Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, April 29th, 2010  

News Facts  

The Ministry of Water and Electricity (MoWE) in Saudi Arabia has selected Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing solution to transform its method of billing to a fully electronic system, and increase flexibility and uniformity within the organization.

In 2008, the National Water Company (NWC) was created and was made responsible for providing clean and waste water services to the two largest cities in Saudi Arabia, Jeddah and Riyadh. Subsequently, MoWE was made responsible for supplying the same to 330,000 customers in the other metropolitan areas in the country, including the Medina, Qassim and Eastern Province Directorates.

Due to the rapidly changing water industry and changing needs of customers, MoWE wanted to replace its complex legacy billing system with a flexible, scalable and robust solution that was able integrate all existing customer information.

Furthermore, the Ministry wanted to achieve uniformity across its organization so systems could be tailored locally and users could have a comprehensive view of all customer interactions, helping to improve customer service and automate processes.

MoWE selected Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing because of the Oracle's reputation for delivering quality billing solutions worldwide and the ease of integrating the system with its existing financial and accounting system at the Ministry Head Office in Riyadh, which is based on Oracle Database.

The Oracle Utilities solution will be responsible for the entire customer life-cycle management at MoWE including the billing of water, potable water and ancillary services related to the provision of water services. 

Currently, MoWE bills its customers every quarter with one single billing run. However, with Oracle Utilities the utility will now be able to split its accounts into several billing cycles, allowing it to align customer bills with meter reads, which means it will no longer have to wait for meter reads to be completed manually before billing customers.

It will also provide MoWE users with information and tools in real-time and will enable access to historical customer interactions across all touch points, arming agents with the information they need to deliver a consistent and superior customer experience.

In addition, users will be able to create audit trails and monitoring systems for all transactions and concerns, enabling improved customer management.

For customers, the new system will allow them to receive detailed, real-time, accurate bills for water usage.

The project will be rolled out in two phases - the first pilot phase will be implemented in Al-Madina AlMonawara Directorate, followed by the second phase rolled out at Qassim Directorate and Eastern Province Directorate.

Contactor Arabic Computer Systems and Oracle partner GTS Systems will support the project from Dubai.  

Supporting Quotes

"Because of the rapidly changing water industry in Saudi Arabia, it was critical that we continued to deliver a service that our customers had come to expect and deserve. For this reason, we needed to migrate to an online billing system that was flexible and scalable, and capable of handling our vast customer base. Oracle was able to do exactly that by providing us with a system that gave a 360 view of our customer information and interactions, enabling a single view of our customer base across our entire organization," said Dr. Mohammed Alsaud, Undersecretary, MoWE.

"The Saudi water industry has undergone significant changes in recent years. Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing will help MoWE deliver to its customers a consistent, superior customer service, with immediate visibility of their water consumption levels. This will help the population gain tighter control of their own costs, through the ability to better manage their water use," said Bastian Fischer, vice president and general manager EMEA, Oracle Utilities. 

Supporting Resources

  • Oracle Utilities

  • Ministry of Water and Electricity

Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing

-Ends-

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 http://www.oracle.com/industries/utilities.

About Oracle
Oracle (NASDAQ: ORCL) is the world's largest business software company. For more information about Oracle, please visit our Web site at http://www.oracle.com.                           

Trademarks
Oracle is a registered trademark of Oracle Corporation and/or its affiliates. Other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact Info
Aly Rifaah
Oracle Middle East
+9714 390 9000
ali.eltahtawi@oracle.com

© Press Release 2010