The Virtual Utility

Abstract

My presentation attempts to provide a brief overview which is intended to put the issues surrounding this Symposium into an organizational context. Fundamentally, what I would like to say is that organizations exist in a certain environment, and that as these environments change, organizations must change as well. We’ve been talking about the external forces that shape these environments, technology, regulation, markets, and economics. It has also been suggested that these forces also become the drivers of change. For organizations to continue to be successful, they must continually reform themselves. However, experience shows us that as things change, as the balance of forces change, organizations, unfortunately, do not. It has been said that the one thing bred by success is failure, because as we become good at something we tend to continue doing it, regardless of how the environment has changed. Now I would argue that there are really only two drivers of change: one is technology and the other isn’t, and when we discuss the virtual utility concept as a new business concept for the electric utility industry, we are really talking about organizations and organizational change in response to a shift in the dominant technology paradigm.