SUCCESS STORY

E N T E R P R I S E I N F O R M A T I O N M A N A G E M E N T

INDUSTRY

Utilities

CUSTOMER

Hydro One

CHALLENGES

n Changing customer expectationsn Complexities in managing exponential

growth of informationn High business costsn Lack of transparency and slow decision

making due to multiple, disparate technology systems

SOLUTIONS

n OpenText Document Presentment for SAP Solutions with add-on for business correspondence

n OpenText Extended ECM for SAP Solutions

BENEFITS

n Automated, cost-efficient customer communications

n 26 percent reduction in manual correspondence transactions

n Retirement of 20 current systems, including mainframe

n Enhanced productivity and lower costs; estimated $150 million benefits in 7 years

The Big Content ChallengeHydro One’s business relies on an abun-dance of business documents, communi-cations and digital assets that include every-thing from photos of transformers or poles, to maintenance records for regulatory purposes. The company generates 60 million bills every year, receives 1.5 million customer calls, manages hundreds of thousands outgoing and incoming corre-spondences, and reviews 6,000 applica-tions for renewable and feed-in tariffs. With the scale of the company’s operations, the supporting business departments were challenged to efficiently manage the enter-prise information needed for real time anal-ysis and action. “We didn’t do a good job of having the right information at the right time to support our operations and as a result were missing out on opportunities,” says Ian McIntyre technical solution archi-tect with Hydro One.

To gain control of their information and improve business processes across the company, Hydro One undertook a major business transformation project leveraging OpenText and SAP solutions.

Combined Solutions from OpenText and SAP Readies Hydro One for the New Energy EraEnergy Enterprise creates an effective customer information system, positions organization for millions in benefits with major transformation project

“Cornerstone” – aligning IT solutions with the business visionCoined ‘Cornerstone’, Hydro One’s trans-formation program, which began in 2006, was driven by the need to improve busi-ness operations and information manage-ment by replacing or upgrading core busi-ness information systems. Cornerstone project goals are closely aligned with Hydro One’s key corporate strategic objectives that include customer satisfaction, innova-tion, productivity, and value for their share-holders. “We want to lower business costs and become a more efficient and effective organization. The key to success is ensur-ing that our IT solutions align closely with our business vision,” says McIntyre.

The first Cornerstone project in 2008 was implementing best practices for managing data on an enterprise-wide basis, leveraging SAP and OpenText as core platforms. Hydro One is an asset-intensive organization and struggled in the past to efficiently manage content

With close to 6,000 employees, Hydro One—owned by the province of Ontario, Canada—delivers electricity to 1.3 million rural and industrial

customers, accounting for close to 97 percent of Ontario’s transmission capacity.

SUCCESS STORY

E N T E R P R I S E I N F O R M A T I O N M A N A G E M E N T

under their previous technology landscape that included over 400 smaller, non-inte-grated systems. “The systems didn’t talk to each other so we weren’t handling the exponential growth of information very well,” says McIntyre.

One of the main objectives of Cornerstone was to lower business costs by streamlining and reducing the number of systems deployed. This way, Hydro One could reduce the extra time and resources needed for custom coding and in-house expertise to keep the systems running.

After completing the first, foundational phase of the Cornerstone project, Hydro One moved to phases two and three which were designed to address ways to improve business operations in specific departments such as Finance, Human Resources, Business Intelligence, and a number of other, smaller business functions.

OpenText Solutions for SAP are an integral part of the success of Cornerstone. Used across the enterprise in vir tually every department, the integrated suite is a key pillar of Hydro One’s business transformation project. The complementary portfolio of products extends the value of the SAP Business Suite and enables Hydro One to lower their total cost of ownership (TCO), realize operational ef ficiencies across major departments, and engage better with customers, suppliers and employees.

Five years into the Cornerstone project, Hydro One has completed the first three phases and realized some notable results. The organization has been able to turn a deluge of data into insights for the enter-prise and its customers. “We’ve success-fully retired 20 current systems, including mainframe, and we’ve integrated 15 internal

and 14 external systems to lower our overall TCO. Most notably, we’re on track to return $150 million dollars in benefits over a seven year span,” says McIntyre.

Addressing “Big Content“ challenges in customer managementThe fourth and final phase of the Corner-stone project is the largest undertaking from a data volume perspective and will enable Hydro One to improve customer information management, impacting a number of departments including, Marketing, Customer Service, Billing, and more.

Hydro One is required to manage a high-volume of customer interactions through a growing number of channels. Though the company is not as focused as other businesses on competing for market share, it prioritizes customer satisfaction to ensure trusted stewardship and continued support. “As a regulated business, there are political pressures to make sure we’re main-taining customer satisfaction,” McIntyre explains. “Any rate increases to support our business must be approved by the regu-lating body, a group that is increasingly demanding evidence for rate filings.”

Hydro One also recognized the changing trends in customer expectations. Customers are used to having very flexible interactions with retail vendors, and all kinds of other industries. They expect the companies they’re dealing with to always be on, to know them, and regardless of the channel they use to interact with them, they expect that all the history and knowledge of that interaction is available in real-time.

To achieve success in this new environ-ment, customer interactions need to be

“We now have more opportunities to give customers what they’re looking for in a timely and accurate way. Combining all outbound communications with all inbound correspondence enables us to establish a 360 degree customer view and real-time interactions across all channels.”

