‘You call we haul!’ Organizational impact of technology-driven workforce management in the utilities sector

In some business environments the pressure toward innovation can be very weak. When that happens, players (organizations) might be affected by the illusion that their services, products, and ways to deliverthem never change. Among others, this is the case of government-regulated sectors, like energy in manycountries, in which de facto monopolists provide the local communities with services (i.e., electricity,water, waste management.The paper reports an exploratory study conducted in an Italian multi-utilitycompany (FRIDA –fictionalname) that, regardless of the absence of traditional competitive pressures, at the end of 2014 decided toundertake FRIDA 3.0 –a courageous project of organizational and technological innovation; in such respect, a vehicle for adopting an aggressive strategy of cost reduction and quality improvement.