Grit, Grid and Grace: Building Digital Resilience in Australia’s Utilities Sector

14/8/25, 8:30 am

In the vast and varied landscape of Australia’s essential services, few sectors carry the same weight of expectation as Utilities. One disruption can echo across regions, raise public alarm, and stall the steady pulse of modern life. The need for resilience—both digital and operational—is no longer theoretical. It’s immediate.

Recent research from ADAPT confirms what many Utilities leaders have long known: CIOs in heavy industries are navigating a growing list of imperatives. Modernise. Secure. Automate. Retain. All while keeping the lights on, literally and figuratively.

Top Priorities for 2025: A Clearer Focus

According to ADAPT’s 2025 Outlook: Forging the Future, the goals for CIOs in the Utilities sector are sharp and grounded. Innovation is not about moonshots but about measurable operational gains.

Key findings from the research include:

  • Operational effectiveness is the number one goal, driven by demands to improve uptime, asset performance and process efficiency.
  • Cost optimisation remains a pressing concern, with CIOs looking to automation, cloud platforms, and data-driven forecasting to deliver savings.
  • Workforce capability is a differentiator, with 18% of IT budgets allocated to upskilling and retention - the highest of any sector.
  • Legacy remediation is a top investment area, highlighting the urgency to retire ageing infrastructure and reduce cyber and operational risk.
  • Customer platforms remain underinvested yet represent a missed opportunity to build trust and transparency.

The Human Factor: Talent as a Strategic Asset

Digital transformation is not just about systems. It’s about people.

CIOs are right to prioritise workforce development. As OT and IT environments converge, the need for hybrid skills (i.e. technicians who understand both PLCs and cloud security) has never been greater.

NEC’s approach includes:

  • Designing training pathways to support transition from traditional operations roles into tech-enabled positions.
  • Supporting OT-IT convergence through practical advisory and upskilling programs.
  • Retaining domain experts with hybrid working models and tools that match their on-the-ground realities.

This is transformation from the inside out—empowering people to drive resilience, not just maintain it.

Tackling Legacy Systems Without Disruption

Outdated platforms are more than just inconvenient - they're a liability.

ADAPT’s report shows that Utilities CIOs are leading in remediation spend, with a focus on retiring high-risk systems and shifting to modular, cloud-ready platforms.

Key drivers for remediation include:

  • Outdated SCADA and plant control systems increasing cyber risk.
  • Limited visibility and poor integration hampering real-time operations.
  • Increased downtime and higher maintenance costs affecting reliability.

NEC’s Secure Networks and Infrastructure Modernisation services are designed for precisely this context. We help Utility organisations refactor and replatform with zero downtime, and with the long view in mind - modularity, compliance, cybersecurity, and operational integrity.

Customer Experience: A Strategic Blind Spot

Only 10% of budget is currently being directed toward customer-facing platforms in the sector, compared to 14% across other industries, which is a missed opportunity, especially in Utilities, where clarity, access, and digital responsiveness shape public perception.

How NEC can help:

  • Deliver mobile-first portals and applications that enhance transparency and service delivery.
  • Integrate self-service capabilities for contractors, partners and customers.
  • Strengthen user experience through secure, intuitive design frameworks.

Cyber Resilience: Rising Standards, Higher Stakes

Australia’s Cyber Security Bill 2024 and the existing SOCI Act have set a new bar for cyber maturity in critical infrastructure. These are not just compliance exercises - they’re imperatives for operational continuity.

NEC’s support for Utilities includes:

  • OT-specific threat detection, tailored to SCADA and field environments. Resilience planning, including incident response and cyber drills. Vendor risk assessment and secure-by-design system integration.
  • Security is no longer a discrete function. It is now embedded into every transformation decision.

Moving Forward with Confidence

As ADAPT so aptly puts it, CIOs in Utilities are no longer looking for silver bullets. They want scalable, validated use cases. They want partners who understand the terrain, both physical and digital. And above all, they want solutions that endure.

NEC brings deep experience in designing, securing and modernising the digital backbone of essential services. From predictive maintenance and workforce enablement to resilient infrastructure and smart customer platforms, we help build Utilities that are fit for the future.

Digital resilience isn’t a buzzword. It’s a responsibility. And we’re ready.

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