SAP® FOR UTILITIES SOLUTIONS FOR THE WATER INDUSTRY TIMES ARE CHANGING Like the water it delivers to the world, the w
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SAP® FOR UTILITIES SOLUTIONS FOR THE WATER INDUSTRY
TIMES ARE CHANGING
Like the water it delivers to the world, the water industry never stops moving toward operational excellence. To get you there, the SAP for Utilities set of solutions supports the critical processes that keep your water company running.
. . . AND SO MUST YOU
SAP® SOLUTIONS MAKE CHANGE EASIER You don’t run a generic business. So why use generic solutions? SAP® for Utilities is a portfolio of state-of-the-art software solutions tailored to the specific standards, processes, and challenges of the diverse utilities industry, including power generation, transmission and distribution, meter operation, and retail and services utilities. They are built to fit the way you do business. And they comprise the industry’s leading and most comprehensive set of solutions, helping utilities gain enterprise-wide visibility for better decision making in critical business areas. SAP for Utilities solutions can help your utility improve its operational efficiency, mitigate risk, and increase profitability, while enabling innovative business models and customer services. Supported by the SAP NetWeaver™ platform, a powerful integration and application platform, these solutions deliver rich functionality and productivity-building tools throughout your organization. And they help you adopt the best practices SAP has developed in over 30 years of working with major utilities and industry leaders from around the world. You can minimize risk and increase the reliability of your solution because SAP for Utilities provides the content, tools, and methodologies you need to implement, operate, and monitor your enterprise solution. And because they offer easy integration and virtually unlimited scalability, SAP for Utilities solutions are an investment you can’t outgrow – no matter how times are changing.
NO ONE LISTENS
BUILT FOR YOUR INDUSTRY SCALED TO YOUR BUSINESS DESIGNED FOR YOUR FUTURE “We reduced the dollar volume of inventory by 25%. We are getting goods only when we need them, instead of in anticipation of some unknown circumstance. Also, we can now budget directly to projects, instead of guessing. We estimate this will enable us to reduce the amount we maintain in the capital projects
No One Listens to Water Utilities like SAP
When water utilities speak, no one hears you better than the experienced ears of SAP: For decades SAP has been listening to the best-run utilities in the world. From that great body of experience, SAP develops the industry’s leading and most comprehensive utilities solutions. More than 150 water utilities around the globe rely on these solutions to perform their critical business processes and meet their changing needs.
budget by 45%.” Terry Stigall, Finance Manager, Marin Municipal Water District, California
Today, water utilities are asking for solutions to help them overcome a new set of 21st-century challenges: the rising tide of capital costs for water infrastructure renovations and new developments, security upgrades, and advanced water treatment methods; the increasing flood of government regulations over security requirements and drinking water standards; and the challenges of a highly regulated and fragmented industry being drained by consolidation.
Because SAP listens, those solutions are here today in the SAP for Utilities set of solutions. With these solutions, water utilities of every size can achieve operational excellence, with company-wide visibility into all critical areas up and down the value chain for better decision making. Integrated, highly reliable, and flexible, these solutions enable efficient meterto-cash management, supply operations, and customer service. They are powered by the SAP NetWeaver platform – the underlying integration and application platform, built on an open architecture that allows for the integration of processes and information among disparate business and technical applications. The SAP for Utilities solutions enable water utilities to achieve fast return on investment (ROI) by leveraging SAP’s best practice expertise built into the solutions and implementation methodology, which reduces project costs and risks. SAP solutions are now supporting more than 950 utilities worldwide. As the market leader, with a US$1.3 billion R & D investment that continually empowers SAP solutions, no one knows your needs better, because no one listens to water utilities better than SAP.
. . . LIKE SAP
Nothing replaces real-time listening. At SAP, it leads to innovations like the SAP NetWeaver platform and the power to give you real-time visibility all across your value chain.
AND NO ONE SUPPORTS YOU
SUPPORT FOR YOUR BUSINESS PROCESSES REAPS OPERATIONAL EXCELLENCE The SAP for Utilities set of solutions supports the key processes that are critical to water utilities. The solutions are optimized to operate in customer-centric and asset-centric models. By allowing full visibility into projects, assets, service, regulatory processes, and costs, the solutions help you to create a lean and maneuverable organization. A call-center collaboration solution, designed specifically for water utilities, provides a single view into all customer aspects.
