Smart Grid

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Customer operations transformation

Plugging in the consumer

Energy and utility executives today are experiencing the combined effects of three major drivers that will lead to fundamental shifts in the marketplace. They are seeing new challenges and opportunities arise from the impact of increased climate change concerns at consumer and governmental levels, growing customer involvement in their energy management and an ongoing technological evolution.

In response to the shifting paradigms in the industry, and to enable companies to become customer-focused utilities, IBM has developed the customer operations transformation (COT) solution by combining strategy, processes and technology to help utilities address cost and service challenges associated with their meter-to-cash processes.
 

 

Flip the switch

IBM offers its customer operations transformation solution to help you promote enhanced customer interactions which are essential to a smart utility network where consumers and utilities share responsibilities and benefits.

The advanced communication networks and digital devices provide an instrumented approach that helps you understand customer behavior in real time, and puts greater control of usage into the hands of consumers. The data flowing throughout the grid creates the opportunity for interconnected systems to facilitate a relationship with your customers based on usage, operational and other types of intelligence. The customer operations transformation solution enables a new operating approach to meet the demands of the changing customer relationship model.
 

 

Powering a competitive advantage

Customer operations transformation is a comprehensive and robust end-to-end solution supported by IBM services, hardware and software, and strategic IBM Business Partners, which can help your utility:

• Create an actionable customer-focused roadmap to enable delivery of their desired experience related to a smart grid deployment.
• Generate new revenue streams through the creation of additional product and service offerings.
• Utilize information and conduct analytics to increase customer insight and address customer needs.
• Reduce cost per customer by driving the highest degree of automation and self-service through the implementation of best practices and better use of technology.
• Ensure systems scalability and flexibility to meet regulatory compliance and new customer requirements.
• Optimize cost and minimize delivery risk of IT investments.

 

 

Lighting the way

As your customer relationship model evolves from a monthly bill to an ongoing conversation, the traditional approach requires a significant shift. Developed with a clear view to the future, and based on IBM best practices gained through more than 30 years of specialization in utility and retail energy, customer operations transformation provides an integrated suite of offerings for:

• Customer management—align business capabilities with market direction to improve customer relationships and utility revenue.
• Customer care—improve customer care operations while increasing customer satisfaction and reducing cost-to-serve.
• Customer systems—focus on the planning, implementation and management of customer information applications.

 

 

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