WaterBriefing reports PwC’s finding that firms who shift R&D spend to software and services have faster revenue growth, or, put another way, are more successful at creating solutions that clients value.
The main driver that is cited by PwC is changing and rising customer expectations. Water utilities are experiencing this in addition to growing and urbanising population, water scarcity and more extreme weather events, ageing network infrastructure, an ageing workforce, and pressure on revenues and the availability of capital.
Barry Jaruzelski, innovation and R&D expert at PwC comments: “the shift is also being driven by the supercharged pace of improvement in what software can do, including the increasing use of embedded software and sensors in products, the ability to reliably and inexpensively connect products, customers and manufacturers via the Internet of Things (IoT), and the availability of cloud-based data storage.”
i2O spends around £3m a year on R&D which makes it a stand-out in its sector. i2O’s software team has grown fast in the last year, whilst its hardware engineering team remains the same size as before. Those software engineers work on client facing software, the data storage and processing platform behind it, and software embedded in its loggers and controllers. i2O’s solutions enable utilities to make their clean water distribution networks smart including addressing the changing and rising expectations of customers.