Water company helps drive innovation to improve customer services
A tech initiative by Warrington-based United Utilities will lead to improvements in leak detection, sewer inspection and flood defence – as well as helping innovative suppliers bring their ideas to market quicker.
The water and wasterwater group staged its second Innovation Lab, in partnership with L Marks, which culminated in a ‘demo day’ for eight suppliers involved in the scheme.
It was a chance for senior leaders at United Utilities to see the progress the suppliers have been making over the 10-week tech incubation programme. The audience also contained invited representatives from academia and equity funds.
The Innovation Lab gives potential suppliers unrivalled access and a supportive environment to develop their concepts and co-create new products and services for the water sector.
Kieran Brocklebank is head of innovation at United Utilities and said the energy and enthusiasm of the suppliers has been “infectious”.
“Interestingly, all the suppliers we are working with would label themselves as small or start-up and five of them had never worked with a UK water company before,” he said.
“They all have a completely different energy to a large corporate like United Utilities, which is exactly what you need to disrupt the status quo.
“Of the eight companies we are working with, four already had a market-ready product. The other four had concepts or prototypes, but in the space of 10 short weeks we have taken all those prototypes to the next level so they are also market-ready.
“It can only be good news for our customers that innovation is going to be adopted faster.”
He added: “Before April we will be publishing the Lab results, after sharing with some of the UK water companies first.
“We want to promote the fantastic work that these eight suppliers have done, we want to endorse them, make introductions for them, help them get equity investment – all the things that they are going to need to grow and meet the demand of the sector, here in the UK and globally.”