Meter-to-Cash Management
Highly critical to water utilities is the streamlining and automation of operational processes – from meter reading to payment collection – to reduce process costs and improve cash flow performance. The SAP for Utilities solutions have integrated functions for meter reading and validation, tariff management, credit processing, and collections. The solutions support move-in and move-out processes and water-strength billing requirements, as well as bankruptcy and lien processing. This allows end-to-end monitoring against performance indicators or industry benchmarks and helps to improve meter-to-cash performance by reducing the time from meter read to bill payment.
Customer Service
Water utilities face growing customer and public expectations for better services and rate performances, while having to manage an increasing number of customers in their supply networks. As a result, they need to offer a more sophisticated level of customer service, such as flexible billing tariffs, payment options, and Internet-based self-services, as well as services tailored to larger customers with engineering and maintenance agreements. The SAP for Utilities solutions allow the integration of customer and service information, including data on billing preferences and the quality of delivered services, leading to a single view of the information and work history related to customers. Fast and easy access to such information in your call center leads to a more personalized customer experience, increasing the number of calls closed on contact and resulting in higher agent productivity.
. . . LIKE SAP
“With SAP, you have
Supply Operations
everything within reach
Regardless of the financial resources available for operating and maintaining supply networks, water utilities must be able to guarantee a reliable and secure water supply, adhering to a number of stringent drinking-water standards. They need forward-looking investment and project planning to manage and control capital risks, and efficient services for handling both periodic and unplanned work on their assets, such as meters and hydrants. SAP for Utilities provides water utilities with an enterprise-wide supply operations solution that connects project and work management capabilities with best-of-breed solutions for scheduling, outage management, construction planning, and geographic information
in a single solution: customers, finance, and invoicing. We enjoy the advantages of that integration every day.” Paul Smeulders, ICT Manager, PWN, Netherlands
systems as well as integrating core back-office functions for managing customers, meters and devices, financials, and human capital. It supports
water-utility-specific services, including periodic replacement of meters, hydrant inspections and flushing, maintenance of large-volume customers, and the connection of work orders to multiple criteria, such as geographic locations. Maintenance Cost Budgeting
For water utilities, ongoing supplynetwork construction, upgrades, and periodic maintenance expenditures usually account for a significant percentage of operating costs. Water utilities may find it difficult to develop accurate maintenance cost budgets, because critical information, such as actual and planned maintenance and construction project costs, as well as related budget data, is often insufficiently integrated. The SAP for Utilities solutions allow water utilities to define maintenance budgets and run maintenance analytics on existing asset lifecycle management data. Standard budgets can be generated automatically based on the desired budget strategy, reducing budget preparation time.
FULL PROCESS SUPPORT MEANS
From supply operations, meter-reading services, billing, customer service, and customer financial management to financials and human capital management, SAP for Utilities offers robust support for processes that are unique to the water industry.
. . . FULL PROCESS VISIBILIT Y
Procurement
The SAP for Utilities solutions help water utilities streamline procurement and revision processes, leading to reduced material inventory and more efficient information exchange with contractors and suppliers. They enable supplier qualification and candidate selection, bidding, and contract management processes, and allow for collaborative engineering and project management. To gain visibility along the entire value chain, procurement is tightly integrated with maintenance operations and project management, as well as financials. SAP for Utilities solutions support not only traditional processes, such as requisitioning, purchase-order management, and invoice verification, but also catalogbased self-service requisitioning for material and services.
Corporate Governance and Regulatory Compliance
Human Capital Management and Workforce Deployment
Utilities around the world face close scrutiny of financial records, environmental processes and safety precautions, labor law compliance, performance ratings, and supply security. Management must be able to demonstrate compliance and good faith through accurate and detailed records. The SAP for Utilities solutions improve corporate governance and help manage compliance by providing functions that centralize the documentation of internal controls. Other functions include online controls for internal and external auditors and the ability to export data to auditing software, enabling detailed insight into various audit functions and providing faster, more accurate reporting. New support for whistle-blowing helps organizations cost-effectively address the legal requirements of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and reduce the risk of noncompliance.
The SAP for Utilities solutions support employee life-cycle management to help utilities identify and retain top performers, leverage their talents, align employee goals with organizational goals, and maximize the impact of training. And to help utilities lower
Integrated Financial Information
Without insight into financial and business performance, companies are unable to make informed strategic decisions. The SAP for Utilities solutions integrate all financial and business performance information with management processes for effective, strategic decision making. This streamlines the financial supply chain, enables collaboration with customers and vendors on payment and settlement activities, and reduces transaction costs.
costs, employee transaction management features streamline and integrate essential human capital management processes, including administration, payroll, time management, and legal reporting. The SAP for Utilities solutions support workforce deployment by allowing utilities to create project teams based on skills and availability, monitor project progress, track time, and analyze results.
