The global energy and commodities sector is at a pivotal crossroads. From oil and gas to power, utilities, and renewables, organizations are contending with unprecedented volatility, regulatory pressure, and the urgent imperative to decarbonize. Years of underinvestment, the accelerating energy transition, inflation, and geopolitical unrest have created a landscape where agility, transparency, and innovation are not just competitive advantages—they are essential for survival and growth.
Yet, within this complexity lies opportunity. Energy and commodities companies that modernize their digital infrastructure and embrace data-centric, AI-powered ecosystems are unlocking new sources of value, driving operational excellence, and positioning themselves to thrive amid ongoing disruption.
Historically, energy supply, trading, and risk management functions have relied on a patchwork of legacy systems—commodity/energy trading and risk management (C/ETRM and ETRM) packages, shadow IT, and manual processes. While these systems may have sufficed for single-commodity, single-market operations, they are ill-suited for today’s interconnected, multi-asset, and multi-jurisdictional environment. The result? Data silos, process inconsistencies, limited automation, and a lack of real-time insight—all of which hinder innovation and increase operational risk.
Key challenges include:
To address these challenges, leading organizations are moving away from C/ETRM-centric architectures and toward data-centric digital ecosystems. This approach breaks down silos, streamlines business processes, and unlocks the value of data across the front, middle, and back office.
Core value drivers of a digital ecosystem include:
The adoption of cloud platforms—particularly Microsoft Azure—has been a game-changer for energy supply, trading, and risk management. Cloud-native architectures enable organizations to scale rapidly, reduce total cost of ownership, and deploy advanced analytics and AI services with unprecedented speed and flexibility.
AI and Generative AI are unlocking new use cases across the value chain:
A major downstream energy company, facing a labyrinthine supply chain and fragmented data, partnered with Publicis Sapient to build a unified Value Chain Analytics & Visualization Platform. This Azure-native solution ingests data from trading, pricing, commercial, operational, and accounting sources, creating a single enterprise data lake. Through rich visualizations and real-time analytics, teams across trading, logistics, refinery, and marketing now collaborate seamlessly, optimizing decisions for the entire business rather than individual silos. The impact: a projected $0.5 billion in value by 2025, a 10% improvement in profitability, reduced inventory, and increased asset utilization.
Chevron, managing over 200 data pipelines, needed to replace its legacy on-premise platform. By migrating to Azure with Publicis Sapient, Chevron achieved 45% faster query completion, launched self-service business intelligence, minimized support and disruption costs, and gained the ability to rapidly deploy advanced analytics and AI services. As noted by Troy Engstrom, Senior Manager, Digital Carbon Management: “We can now easily deploy advanced analytics services, including AI, quickly and easily on top of our existing data assets. Integrating those on-premise would take significantly longer.”
A global power and utilities leader, aiming to be climate-neutral by 2040, partnered with Publicis Sapient and Microsoft to standardize its trading and risk management for renewable assets. The result: streamlined business processes across North American operations, centralized certificate management, automated settlement and invoicing, and a significant increase in trading P&L through advanced optimization models.
Digital transformation is not just about efficiency—it’s a catalyst for sustainability and decarbonization. By leveraging advanced analytics and AI, energy companies can model the impact of operational changes, identify emissions hotspots, and prioritize investments that deliver both environmental and financial returns. Unified data platforms support compliance with regulatory requirements and enable companies to lead in the transition to a low-carbon future.
Publicis Sapient and Microsoft have developed a proven framework for energy supply, trading, and risk modernization:
Transformation is a journey, progressing from tactical automation (H1), to strategic optimization (H2), to aspirational innovation and new revenue streams (H3). The key is to unlock existing value, build new capabilities, and ultimately create transformative business outcomes.
With decades of experience in digital business transformation and deep sector expertise, Publicis Sapient is uniquely positioned to help energy and commodities organizations navigate volatility, regulatory change, and the energy transition. Our approach combines:
The future belongs to those who can harness digital innovation to drive agility, efficiency, and growth. Whether you are looking to modernize legacy systems, break down data silos, or unlock the power of AI and cloud, Publicis Sapient can help you define and realize your digital vision.
Contact our Energy & Commodities team at energyandcommodities@publicissapient.com to start your transformation journey.
Publicis Sapient is a digital business transformation partner helping established organizations get to their future, digitally-enabled state. We fuse strategy, consulting, and customer experience with agile engineering and problem-solving creativity to accelerate our clients’ businesses. Learn more at publicissapient.com.