Utilities in Germany and around the globe strive to become service-based energy providers to address the challenges arising from decentralization and digitalization. In this post we discuss two recent surveys that show two things: Utilities are struggling to enter the smart home market and their adaption of existing digital solutions is very slow. Especially the retail sector does not apply many digital solutions, even though retail is at the heart of a service-based utility. One response to these shortcomings by some utilities are digital attackers that are launched now in Germany to digitize retail business. Is this the right strategy?