Energy and Utilities

After more than a decade of radical change, the energy sector, as well as utility industries more generally, is still facing major challenges and upheaval. Initiatives to facilitate international harmonization as well as strategies to create regional markets are changing the way in which business is conducted. This, in turn, means that structural and ownership transformation continues apace as individual companies seek to gain scale and find synergies to cope in a more dynamic and competitive world. Simultaneously, broader global-scale challenges such as depleting fossil fuels, climate change, and regional political uncertainty are also contributing to a reshaping of the utilities sectors in most countries around the world.

Monitor addresses issues of strategic importance to energy and utility companies, including regulatory change, competitive entry, mergers and acquisitions, geographic expansion, managing environmental impact, ensuring continuity of supply, and better segmenting and engaging customers. We help diverse energy and utility companies navigate the increasingly complex global business environment.


Recent work has included helping a leading energy company grow by reinventing the way it markets to customers, and refocusing the organization's efforts on the top growth opportunities available.

Innovation Lessons from Kodak’s Failures

Larry Keeley January 18, 2012 Article

Larry Keeley, an innovation expert and partner at Monitor, explains how Kodak’s famous failure to enter digital photography quickly can be a useful lesson for executives looking to innovate now. He writes that a new form of strategic thinking, convergences, “gives leaders a deeper sense of the interdependencies that connect firms, products, systems and services in new ecosystems” and reveals emerging opportunities, typically at the junction of new technologies and customer behaviors.

Read more

Improving Innovation Returns Through Business Model Innovation: Video Highlights

Geoff Tuff, Joe Zale, Brian Quinn and Helen Walters June 17, 2011 Article

In these video highlights from Monitor’s recent webcast, “Improving Innovation Returns Through Business Model Innovation,” Monitor thought leaders discuss how analytic tools can provide better decision-making insights to help executives vastly improve their innovation success rates and ensure their business model investments generate bigger returns.

Read more

Delivering Measurable Results: The Path to Profit Improvement

Robert Browne, Josh Lee, Mike Standing and Lisa S. Thompson May 17, 2011 Article

Many companies experience cycles in which revenue growth and cost cutting alternate in focus. While these cycles are understandable, they often damage long-term profitability. In this article, Monitor's Robert Browne, Josh Lee, Mike Standing and Lisa S. Thompson present the Delivering Measurable Results approach, which helps firms escape these cycles of revenue growth and cost cutting by developing programs that can sustainably improve their margins.

Read more

Growth at Work: The Benefits of Building Entrepreneurial Environments

Francesco Fazio, Joel Finlayson and Neil Pearse March 28, 2011 Article

The benefits of having an entrepreneurial culture are clear—it leads to more effective and loyal employees, higher levels of innovation, and faster reaction times, just to name a few. But entrepreneurial environments aren’t just for small start-ups in new markets—even large companies in existing business sectors can create an entrepreneurial environment by employing five key enablers, explain Monitor’s Francesco Fazio, Joel Finlayson and Neil Pearse in this article.

Read more

Grow More Profitably by Integrating Marketing and Operational Choices

Thomas Nagle and Lisa S. Thompson September 7, 2010 Article

In this article, Monitor’s Thomas Nagle and Lisa T. Thompson explain how companies can create profitable business models by integrating marketing and operations decision-making. In choosing revenue sources that leverage their strengths, and defining elements of sales that cause functional costs to vary, companies find growth.

Read more

Facing the Future Water Challenge

Rodrigo Guzman, Kim Eckermann and Steve Danino June 28, 2010 Article

To address the issue of integrated water resource management for Morocco, Monitor Group has worked with the country’s Ministry of Water to develop and implement a national water strategy. Monitor’s approach and key findings were recently presented at the 2010 International Water Week in Singapore.

Read more

Megacity Growth Strategy

Jennifer Lacks Kaplan and Mark Pocharski June 12, 2010 Article

The world’s rapidly growing megacities represent significant opportunities for companies seeking new markets and justify a unique approach to an important source of potential growth. In this article, Jennifer Lacks Kaplan and Mark Pocharski explain what it takes for companies to build winning strategies to take advantage of this growth opportunity.

Read more

The Art of the Long View

By Peter Schwartz Book

“Using scenarios is rehearsing the future,” says Peter Schwartz. Emphasizing the need to make better decisions for the future through scenario planning, he asserts that it is not the tangibles of life but the intangibles that make a difference: our hopes and fears, our beliefs and dreams.

Read more