| 24*7 support for a critical Customer Information System and regular enhancement releases help the client (A large US utility) keep their customers happy |
| |
 |
| |
| The challenge |
| The electricity industry in a deregulating scenario is as much about customer management as electricity supply. Our clients have benefited from our operations and software solutions and our clients believe that we are making it easier and more cost-effective for them to manage customer relationships. Read on to find out how the engagement with Wipro for one of our clients has been very cost effective, saving as much as 35% over previously employed IT service providers. Our client is one of the United States' lowest-cost electricity producers, with almost 1.5 million residential, commercial and industrial electric customers. |
| |
| The solution |
| The key challenge for the client was to set up and maintain a superior Customer Services System that could 1) set up and maintain Customer Information (including credit references) and Accounts at the call centers, 2) Store tariffs and price structures for services and set up service offerings, 3) Track customer sites and services, 4) Record and maintain usage information, 5) Calculation of invoices and line item charges, 6) Produce customer Billing Statements, 7) Process customer payments and automatically trigger Collection actions based on arrears balances and 8) Manage customer contracts.
The Customer Service System (CSS) is the customer information system used by our client. This system is used to track all customers and billing related data and integrates with other systems such as Work Tracking, SAP Financials, and Human Resource systems to provide current and accurate data. These capabilities in turn aid in identifying market trends and opportunities for growth and development. CSS has over 1000 programs and is used by more than 1000 users, processing 1.5 million customers a day. All billing activities are based on a 21-day billing cycle with regular reports being generated.
Wipro has been providing support and maintenance to our client for the CSS. The project is executed using the offshore-onsite global delivery model. Wipro's contribution includes functional and technical consultancy for Releases, Requirements analysis, design and architecture, construction, system testing, application testing support, implementation and post-implementation support for CSS Release, 24*7 support using the onsite offshore model for both Production and System Test batch cycles and Defect / cycle time reduction using Wipro's superior quality processes. |
| |
The system consists of programs developed on Cool:Gen with CICS as the front end and data residing on a DB2 database. The system has also been internet enabled using GTX and Java. |
|
|
Technology
Platform: IBM MVS
Database: DB2 5.1
Case Tool: COOL:Gen 5.1
Language: VS COBOL II |
| The primary users are customer call centers, business centers, engineering and operations department, field crews and all levels of management. The CSS consists of the following subsystems, for which Wipro provides 24*7 support support: 1) Customer Management, 2) Site and Services Management, 3) Metering Management, 4) Offerings Management, 5) Billing and Usage Management, 6) Payments Management, 7) Collections Management and 8) Contracts Management. |
| |
| The benefits |
| This engagement with Wipro has been very cost effective for the client, saving as much as 35% over previously employed IT service providers. Wipro team has spent more than 200 person months of effort and successfully implemented 6 releases since starting our engagement. There have been zero post-implementation errors for all releases undertaken. |
|
 Case Studies Home
Customer List
Customer Testimonials |
Case studies 
Subscribe to 'Peer Ping' our monthly newsletter
Request for Information
Contact Us
Helping Olympus capture the 