FULL PROCESS VISIBILIT Y MEANS
FULL BUSINESS PROCESS SUPPORT ENABLES COMPANY-WIDE BUSINESS BENEFITS “We were set some extremely difficult efficiency targets by our regulator to the extent of having to save £100 million over
SAP provides a scalable, flexible, end-to-end solution for water utilities. It tackles the business processes in your company that have the highest value in terms of customers, assets, services, regulations, and financials. It supports the gradual expansion and adaptation of transaction volume as well as new processes for water utilities of all sizes.
five years out of our operating expenditure. We saw that IT was key to
Such powerful process support enables the following equally powerful business benefits in efficiency and revenues for your company:
achieving the efficiencies and SAP has been a key component in that challenge.” Alan Harrison, Director IT and Member of the Executive Management Team, Yorkshire Water, UK
• Optimized meter-to-cash processes and days sales outstanding through end-to-end management of your service, billing, and financials processes
• Increased customer satisfaction and call center efficiency using an integrated customer service collaboration solution that automates standard services and provides fast access and a single view into all data and work history related to your customers
• Integrated financial information using standardized processes; providing visibility on capital, operational, and third-party expenditures; monitoring project costs and regulatory risks; and integrating business performance information with management processes
• Better managed investment opportunities and risks through the establishment of strategic enterprise management techniques
• Optimized procurement processes • Improved efficiencies in supply operations by providing a utilitywide supply operations solution connecting project and work management capabilities with bestof-breed scheduling, outage management, and construction planning, integrated with core back-office functions and information on customers, meters, hydrants, financials, and the workforce
and material inventory by enabling collaboration and contracting of operational management services with suppliers, contractors, and partners, as well as streamlining corporate-wide buying processes
• Streamlined and simplified workforce-related processes through integrated employee transaction management, workforce deployment based on skills and availability, and innovative employee life-cycle management that aligns employee talents with corporate goals
. . . NEW BUSINESS BENEFITS
SAP for Utilities Supports Business Processes
Integrated information brings integrated visibility into your business processes,
Supply Operations
Customer Service Management
maximizing efficiencies across your
• Investment management • Collaborative engineering and project
• Move-ins and move-outs with balance
organization and giving you a tighter,
management
• Bidding and contract management • Project and investment controlling • Maintenance planning and execution • Mobile asset management • Material and services procurement • Work dispatching and scheduling • Periodic device replacement • Hydrant inspections and flushing • Large-meter service • Hydrant billing • Connections and service work Meter Reading Services
• Scheduling • Manual and periodic meter reading • Meter reading validation and monitoring
transfer
• Disconnections and reconnections • Bankruptcy processing • Owner allocation • Customer overview • Customer interaction management Billing
• Tariff management • Billing execution • Sample bill modeling • Exception monitoring for billing, invoicing, and bill printing Customer Financial Management
• Payment processing • Refunds and returns processing • Dunning creation • Deferral and installment plan management
• Lien processing • Determination of customer creditworthiness
more flexible, and more responsive company.
SAP ADDRESSES PROCESS SUPPORT
A FASTER IMPLEMENTATION FOR QUICKER ROI SAP support significantly shortens the time spent during the blueprinting, prototyping, implementation, and testing phases of your implementation project. The time to reach the prototype and subsequent project stages is accelerated by the use of best practices that are preconfigured for your core business processes. These best practices describe exactly how to implement key business processes in your system – including how to set up and configure your SAP software. They are delivered to you as an unrivalled combination of detailed business documentation that describes first-in-class business practices and a complete set of technical tools and information to help you implement the business processes. With a fast implementation, you get the most benefit from SAP technology in the shortest possible time. And because fewer consulting days are needed, your ROI is increased through reduced implementation costs and the efficiencies gained with an integrated business solution. You can expect the following business benefits from the best-practices implementation: • Short implementation – Preconfigured software for your core business processes delivers the benefits of an integrated business solution much sooner. • Easy planning – An implementation plan and methodology mapped into the software guide you through the process of getting your system up and running. • Quick blueprint design – SAP’s solid understanding of your business model and critical processes results in recommended process flows and data structures, which are incorporated in the software, thereby reducing risks and speeding up the design of a workable solution. • Thorough configuration – Best practices specific to water utilities are delivered with the software, such as collecting data with customer fact sheets, creating sample bills, invoicing for water and sewage, processing connections, and placing liens.
