longer be treated as infrastructure. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) report Electricity Grids and Secure Energy Transitions, electricity grids risk becoming a bottleneck in clean energy transitions. True, there is a distinction, and it changes how utilities can leverage lessons from the telecom sector. The energy sector carries a far heavier load of physical infrastructure, safety obligations and regulatory oversight. It is not only about the technology upgrade, but how telecom changed the way work gets done, with an operating model built around data and platforms that focuses on customer journeys.
Here are a few key lessons that utilities can consider emulating.
Connect the dots before making them smart
According to a 2025 Boston Consulting Group (BCG) analysis, energy and utilities have spent $500 million to $1 billion on technology-driven change over the past five years. Despite this heavy investment in core functions such as billing, customer care, finance, supply chain, asset management and network management, the returns remain inconsistent. The analysis attributes this inconsistency to immature data strategies, siloed designs, limited cost traceability and weak coupling between business and digital, among others. So, how can utility providers fix this?
This is where telecom offers its first lesson. They connected the dots first, and then made those dots smart. BCG recommends that providers map the business outcomes that matter, build a modular technology and data platform, and then connect digital transformation programmes strategically, so they reinforce each other rather than work in isolation.
Data matters when decisions change
Utilities have humongous amounts of data. The dashboards display asset health, consumption patterns and more. However, dashboard insights do not necessarily influence decisions. For instance, the McKinsey article How utilities can rewire customer operations with agentic AI quotes one of their 2025 surveys to state that overall customer satisfaction has declined in utilities. McKinsey's analysis of more than 100,000 utility customer calls found that billing and payments alone accounted for 40–50 percent of call volume. It also found that utilities have achieved 20–50 percent reductions in billing and payment-related calls through agentic solutions. Indeed, data matters only when insights lead to actions.
The same holds for grids, where the data volumes are even higher. In the survey Siemens Infrastructure Transition Monitor 2025, more than 70 percent of respondents from the energy sector agreed that digital technologies—AI, grid software and smart meters—are essential for enabling the energy transition. The case studies highlighted in this report note real-time visibility, simulations, uncertainty analysis and risk-based optimisation as a few key benefits. More autonomous grid operations that are capable of detecting issues and optimising network responses with limited human intervention are moving closer to reality. For utilities, this could mean faster responses, better resilience and more efficient use of network assets as they strive towards their decarbonisation goals.
Transform the processes, then rethink the business models
One of the most significant lessons utilities can take from the telecom story is totransform their underlying processes and business models as part of their digital transformation journey. For example, according to the McKinsey article quoted above, communication accounts for 54 percent of journey-related satisfaction during an outage, almost as much as fixing the outage itself. The lesson from telecom is clear. Network performance and customer experience cannot be treated as separate operating problems.
Additionally, they must consider innovative business models to make utilities more affordable for customers while ensuring a better ROI for themselves. According to Deloitte’s 2026 Power and Utilities Industry Outlook, utilities are now exploring options such as storage resource adequacy contracts, pay-for-performance structures, energy-as-a-service microgrids and virtual power plant agreements. Outcome-based models are helping utilities to become more flexible and deliver more capacity per dollar while staying affordable.
There is a visible shift. AI-driven tools andenergy outsourcing services are helping utility providers build more resilient supply chains, improve cost efficiency and optimise operations. The utility of the future is looking more digital, affordable and resilient. It will also be more intelligent, predictive and autonomous with appropriate human oversight. The challenge for utilities will be to ensure safety, reliability and trust, as they learn to anticipate needs and issues and resolve them while keeping the customers at the core of the change.
How Infosys BPM can help
Infosys BPM’sEnergy and Utilities offerings combine capabilities such as master data management, forecasting and planning, Gen AI business operations, GIS data management, network inventory management systems and more. With a focus on sustainability and future-proofing, Infosys BPM’s offerings help utility providers drive operational excellence through cutting-edge business process services.
