Convergys Provides New Billing And Customer Management Solution To Duke Energy To Advance Smart Grid Technology

Published: 15-Sep-2009

Convergys Corporation (Convergys) and Duke Energy Corporation (Duke Energy) have entered into an agreement to provide a new billing and customer management solution to advance smart grid technology and enable an effective customer service experience for utility customers. Duke Energy’s vision of this revolutionary network could not be fully realized without a fundamental shift in the way they manage data, provide customer options, and bill for energy.

Convergys will support Duke Energy’s role in developing and implementing smart grid technology for about four million electric and gas customers in five states through the provisioning of Convergys rating and billing, customer management, and collections modules as part of a highly scalable, real time smart customer information system (CIS) solution. These modules are specifically configured by Convergys to meet the needs of 21st century smart grid energy providers and their customers.

Duke Energy’s smart grid will incorporate automated equipment, wireless sensing devices, and advanced meters to create a digital, real-time, networked power delivery system that provides two-way communication between Duke Energy and its customers. This will put more information and choice into the hands of Duke Energy’s customers, empowering them to make wiser energy decisions.

Duke Energy selected the Convergys Smart CIS Solution to deliver highly scalable real-time rating, dynamic billing, flexible customer and account management, and collections capabilities. The solution enables Duke Energy to address the unprecedented challenges and opportunities facing the energy industry today by not only enabling the energy savings, reduced costs, and increased reliability of the smart grid, but most importantly, enabling the product offers and quicker access to data that help Duke Energy's customers manage and reduce energy consumption.

“We believe smart grid technologies will help us reduce costs, maximize energy efficiency, and empower our customers to make smart decisions about controlling their energy usage,” said Todd Arnold, senior vice president for smart grid and customer systems at Duke Energy. “However, to unlock the potential of the smart grid, we recognized that we needed a different solution to meet the necessary scale and two-way transactional requirements. Convergys’ innovative Smart CIS Solution will meet that need providing Duke Energy with a rapidly deployable solution that modernizes our systems to support the new requirements. And, based on how we are implementing the solution, this will have minimal impact on our legacy CIS infrastructure. The Convergys Smart CIS Solution will help reduce the technology and investment risk traditionally associated with this kind of paradigm-shifting effort.”

“We are privileged to help a nationally recognized utility like Duke Energy deliver on the promise of tomorrow’s smart grid,” said Bob Lento, president of information management for Convergys. “Our discussions with energy providers such as Duke Energy invariably lead to the same place: existing legacy technologies were not designed to support a real time network such as the smart grid. Convergys Smart CIS Solution, on the other hand, was designed for just such a network. We have a long and strong history of experience in assisting world-class service providers optimize operations and customer experience through real time networks, convergence of services, and scale. With the Convergys Smart CIS Solution – purpose-built to accommodate smart grid requirements – we are helping Duke Energy transform its business model to better reflect its customers’ expectations for instant information, a higher degree of energy efficiency, and improved energy management.”

Duke Energy is a US-based electric power company.

Convergys is a US-based company engaged in relationship management.

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