White Papers
The Intelligent CIS In A Smart Metered World
Smart Grid and Smart Metering projects are top-of-mind today for many utility executives, and rightly so: utilities will spend billions of dollars installing Smart Metering, Meter Data Management and other systems over the coming decade as a step towards the Smart Grid. With these levels of investment, utilities and utility customers should expect significant returns. However, though many Smart Metering initiatives outline significant customer benefits, projects to date have focused too heavily on the physical asset and the storage of data while loosing sight of customer value - an approach that puts customer support at risk. This whitepaper talks about how utilities can meet the customer value objectives of Smart Metering. It evaluates the impact to utility systems, including the requirement for an 'intelligent CIS', and reviews the keys to success in any Smart Metering initiative.
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Four Trends That Help Utilities Leap The CIS Replacement Hurdles
With investment into Smart Grid and AMI projects growing steadily year-to-year, utilities are on the verge of perhaps the most significant business change in some decades. To further complicate matters, utilities face the challenge of inflexible legacy CIS systems and an aging workforce. While modern CIS software products offer significant advantages over previous generations of software technology, CIS replacement and upgrade costs remain as high as ever, proving to be a major barrier for business cases, particularly when capital expenditure is earmarked for other major grid-based investments. However, four major trends have converged to offer utilities a new solution that will help to readdress CIS the cost/value equation:
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New outsourcing options: The service-with-software model
Author: Karen Blackmore, Energy Insights
Utilities have always had to balance the pressure to contain costs while continuously working to move customer satisfaction scores higher. Recently, utilities have been faced with the additional challenges of an aging workforce and the need to balance capital investments in physical infrastructure for generation and delivery. With the advent of advanced metering directives and changing views on energy efficiency, new rate structures and increasing information requirements are changing the meter-to-cash process. Options for addressing these challenges include a new outsourcing model that provides some unique advantages over previous offerings. Outsourcing is a tool that can help a utility excel in its corporate objectives and improve its bottom line, particularly in the meter-to-cash process.
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Utility CIS usability
Authors: Peace, Usability Engineering Team
Usability of CIS software is central to improving utility call center and back office efficiency and lowering utility cost to serve. This whitepaper identifies how next-generation user engineered CIS systems can
reduce training time, increase productivity, improve error prevention and help improve customer satisfaction.
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Changing the business case for customer systems
Authors: Fiona Taylor and James Braatvedt
Although the business risk associated with legacy CIS systems increases with time, many utilities struggle with business case expenditure on a new CIS, as the cost, risk, and time of traditional implementations can outweigh the benefits. A new model of outsourcing leverages the powerful combination of business process optimization, SOA, and service-with-software outsourcing to change the business case for utility CIS replacement.
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Evaluating the business case for replacing customer/1
Author: UtiliPoint International, Inc.
In addition to the significant benefits of a modern CIS, the business case for Customer/1 replacement business case should rest on the fact that Customer/1 typically costs more than $10- $15 per year per customer.
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Collections best practice
Author: Bass & Company
Utility net bad debt has grown in recent years and today exceeds US$1.6 billion, with some utilities showing rates of over two percent of revenue. Read how best practices can help improve utility collections efficiency.
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