"Microsoft technology and MECOMS™ provide a best-in-class solution to greatly reduce the cost to serve"

> Interview with Jon Arnold (Microsoft)

Jon Arnold, Worldwide Director for Power and Utilities at Microsoft, gave an interview about MECOMS™ and how its integration with Microsoft technologies offers the lowest cost to serve.



Jon Arnold: "The combination of Microsoft technology and MECOMS™ really provides a best-in-class solution, that allows utility companies to meet the various challenges of today and tomorrow, and greatly reduce their cost to serve customers."

> Gartner on MECOMS™ Cost to Serve

In June, Gartner published a new version of its Magic Quadrant for Utilities Customer Information Systems (CIS). This report lists the top seven solution providers in the Utilities CIS market and ranks them on completeness of vision and ability to execute. No new solutions were added since the last Magic Quadrant, and two other solutions were dropped.

Compared to last year’s report, Ferranti’s MECOMS™ solution is the only one that has moved up considerably on both evaluation criteria. Gartner‘s report states: "Ferranti‘s CIS product has a lower total cost of ownership (TCO) in comparison to leading CIS products, which positively affects overall customer cost to serve. That makes MECOMS™ attractive for the smaller energy retailer concerned with low margins in competitive energy retail markets."

As the document is not freely available, please contact us to receive more information about this analyst report.

> Keeping in charge of your asset data

Participants at a Utility Week round table about asset management expressed their need of a new attitude to risk. Asset management is increasingly getting outsourced and simplistic performance indicators could lead to wrong incentives. Outsourcing models seem prone to slow down innovation, since the outsourcing partner is incited to drive down cost while merely maintaining the Quality of Service (QOS).

Dirk Kemps, Asset Management specialist at Ferranti, warns for other pitfalls: "Utilities who decide to outsource asset management, need to look further than merely outsourcing the work and monitoring the KPI’s. When the utility does not demand the contractor full access to all associated data, they will never be able to properly reconsider their outsourcing decision. A proper cost-benefit benchmarking of the outsourced activity against the in-house alternative requires a clear view on all activities that drive the outsourcing cost. Therefore, the operational data should be in a shared location, accessible to both the utility and its contractor."

MECOMS™ Operations and MECOMS™ Performance Management are designed to track all asset properties and run detailed analysis on the associated costs and activities.

> Gaz De Bordeaux (FR) and
Scanenergi (DK) choose MECOMS™

Gaz de Bordeaux
Gaz de Bordeaux, one of the largest local gas distribution companies in France, has chosen MECOMS™ as their solution platform for the future. Ferranti’s French partner, Euriware, will be implementing and supporting MECOMS™. Gaz de Bordeaux, the gas supplier, and sister company REGAZ, the grid operator, supply around 250.000 customers in the Bordeaux region.

Gaz de Bordeaux chose MECOMS™ for its flexibility and adaptability to be able to support future business needs with the further liberalization of the French energy market. MECOMS™ and Microsoft Dynamics AX will be implemented as one, integrated platform for all of Gaz de Bordeaux and REGAZ’s business processes. The new system is scheduled to go live by Q4 2011.

Scanenergi
Scanenergi, a Danish energy supplier, has hired Logica to implement MECOMS™ as an integrated solution for its CRM, Billing and AMR activities.

Scan Energy is an independent power producer dedicated to renewable energy sources. It manages a power production capacity of more than 500 MW. Scanenergi’s current production capacity is based on wind farms and solar power (PV) plants in Germany, Spain, France and Denmark. The project is planned to go-live at the end of this year.

> MECOMS™ Sure Step implementation method

In their recent article Taking the risk out of ERP implementation, Mark Watmough, director at Barnsnape Consulting, and Amanda Lewis, partner at Denton Wilde Sapte, tell utilities how to reduce the risk when implementing enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems. The authors highlight the advantages of implementing a modular solution, and stress the benefits associated with using business blueprints. Their analysis has a remarkable fit with MECOMS™, which has always been a modular system based on proven blueprints with best-practices.

Furthermore, the importance of scope and resource management is brought to the surface. Next to the typical processes covered by project management frameworks, project steps related to IT-implementation seem even more important. For example, data migration and infrastructure design.

To combine the project management and IT implementation worlds together, Ferranti uses the MECOMS™ Sure Step methodology. Based on the Microsoft Sure Step methodology, it guides the project teams during all steps of the implementation process. It is designed to improve the service to the customers by reducing their MECOMS™ total cost of ownership. This methodology can be used for projects encompassing large, medium, and small end-to-end engagements. The methodology provides different project types to suit the implementation engagement, as well as optional offerings to assist you during the post-implementation phases like Optimization.

> Try out the MECOMS™ Set Top Box in Brussels

MECOMS™ is Ferranti’s vision of involving consumers in the overall process of energy awareness. In order to do this, MECOMS™ has several interactive channels that are based on the requirements and profiles of the consumers. One of these interaction channels is television. No other device is used by so many people on a daily basis and at least one set can be found in nearly every home.

The MECOMS™ Set Top Box is a digital TV Customer Interaction Channel. It allows customers to use their TV remote to consult their consumption profiles and invoices on-screen. The MECOMS™ Set Top Box offers meaningful insights about energy consumption and ecological footprint.

Microsoft shares Ferranti’s vision. A touch-enabled MECOMS™ Set Top Box can be tried out at the Microsoft Executive Briefing Center in the European district of Brussels, where decision makers can take a tour of solutions for the challenges of tomorrow.

 

> A new standard for sustainability

The Dutch Standards Institute NEN has published a new Technical Agreement (NTA) 8150:2010 "Advanced Metering System Interface Infrastructure (AMI) Systems". The new NTA is published for developers, designers, testers and evaluators of advanced electronic products and IT applications, particularly in the areas of energy management for utilities, homes and offices.

Ferranti was closely involved in creating this new standard, and its MECOMS™ product fully supports all technical requirements. There are already millions of smart electricity meters installed under this standard work, particularly the NES (Networked Energy Services) Systems. Also, current applications in smart grids and intelligent networks are supported by this open standard.

> SBGI Membership

Ferranti is now a member of the Society of British Gas Industry (SBGI), a society with focus on the onshore gas industry in UK. Specifically we are now part of the Data and Communications branch of the Utility Networks division. Through active participation in this forum, we expect to gain market insight, improve our network and increase our ability to influence the UK energy market.

> Meet us

We kindly invite you to meet us at any of the following events:

• Utility Metering 2010
  16-17 September (Birmingham, UK)
• Metering Billing/CRM Europe 2010
  22-24 September (Vienna, Austria)
• Microsoft Dynamics Convergence Europe 2010
  14 October (London, UK)
  21 October (The Hague, NL)