CASE STUDY

Industry Sector - Utilities

Billing Analysis at ScottishPower PLC

Below, ScottishPower's MD of Information Systems describes an electronic billing project that illustrates his strategy for an information technology framework to sustain and extend ScottishPower’s business operations.

Background:

Scottish Power PLC is a major UK multi-utility supplier that has grown rapidly since privatisation. Ranking alongside Royal Bank of Scotland and Scottish Widows in size and influence. The Managing Director of ScottishPower's Information Systems Division (ISD) led the modernisation of the company's operational systems, moving from a mainframe-dominated architecture to a distributed one. In the process, he established ISD's reputation as one of Scotland's largest investors in IT and as a leader in IT innovation and successful project management.

He said: "The key factor in moving away from the mainframe environment was not cost – mainframes are still a cost-effective platform - but they place limits on the choice of applications. The distributed architecture in place at ScottishPower removes constraints on application choice. Currently ISD maintains around 20 best-in-class applications from different suppliers, all of which inter-operate to varying degrees.

"This freedom to choose best-in-class applications and hardware platforms for individual business requirements minimises commercial risk because ScottishPower has the flexibility to change direction rapidly if the market requires it. Web-enabled e-commerce projects illustrate this approach.”

Internet Invoicing

"This project was developed jointly with Microsoft Gold Partner Infographics to replace an existing EDI-based service and streamline business-to-business invoicing processes for both ScottishPower and its commercial customers. As a business-to-business commerce solution, EDI has always been a problem for companies with a diverse customer mix. For large companies like Ford, who can strongly influence trading partners, EDI is well established. However, in the open markets where ScottishPower operates, suppliers cannot dictate which EDI standards customers should adopt. By choosing an Extranet to deliver the Internet Invoicing application, the previous need to agree every detail between supplier and customer disappeared. A simple browser and a common vision between supplier and customer were all that was required.

"Microsoft's architecture allows the separation of front-end client functionality, business logic and data storage elements. ISD's team developed an Oracle database and overall specification. Infographics created a Web interface and graphical analysis tools. Microsoft Visual Studio was used to develop Active Server Pages (ASP) and Message Queue Server used to handle the complex database connection issues and provide a fully scaleable application. Server side ActiveX components were used to avoid the download of Applets or Macros and all that was required to run the application was a standard browser. Customers were identified to the system and access was controlled using SmartGate virtual smartcards.

"To allow ScottishPower to personalise Internet Invoicing for different users, an MSSQL database was developed by Infographics to hold personalisation and membership information.

"Also, the product is more than just a graphical analysis tool. More importantly it also allows users to define and save specific export formats. They can then apply these formats to their data and have a file downloaded to their own PC in CSV, Excel or Lotus format for import to their in-house Energy Management or Accounts packages. Also, for Customs & Excise purposes, monthly statements are automatically downloaded in HTML format to the user's PC the first time they connect to the application after the statement has been issued and the action date and time stamped in the Oracle database.

"A sophisticated search engine at the heart of the application allows the user to view and generate reports and graphs on a subset of statements and invoices defined by a search criteria expression. This means that users can drill-down into individual invoice details quickly and produce a results list/report/graph on, for instance, just gas invoices (using utility search) or just electricity invoices in a particular area (using postcode search) or over a particular time period (using date-based search), etc. The flexible searching and exporting of summary and detailed information allows customers to identify previously hidden anomalies within their complex consumption patterns for large numbers of sites. This in turn provides the opportunity for improved usage management revenue savings.

"The solution also allows ScottishPower to analyse the way customers use the application and determine all the usual things in that vein – most popular pages, who produces what kind of reports, when statements are downloaded, most frequent users, etc. This has the potential to provide an insight into customer preferences and priorities for future enhancements.

"The business requirements for the Invoicing project and the target process improvements were well defined from the outset. ScottishPower's goal was to improve an existing business-to-business process using new technology, delivering cost reduction and improved service - and this was achieved."