CONTACT INFORMATION

Sierra Systems Consultants Inc.
www.sierrasys.com

VANVOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA, December 5, 1997 - Sierra Systems Consultants Inc. (Sierra), one of North America's largest independent information technology consulting firms, is pleased to announce three utility organizations have signed contracts to implement our MANTA Customer Information System (CIS) in 1998. The utilities include:

• The City of Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
• The City of Kitchener, Ontario
• London Hydro, London, Ontario

Collectively, these utilities serve populations of almost one million people.

Saskatoon is the pilot site for MANTA, a full function CIS from Sierra. Kevin Peacock, Manager of Consulting Services for Saskatoon says, "We've worked with Sierra for several years on a variety of initiatives, and they've always met or surpassed our expectations. We did an extensive review of the market and determined that Sierra is the right solution for us."

MANTA CIS includes a broad spectrum of functionality for metered and unmetered services for any utility. In the case of both Saskatoon and London Hydro, the primary utilities will include electricity and water distribution as well as sewer. For Kitchener, the system will support natural gas, water and sewer. Non-energy products and services such as purchasing, renting or financing appliances will also be managed by MANTA.

In conjunction with implementing the new system, Sierra worked with all three organizations to improve the associated business processes involved with the utility operations. According to Kerry Tarasoff, Saskatoon's Accounting Control Manager, "This approach allowed us to review our fundamental approach to doing business and to ensure that we implemented best practices with the MANTA application."

Asked about Kitchener's choice to selectMANTA, Olav den Ouden, Director of Revenue says, "Sierra's staff is very professional. They have been very effective in assisting us with our business and technical needs. Our CIS replacement project is proceeding well, and we are pleased to be working with them."

MANTA has all of the expected functions of a CIS, including customer and account maintenance, managing applications for service, tracking and scheduling service work, meter reading, billing, handling payments and collections. What sets MANTA apart from many competitors is the rich set of functionality within all of these functional areas. According to John Little, Sierra's Partner responsible for CIS, "MANTA is built upon a foundation of truly best practices, and that is the reason for our early success. Whether it's electronic billing through the Internet, simple set up of consolidated billing, customer-selected billing periods, or innovative marketing components, at every step of the way we are adding real value to our clients and making them more competitive."

MANTA is a three-tier, client/server application, designed for high performance and ease of use. The application is compatible with both Oracle and SQL Server databases. The system also provides all of the necessary interfaces to financials and meter reading.

These first three implementations will occur in Canada. However, the system is built for international use and can be run in the United States. Sierra has offices throughout North America to assist with implementations.

Sierra has been providing clients with cost-effective information technology-based business solutions since 1966. Headquartered in British Columbia, Sierra has over 550 employees in 11 offices across North America. www.sierrasys.com

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