Automation is a particularly critical requirement in the power dispatch business. Successful energy companies count on using it to support key processes such as asset, trading and back office operations, where timeliness and accuracy are of paramount concern.
Nowhere are the advantages of robotic process automation (RPA) more evident than at Uniper, an energy company based in Germany with activities in more than 40 countries. Uniper’s strategic partner in RPA is DXC Technology, which won the SS&C Blue Prism Regional Best Practice & Implementation Partner award (EMEA) in June 2023.
“This award is a testament to the successful partnership and strong #Digitaltransformation track record our joint teams have built up over the last few years,” said Uniper in a LinkedIn post.
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The power of RPA
Uniper’s core businesses are power generation in Europe, global energy trading and a broad gas portfolio.
The company’s RPA initiative encompasses more than 15 business areas, with 100+ robots supporting the most critical tasks connected with smooth power supply and related operations. In 2022 alone, 16 new robots were deployed, executing more than 320,000 transactions and saving over 10,000 hours of manual labor annually.
By automating end-to-end processes – across front-office trading, procurement, asset management and back office operations – Uniper is reducing manual effort and the risk of errors. Leveraging RPA also lowers the risk of financial loss that can occur because of failure to handle the latest data updates, which can lead to inaccuracies in processing. Using robots to support dispatch operations helps to avoid significant annual financial loss, and automations that take over monitoring and timely processing also offer teams significant relief.
Uniper has been partnering with DXC on the RPA program since 2018. DXC’s BPS Intelligent Automation team brings deep RPA and domain knowledge, and Uniper engages its IT and Applications teams along with business process experts who know the AS-IS process flow. Each process is properly assessed for RPA prerequisites; processes not deemed ready for automation are recommended for transformation.
DXC’s BPS Intelligent Automation team brings deep RPA and domain knowledge, and Uniper engages its IT and Applications teams along with business process experts who know the AS-IS process flow.
Over the years Blue Prism has been a partner in the RPA program because it is well suited for large organizations aiming to scale up. Blue Prism supports code reusability, has an intuitive developer interface, and ensures data protection and compliance with data security restrictions — critical for an energy company.
Uniper and DXC’s collaboration started with Blue Prism Robotic Operating Model (ROM) recommendations, following standard roles and artifacts. Over time this was enhanced with the implementation of Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), which facilitates smooth cooperation between Uniper’s RPA Center of Excellence and process stakeholders, and DXC’s development and support teams. The approach enables realistic timelines and proactive problem-solving.
"The SS&C Blue Prism Regional Best Practice & Implementation Partner award (EMEA) award won by DXC is a testament to the successful partnership and strong #Digitaltransformation track record our joint teams have built up over the last few years,” said Uniper.
In addition to the core power-related activities, the DXC BPS Intelligent Automation team helps automate Uniper’s back-office processes including procurement, tax operations, asset management, audit and compliance, and IT and data protection.
Overall, the automation empowers not only Uniper and its customers but the broader energy evolution. “Partnering with DXC helped us to accelerate our digital transformation journey and to free up valuable time which can now be spent on supporting the energy evolution,” says Steven van den Berg, Vice President of digital transformation at Uniper, in the LinkedIn post.
