I’ve been in enough conversations with utility leaders lately to notice a pattern: 2026 is going to be a turning point.
By then, many organizations will be knee-deep in three major transitions:
Moving to the Esri Utility Network
Shifting from Maximo 7.6 to MAS 9
Migrating from SAP ECC to S/4HANA
Each of these upgrades is important in its own right. But what strikes me is how much they expose the hidden weak spot in most environments: the integration layer.
For years, integrations have been built in ways that are fragile, version-dependent, custom to a fault, and often reliant on one or two people who “know how it works.” That approach may have been good enough when systems changed slowly, but it won’t hold up under the pace we’re heading into now. When a core platform shifts, those brittle connections tend to break. The result isn’t just technical headaches, it’s project delays, costly rework, and a slow erosion of trust in the data.
The utilities that come out ahead will be the ones that start treating integration as part of the foundation, not an afterthought. In my view, that means making it resilient, standardized where possible, and adaptable enough to move with the systems around it.
I think of 2026 as a line in the sand. Go into it with fragile integrations, and you risk dragging technical debt into the next decade. Go into it with a more modern approach, and you’re better positioned to take advantage of everything else that’s coming (AI, advanced analytics, new customer services) without stumbling over the plumbing.
This isn’t theory. These are real conversations I’m having every week with utilities across North America. The question isn’t whether integrations need to change. It’s when. And from where I sit, 2026 isn’t very far away.
Let me know your thoughts below!