It grows into fruits for all to bear.
And that’s what Nigel Watson, CIO at Northumbrian Water and Kapil Singhal, Co-founder and CEO at Vyntelligence did many years ago.
Northumbrian Water was one of Vyntelligence’s first three customers, with Nigel spearheading the change to implement a new innovation. While it might seem common now, years ago, investing in digitalisation and innovation marked a significant, positive shift in the industry.
At this year’s Northumbrian Water Innovation Festival, we got a glimpse into what this looks like.
Over the years, as both companies and their respective leaders have grown, we’ve seen their partnership flourish. With a shared purpose of creating sustainable innovation, Nigel Watson has been a key figure in spreading positive energy with game-changing stories and outcomes within broader communities and industry events, planting new seeds with Vyntelligence.
Northumbrian Water have championed innovation and have seen the Vyn solutions evolve from building a proactive safety culture to customer self-service issue reporting during the pandemic to now improving the preventative maintenance of CSOs as regulators tighten their compliance measures as well as delivery of new capital programmes like smart metres and construction works.
“One of the jobs I have as CIO is looking out for new technologies that can help our business to be better. I met with Kapil and understood very quickly the potential for using video in the field. At the time when we were looking actually, we did a brief scan of the market and couldn’t find anything like it. I really felt that the culture of the business was a very good fit with us. It’s a business that, like ourselves, ambitious and keen to innovate.”
Nigel Watson, CIO, Northumbrian Water
This year, it was wonderful to share the story of our collaborative journey to champion sustainable innovation with attendees at the Innovation Festival. It’s part of the reason why the Vyn team have loved participating in the Innovation Festival for over half of the 7 years it’s been running.
One Vyn team member recounted “Love that we’ve been working with Northumbrian Water so long that we are now going back full circle with them! Evidence of reinstatement was part of our initial conversations with them (before and after excavation). But our offering is now much more targeted, with the right language and real clarity of outcomes.”
Successful leaders must recognise and celebrate their peers and change-makers, and in that spirit, we must mention the integral part that Angela MacOscar has played in this journey. As the Head of Innovation at Northumbrian Water, she has not only driven the success of the Innovation Festival but has consistently championed innovation.
“Innovation is a known game-changer – it’s practically everywhere. But successful innovation has to be sustainable. It has to be impactful. We’ve been privileged to have leaders from Northumbrian Water partner and collaborate with us across the years to spearhead sustainable innovation and lead the way for the industry to embrace change towards a long lasting impact.”
Kapil Singhal, Co-Founder and CEO, Vyntelligence
Thanks to the early pioneering vision of Northumbrian Water, Vyntelligence is now able to help over 80% of UK utilities spearhead their efforts to use resources efficiently, upskill teams and adopt AI to drive productivity with field and customer teams.
Follow along as Vyntelligence continues to grow and spread its commitment to sustainable innovation, join our newsletter to hear more on how we’re helping industries change the game.
Click here to learn more about our work with Northumbrian Water to improve customer response times.
