WASHINGTON, D.C., May 19, 2009 - Oracle announced that several leading utilities have recently implemented Oracle® Utilities Customer Care and Billing to improve customer service, streamline billing processes and accelerate revenue collection.

Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority (ABCWUA), the largest water utility in New Mexico and provider of water and wastewater services to the greater Albuquerque metropolitan area, implemented the latest version of Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to deliver low-cost, secure, scalable and efficient customer processing. ABCWUA migrated from its legacy customer information system (CIS) to the next generation Oracle application to expand and enhance services and processing in many areas including shared bins service, liens, customer contacts, rebates and property management and Web self-service. Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing helps enhance customer service by automating many common manual billing and financial processes.

The Barbados Light & Power Company Limited, a subsidiary of Light & Power Holdings (LPH) and the sole electricity provider in the country of Barbados, recently replaced a legacy CIS solution with Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to enhance the service offered to its customers. Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing provides Barbados Light & Power Company Limited with a flexible and configurable solution that will enable the utility to better analyze operational and management data, as well as consolidate invoicing and provide better reporting for marketing purposes.

Bord Gáis Energy, the retail arm of the Irish gas company, Bord Gáis Éireann, recently implemented Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to streamline management of its mission-critical business operations in supplying gas and electricity to more than 700,000 customers located throughout Ireland. Bord Gais Energy required a scalable and flexible system that would enable it to cater to the needs of the dynamic and rapidly growing energy market. Since upgrading from its previous CIS to Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, Bord Gais Energy has increased functionality across a number of its business operations, reduced operational costs while continuing to grow market share and improved quality of customer care and service delivery. Additionally, the utility has increased efficiency of gas and electricity billing systems and automated appliance service systems to helps ensure effective maintenance scheduling and unrestricted message exchange with other business, gas and electricity suppliers.

Hillsborough County Water Resource Services (HCWRS), which treats and delivers quality potable water to 1.2 million residents in Hillsborough County, Fla., implemented Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to respond quickly to business practice or regulatory changes and to boost the organization’s operational efficiency by more than five percent and decrease meter read-to-bill time by six days. Further, the Oracle Utilities solution enabled HCWRS to reduce processing time for nightly batched business tasks by more than 25 percent.

“These recent customer implementations reinforce that Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing provides all utilities, no matter the segment or size, with a comprehensive solution that helps them harness a complete view of customer data, streamline billing processes and enable more responsive customer service,” said Quentin Grady, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.

"Prior to the Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing solution, we had a customer information system that we built in-house more than 15 years ago that served us well, but could not easily handle our future needs. The Oracle solution provides us with a configurable and flexible solution to meet the majority of our needs today and going forward," said Hal Hunte, customer services manager, Barbados Light & Power Company Limited.

“After a comprehensive and thorough supplier evaluation, Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing stood out as the only solution capable of meeting our ambitious business needs. Not only did Oracle Utilities present a functionally robust and highly flexible integrated solution, but the team also impressed us with its ability to listen and understanding of our business processes and objectives. Throughout the project, Oracle Utilities worked with us tirelessly to help us achieve our objectives,” said Tony Bridgeman, business transformation manager at Bord Gais Energy.

“With Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, we could more easily provide exceptional customer service and improve billing operations. With the Oracle Utilities solution, HCWRS also enhanced operational efficiency by directly interfacing customer work orders with Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management,” said Rebecca Garland, group manager, Hillsborough County Water Resource Services (HCWRS).

About Oracle Utilities
Oracle Utilities delivers the proven software applications that help utilities achieve competitive advantage, business performance excellence and a lower total cost of technology ownership. Oracle Utilities integrates industry-specific customer care and billing, network management, work and asset management, mobile workforce management and meter data management applications with the capabilities of Oracle’s industry-leading enterprise applications, business intelligence tools, middleware and database technologies. Oracle Utilities enables its customers to adapt more nimbly to market deregulation, meet ever-evolving customer demands, and deliver on commitments to environmental conservation. For more information, visit www.oracle.com/industries/utilities.

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