IAN MCINTYRE, TECHNICAL SOLUTION ARCHITECT, HYDRO ONE.

consistent and seamless across Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service operations. Efficiently managing content and integrating applications allows companies to achieve that 360 degree view of customer data and interactions that help them succeed in a number of areas. Hydro One wanted to create a customer information system that would deliver efficient meter-to-cash processing and provide the organization with the necessary information to deliver the solutions and services their customers demand.

More than one million monthly energy bills are an important communication method for Hydro One with its customers. Addi-tional interactions include inquiries to the call center at a rate of close to 125,000 per month, requiring instant access to all relevant documents and communications, and in turn generate an average of 20,000 pieces of ad hoc correspondences via multiple channels back to customers.

‘360-degree’ customer view – fast and informed customer interactions for higher customer satisfactionHydro One wanted to ensure that their customer information management pro- cesses were as fluid as possible. “We wanted to reduce the amount of steps our users needed to jump from one system to another and get the right information to customers when they need it, where they need it” says McIntyre.

Hydro One is replacing their old customer management systems with solutions from SAP and OpenText, along with integration points to 15 other internal and 14 external systems. A key new system is OpenText

SUCCESS STORY

www.opentext.com n sales@opentext.com n 800 499 6544Copyright ©2012-2013 Open Text Corporation OpenText is a trademark or registered trademark of Open Text SA and/or Open Text ULC. The list of trademarks is not exhaustive of other trademarks, registered trademarks, product names, company names, brands and service names mentioned herein are property of Open Text SA or other respective owners. All rights reserved. For more information, visit:http://www.opentext.com/2/global/site-copyright.html

“We’ve successfully retired 20 current systems, including mainframe, and we’ve integrated 15 internal and 14 external systems to lower our overall TCO. Most notably, we’re on track to return $150 million dollars in benefits over a seven year span.” IAN MCINTYRE, TECHNICAL SOLUTION ARCHITECT, HYDRO ONE.

Document Presentment for SAP Solutions, an integrated solution that energizes the management of bills, customer campaigns, correspondence and other documents and communications.

Document Presentment enables Hydro One’s business users to create personalized documents and communications right out of their SAP environment, then delivers the information to customers, partners and suppliers in any preferred format or channel. Files are then automatically stored in OpenText Extended ECM for SAP Solutions for compliance and for fast and easy access for customer service personnel and other employees.

In this final phase of their Cornerstone project, Hydro One will have about four times the data growth over their already installed ERP base. The legal department identifies records and appropriate retention periods using features of OpenText Extended ECM for SAP Solutions to archive or remove the documents.

Hydro One employees stay in SAP to access bills and correspondence stored in Extended ECM. Since documents are linked, users are not just reading data within the SAP transaction, they are viewing a real copy of the original invoice and other relevant documents and communications. Through the concept of business work-spaces, SAP users can collaborate with users in other functions and application domains in and outside SAP to resolve customer issues quickly—always tying back all interactions into the relevant SAP processes. “You go into SAP and you’ve got all your history and all your interactions without even knowing that it’s in an OpenText solution,” says McIntyre.

Through authentication and portals inter-faced with SAP and OpenText, Hydro One representatives and customers can view the same documents at the same time. Also, while on the phone with a customer or soon thereafter, a customer service agent may create personalized letters without leaving the SAP screen. Auto-filled customer information and editable content based on role-based access eliminate word processing side trips and ensure consis-tent corporate branding and messaging, and robust multi-channel delivery. Docu-ments requiring manager review are easily sent through approval workflows. Finalized communication is automatically output to the selected delivery channel and archived simultaneously.

Meeting the needs of the evolving utility customer of the futureHydro One now has more opportunities to give customers what they’re looking for in a timely and accurate way. “Combining all outbound communications with all inbound correspondence enables us to establish a 360 degree customer view across all customer interactions and chan-nels,” says McIntyre.

The reliable platform for document-driven processes leads to benefits in general communication and operation efficiencies as well as more specific quantitative busi-ness outcomes:

Improved communicationn Automated processing and increased

use of electronic channels for reduced delivery costs, enhanced productivity and customer preference

n Greater visibility and collaboration on service issues or orders

n Reduced handle time and call resolution for satisfied customers and sales opportunities

n Managed customer care functions for efficient meter-to-cash processing

Consolidated operationsn Single platform and archive ensures

availability and ownership

n Avoidance of repetitive transactions: i.e., automatic distribution eliminates letter reprints

n Use of common infrastructure for removal of mainframe and other servers

n Limited need for in-house resources with off-the-shelf solution that lowers total cost of ownership and reduces IT support costs

Results by the numbers n Impacting 1,500 employees, 1.2 million

customers and bills, 1.5 million customer calls, 21,000 pieces of ad hoc correspondence every month

n 26 percent reduction in manual correspondence transactions

n Retirement of 20 current systems, including mainframe

n Integration with 15 internal and 14 external systems

n Expected to return $150 million dollars of benefits over seven years

ConclusionMcIntyre cites the ability to use out-of-the-box solutions from OpenText and SAP as one of the key reasons for the success of the Cornerstone project. Five years into the transformation initiative, Hydro One improved in a number of areas, including productivity, decision-making, compliance, and employee engagement. The company streamlined the adoption of industry stan-dard processes and improved adherence to internal and external controls. They’ve improved support of rate applications and cultivated ownership of processes. The right tools in the hands of employees improved productivity and confidence in standardized processes. “Our initial busi-ness technology roadmap focused on the delivery of the Enterprise foundation. Now we are leveraging that foundation to deliver outstanding business capabilities,” concludes McIntyre. n

(09/2013)01195EN