With today’s ever-changing economic climate and government initiatives, it’s more important than ever for utility companies and administrations to create better solutions for generation, transmission and distribution—solutions that not only save money and protect the integrity of the transmission and distribution grids but also enable innovative new services and improve business processes.
The energy and utilities industry continues to change dramatically in structure and numbers, influenced heavily by changes in regulations and continuing merger and acquisition activity. There are more than 239 investor-owned utilities, 2,000 publicly-owned utilities and 900 consumer-owned utilities that provide electric, natural gas, water supply and wastewater treatment.
According to Gartner, the top business issues identified by utilities managers are:
- Security (information and physical)
- Reliability
- Regulatory actions/changes
- Supply adequacy
- Disclosure and compliance
- Cost management or savings
- Energy procurement and flexibility
- Optimization
- HR/intellectual capital management
- Consumer eEducation
CIBER has worked with more than 100 utilities – electric, gas, and water – on such issues and areas as billing and customer information systems, outsourcing, enterprise resource planning, work management systems, GIS and security. Our combined industry, technological and business expertise helps utilities overcome challenges and create repeatable solutions based on national priorities.
CIBER’s Solutions
CIBER has a 30-year history of helping clients build, integrate and support solutions of enduring value. Our solutions support the entire solution life-cycle, from enterprise architecture to application development, integration and support.
Specifically our energy and utilities solutions include:
CIBER Named Top Outsourcer in Energy and Utilities Industry
By The Black Book of Outsourcing
In 2007, CIBER was named the top IT Outsourcing provider for the energy and utilities industry, according to a Brown-Wilson Group survey which analyzed outsourcing vendors around the world. The survey results appear in the research firm’s Black Book of Outsourcing, a renowned and highly respected publication.
Nearly 900 global and regional outsourcing providers of varied service offerings were analyzed by customers, employees, contractors and partners for the rankings. All companies were judged in three main categories: operational excellence, product and services, and overall performance. Eighteen sub criteria were also employed to rank the providers.
Subcategories included:
- Vendor overall preference / recommendation
- Innovation
- Training
- Client relationships
- Trust
- Breadth of offerings, clients, delivery excellence
- Deployment and outsourcing implementation
- Customization
- Integration and interfaces
- Scalability, client adaptability, flexible pricing
- Compensation and employee performance
- Reliability
- Brand image
- Marginal value adds
- Viability
- Data security and backup services
- Support and customer care
- Best-of-breed technology and process improvement
The Black Book of Outsourcing (Wiley Publishers) is a bestselling international business book and outsourcing resource manual available in numerous languages. Its co-authors, Doug Brown and Scott Wilson of the Brown-Wilson Group, survey more than 100,000 global outsourcing users, decision makers, analysts, employees, and customers to compile the industry’s only independent and unbiased ranking of outsourcing provider organizational performance.
case in point
Nashville Electric Service
CIBER provides high-level IT outsourcing services, including application development, management and infrastructure support, to Nashville Electric Service, the nation’s 11th largest public electric utility, serving more than 325,000 customers in Tennessee.
CIBER provides all on-site IT services, such as database administration, security administration, PC support, network support, help desk services, and application development and maintenance services, using its CIBER Project Management Methodology (CPMM™) to ensure that services are delivered on time, within budget, and to NES’s satisfaction.
case in point
Ameren Energy
Ameren Energy is a St. Louis-based provider of electric and natural gas energy to 2.3 million customers across a 64,000 square mile territory in Illinois and Missouri. One of the nation’s largest investor-owned electric and gas utilities, Ameren operates 32 power facilities in the Midwest and earns approximately $7 billion in annual revenue.
CIBER was hired to provide help desk services for the firm’s information technology (IT) infrastructure to help Ameren reduce costs and increase efficiency in light of growing energy industry deregulation and consolidation. CIBER is responsible for Ameren’s help desk functions, providing best-of-breed help desk capabilities so Ameren can focus on its core mission of providing reliable, cost-effective energy to its customers.
A Few of CIBER’s Energy and Utility Clients
CIBER builds, integrates, and supports mission-critical applications and systems for energy/utility clients nationwide, such as:
- Allegheny Energy
- Ameren Services Company
- Aqua America
- Arizona Public Service Company
- Black Hills Power and Light
- Central Maine Power
- Cinergy
- Citizens Gas
- Duke Energy
- Duquesne Light Company
- Electrical Power Research Institute
- Florida Power Corporation
- HydroQuebec
- Kansas City Board of Public Utilities
- Memphis Light, Gas & Water
- Metropolitan St. Louis Sewer District
- Nashville Electric Service
- Nevada Power
- Oregon Central Electric Cooperative
- Pacific Gas & Electric Co.
- Puget Sound Energy
- Rocky Mountain Generation Cooperative
- Sacramento Municipal Utility District
- Seattle City and Light
- Tennessee Valley Authority
Application Development & Management (168KB)
CIBER has been awarded a contract to assess San Diego County Water Authority’s current human resource business processes, to include the use of Oracle’s PeopleSoft Enterprise Human Capital Management (HCM) system to accommodate future growth.
