The challenge

UK Power Networks is the UK's largest electricity distribution business, supplying power to more than 18 million customers across London, the East and the Southeast of England.

In 2013, the organisation embarked on a five-year programme to transform its entire operation, focusing on modernising data quality and governance, enhancing operational performance, reducing costs, and elevating asset planning.

To achieve these goals, the organisation needed to:

• Standardise end-to-end processes across multiple business functions
• Improve data integrity and governance
• Enhance operational efficiency and customer experience
• Upgrade legacy systems and embed modernised ways of working

The goal was clear: build a future-ready operating model that met the highest regulatory standards, optimised operations and delivered better value and service to customers.

The approach

nxzen applied its holistic business transformation approach, designed to deliver sustainable operational excellence for large-scale utilities.

The programme redesigned and integrated all five organisational layers:

• Business process layer: creating a consistent, unified way of working
• Organisation layer: aligning teams, structures, and workflows
• People & culture layer: engaging and training thousands of employees
• Data layer: improving accuracy, governance, and asset intelligence
• Technology layer: modernising legacy systems and migrating millions of asset records into SAP

By evolving all five layers simultaneously, UK Power Networks gained a fully integrated operating model built for long-term stability, efficiency and performance.

The outcome

The transformation programme delivered measurable improvements across cost, performance, safety, and customer service. By addressing people, process, data, and technology in parallel, UK Power Networks established a stronger operational foundation and a more resilient, efficient, and customer-centric organisation.

During the transformation, UK Power Networks achieved:

• 20% reduction in indirect costs
• 5% reduction in operational costs
• 20% reduction in maintenance costs
• 40% reduction in business support process cycle times

Following the programme, the organisation continued to experience benefits, including:

• The lowest number of lost-time incidents per 100 employees among UK DNOs
• The lowest average domestic distribution costs
• A decrease in customer interruptions and customer minutes lost
• An improved Ofgem service quality score