Emerging trends in asset investment planning How utilities are rewiring planning for an era of uncertainty

Meet Your Speaker

SENIOR PRODUCT MARKETING MANAGER | IFS COPPERLEAF

Mallory Kirzinger

The planning environment has changed — not because of one force, but many converging at once.

Integrated planning

Enterprise decision-making across strategy, risk, finance, engineering, and operations

Decision intelligence

Category maturing from AIP tool to investment decision support

Scenario-first planning

Comparing plausible futures replaces single forecasts

Affordability pressure

Optimising for bill impact, prudence, and regulatory defensibility

Seven trends reshaping asset investment planning

AI in planning workflows

Practical outcomes, not AI as a headline

Expanded value frameworks

Cost, risk, resilience, climate, public trust

Value realization & communication

Clients still need help with adoption, integration,

and communicating value

Seven trends reshaping asset investment planning

After — enterprise investment planning

Planning is moving beyond siloed capital processes toward connected, enterprise-level decision-making across strategy, risk, finance, engineering, and operations.

Before — siloed processes

Annual cycles · Separate assumptions · Manual handoffs · No shared view of trade-offs

Shared assumptions & scenarios · Portfolio optimisation & trade-off analysis · Budget, workforce & delivery planning · Explainable, auditable, regulatory-ready

Integrated planning is becoming the new operating model

TREND 1

The market story is broadening from "planning tool" to integrated planning, scenario management, and enterprise investment decision support. This is a category evolution — not just a product update.

Then: AIP software

• Capital project prioritization

• Risk-based asset management

• Annual planning cycle support

• Regulatory submission support

Now: Decision intelligence

• Enterprise investment decision support

• Scenario management platform

• Continuous planning capability

• AI-assisted decision support

The category is maturing from AIP software into decision intelligence

TREND 2

Utilities are operating under too much uncertainty to rely on a single baseline forecast. The priority is comparing plausible futures quickly and defensibly.

Old model: Forecast-first

• Single base case

• Optimise around it

• Assumed stability

• Revised annually

New model: Scenario-first

• Test faster

• Understand trade-offs more clearly

• Adjust as assumptions shift

• Defend the comparison

• Robustness over precision

Uncertainty is not a problem to be solved — it's a condition to be managed.

Scenario-first planning is replacing forecast-first planning

TREND 3

For regulated utilities, planning now has to optimize not just for reliability and risk reduction, but also for customer bill impact, prudence, and regulatory defensibility.

Reliability

Regulators now ask:

• Why this? Why now? • What alternatives were evaluated? • What customer impact will this

have?

Affordability

Planning must show:

• Bill impact by scenario • Cost-efficiency of alternatives • Risk reduced by dollar spent

Transparency

The standard is rising:

• Auditable decision logic • Traceable trade-off analysis • Evidence of alternatives considered

The process of deciding is now almost as important as the decision itself.

TREND 4

Affordability pressure is reshaping regulated utility planning

Clients are more interested in practical outcomes than AI as a headline. The real opportunity is AI embedded in workflows to enhance analysis, scenario testing, reporting, and decision support.

1

Data ingestion

Condition, work history, risk drivers

from EAM, GIS, finance

2

AI: Scenario generation

Automated, based on uncertainty

drivers, at speed

3

AI: Portfolio analysis

Optimisation across risk, cost, resilience,

value

4

Human review

Planners evaluate, apply judgment,

refine the portfolio

5

AI: Reporting and narrative

Draft regulatory submissions, board

summaries, decision rationale

AI becomes meaningful when it strengthens the planning process — not when it replaces it.

TREND 5

AI matters most when it improves planning outcomes

TREND 6

Good planning is increasingly judged across multiple dimensions: cost, risk, resilience, sustainability, climate exposure, and public trust.

Established core

Financial efficiency

Cost, NPV, rate impact

Risk mitigation

Probability × consequence

Now also expected

Resilience

Hardening, redundancy, recovery

Climate and sustainability

Emissions, exposure, adaptation

Public trust

Community impact, social licence

Regulatory alignment

Policy coherence, prudence narrative

Systems that only optimise for cost and risk will not be fit for purpose.

TREND 6

Value frameworks are expanding

Even when customers are positive about their investment, that does not always mean value is fully visible. As the market matures, expectations rise. Buying a planning capability is one thing. Making it work across teams, processes, and decisions is another.

Making adoption stick

• Embedding new planning processes takes deliberate change management

• Teams need to trust outputs before they act on them

• Building capability alongside the tool, not after

Closing integration gaps

• Upstream data fragmentation remains a real constraint

• EAM and ERP connections can be complex

• Manual steps persist until integration is properly sequenced

Making value visible

• Outcomes need to be quantified and communicated, not just felt

• Executive and regulatory audiences need different proof points

• Those proof points must be easy to communicate

The implementation and value-realization gap still matters

TREND 7

THE CONSISTENT UNDERLYING NEED:

Confidence. • In the data — that the data is sound

• In the assumptions — that assumptions are clear

• In the trade-offs — that trade-offs were evaluated

• In the plan — that it can be explained, defended, and shown to deliver value

AIP is how we do it with confidence.

Planning used to be about choosing projects. Now it's about navigating uncertainty with confidence.

That's why AIP is becoming one of the most strategic capabilities a utility can build.

What are you noticing? We want to hear.

linkedin.com/mallory-kirzinger mallory.kirzinger@ifs.com

5 - 5.0 Customer Signals and Emerging Trends in Asset Investment Planning Slide 1 Slide 2: Meet Your Speaker Slide 3: Seven trends reshaping asset investment planning Slide 4: Seven trends reshaping asset investment planning Slide 5: Integrated planning is becoming the new operating model Slide 6: The category is maturing from AIP software into decision intelligence Slide 7: Scenario-first planning is replacing forecast-first planning Slide 8: Affordability pressure is reshaping regulated utility planning Slide 9: AI matters most when it improves planning outcomes Slide 10: Value frameworks are expanding Slide 11: The implementation and value-realization gap still matters Slide 12 Slide 13 Slide 14