Meralco wins Cloudera 2024 Data Impact Award

The Manila Electric Company (Meralco) has bagged the Cloudera 2024 Data Impact Awards in the Leadership and Transformation category for its customer-centric and data-driven digital transformation through the Meralco Data Platform (MDP).

Besting six other international nominees, Meralco emerged on top in its digital transformation journey and pivotal leadership in extracting value from data.

The distribution utility, along with winners in other categories, was selected from 50 eligible contenders in various industries such as banking, telecommunications, manufacturing, retail, and utilities across the Asia Pacific Region.

Digital transformation

“Data is the backbone of our digital transformation, influencing every aspect of our operations. Across all levels of the organization — from top to bottom — our people deeply understand the value of data and leverage insights to drive tangible improvements. From optimizing grid management to enhancing customer service, our data-driven initiatives are creating meaningful changes that benefit millions of customers,” Meralco first vice president and Head of Information, Communication, Technology and Transformation Rocky D. Bacani said.

With its thrust to become a data-driven organization, the Manuel V. Pangilinan-led distribution utility established a robust data management roadmap and governance system.

At its core is the Meralco Data Platform, which aims to centralize data from across their operations, including billing systems and online channels, enabling more accurate analytics, streamlined data-driven processes, and integrated business operations.

The MDP leverages Cloudera’s data management and analytics solutions for efficient storage, big data processing, and sophisticated data science workloads.

Significant improvements

Harnessing the power of data through the MDP has allowed Meralco to make significant improvements in customer satisfaction and operational efficiency.

Some initiatives include the Service Application Dashboard, which improved processing time by 19 percent resulting in faster energization.

Another is the Distribution Transformer Predictive Analytics, enabling Meralco to proactively identify overloaded transformers and conduct targeted inspections -- leading to millions in savings and preventing outages for around half a million households.

The company has also partnered with Kayana

Solutions (DigiCo) to develop a Machine Learning Model for customer segmentation and persona which will enable it to better understand and personalize their services to meet individual customer needs.

An annual event that recognizes the most innovative organizations running the Cloudera platform, the Cloudera Data Impact Awards showcase innovations that have impact across organizations, industries, and the world under five categories namely AI Acceleration, Cloud (Native) Innovation, Modern Architectures & Pipelines, Leadership & Transformation, and People & Society.