Over the last year, Itron’s customers, partners, and employees across the globe have put forth a tremendous effort to keep critical infrastructure, for utilities and cities, intact and operational. As a community, we were forced to adapt and overcome during this difficult time. These efforts have collectively made us more nimble and capable for the journey ahead. Together, we are emerging stronger with an energized focus on innovation, resiliency, and sustainability to serve customers globally.

Itron’s priority remains unchanged: delivering the highest level of support and service to our customers, and partners while ensuring employee safety. We continue to focus on the success of our customers and safely delivering results. The work we do together profoundly matters as we ensure the “lights stay on,” “homes are safe and warm,” “cities are bright,” and “clean water flows.”

The pandemic has accelerated our industry’s interest in automating operations and improving services levels.  Automation solutions, grid resiliency technology, forecasting, and data analytics are aiding in the recovery and promoting productivity, safety, and consumer engagement. Distributed intelligence, which enables local computing and distributed decision-making at the grid edge, is playing a critical role in future-proofing utility investments and allowing our customers to better manage their grid and robustly deliver critical services.

Itron has gone to great lengths to support existing infrastructure, often remotely, to ensure customer projects stay on track. We enhanced our customer and partner digital portals to provide faster and more transparent information on shipment status, support tickets, and other information.  We have conducted numerous interactive product demonstrations online and held highly impactful virtual conferences over the last year in support of customers and partners – all with tremendous engagement benefits and results. When travel isn’t an option, we have also started performing remote factory acceptance testing to keep customer projects on schedule.

Our highest priority has been and continues to be the health, safety and support of our employees and the people in the communities we serve. Itron’s global “Work from Home” policy is still in place for all employees that can productively do so, and we will continue with this approach, as long as local conditions require. We continue to adhere to local and country-level mandates and when things eventually return to normal, we will align to customer and local protocols.

All of Itron’s manufacturing facilities are up and running, with enhanced safety protocols in place across since last spring. This includes instituting safety trainings, establishing additional cleanings per shift and providing appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE) to manufacturing employees. We are utilizing social distancing in all locations, including within production lines, wherever possible. We are actively encouraging any employee who is not feeling well to stay home by extending sick leave benefits as needed.       

Looking ahead, we are emerging from the COVID-19 pandemic stronger and with a renewed focus on innovation, resiliency, and sustainability to better serve you, our customers. We are continually adapting and innovating our customer and partner outreach through technology to support your needs and the needs of your customers. While we cannot predict from where the next challenge may come, we are confident and steadfast in our commitment to be a trusted partner in our collective mission.

We are excited about the future and look forward to continuing to make you wildly successfully in 2021 and beyond.