• Rapid prototyping – Once the solution is configured, you add your own data to complete the prototype. • Efficient testing – Test cases, developed with a template, get the testing phase off to a faster start. Fast ROI and Low TCO – Powered by SAP NetWeaver
The integration required to streamline and automate your business processes is achieved through the power of the SAP NetWeaver platform, which drives the powerful solutions from the SAP for Utilities set of solutions, supporting billing, customer financial management, customer service management, supply operations, and enterprise management and support. SAP NetWeaver is developed specifically to enable faster ROI and lower total cost of ownership (TCO) for companies of all sizes and in all industries.
“We choose SAP because it was the only software we reviewed that had the functionality to match our business requirements.” Richard Walsh, CIO, British Waterways, United Kingdom
. . . AT YOUR CORE
UTILITIES SOLUTION MAP: UNDERSTANDING BUSINESS VALUE SAP for Utilities is designed to help water utilities master business processes along the entire value chain. SAP for Utilities provides a number of tools to help you optimize these processes. One tool is the solution map shown below. Built using input from customers and industry analysts, plus the technical expertise SAP has acquired through Suppliers & Partners
extensive business experience and research, SAP solution maps are multilevel blueprints of processes defined for a particular industry. They help you visualize, plan, and implement a coherent, integrated, and comprehensive information technology solution. They also show how various processes are covered, including the processes that SAP and its partners support.
Exploitation & Preparation
Transport & Distribution
With solution maps, you quickly understand business solutions and the business value they can bring. The solution map for the utilities industry is available at www.sap.com/industries/utilities/ businessmaps.epx.
Retail & Services
Asset Life-Cycle & Resource Management Plant Engineering & Construction Plant Maintenance & Operations Supply Operations Grid Engineering & Construction Grid Maintenance & Operations Connection & Device Management Installation Service Meter Reading Services Consumption Data Collection Selling of Water & Services Campaign Management Sales Management for Residential Customers Sales Management for Commercial & Industrial Customers Account & Contact Management Integrated Sales Planning and Analytics Customer Service Management Service Order Management Service Processes for Utilities Service Contract & Entitlement Management Complaints & Returns Management Electronic Customer Services Account & Contact Management Billing of Water & Services Billing of Water & Services Billing for Commercial & Industrials Billing of Unmetered Services Billing of Services Customer Financial Management Customer Financial Management Reconciliation & Closing Auditing Enterprise Management & Support Analytics Financials Human Capital Management Corporate Services Operations Support
Customer & Channels
SAP IS HERE
THE TIME TO SPEAK TO SAP IS NOW Customer service expectations, technological change, and infrastructure improvements can only increase. The flexibility of SAP solutions helps you achieve operational excellence and makes upgrading to an integrated solution practical for any water utility. The time to talk about your future is now – and no one listens better than SAP.
WATER UTILITIES BUSINESS PROCESS
For detailed information about the SAP for Utilities set of solutions and how they can help you manage your water utility, visit the SAP Web site today at www.sap.com/utilities.
ADVANTAGE
SUPPLY OPERATIONS Grid engineering and construction
Water utilities design, plan, and budget engineering, construction, and commissioning projects.
Grid maintenance and operation
Water utilities maintain the transportation and distribution network infrastructure. Technicians perform complex processes, such as repair, maintenance, customer service, inspections, and measurements.
Connection and device management
Water utilities manage their connection and device infrastructure, and conduct activities such as periodic device replacement, hydrant inspections and flushing, large-meter service, hydrant billing, connections, and other service work.
Installation services
Water utilities manage the installation services for new service connections and integrate the processes with work management.
METER READING SERVICES Consumption data collection
Water utilities schedule meter reading events and collect meter data through various channels, such as automatic meter reading systems and mobile data-entry devices. They rely on flexible and powerful validation methods to prepare the data for the next steps in the process.
CUSTOMER SERVICE MANAGEMENT Service processes for utilities
Within a typical call center, water utilities conduct customer-related, water-utility-specific processes, including move-in or move-out transactions with balance transfer, bankruptcy processing, meter reading entry, bill correction, and high-bill enquiry.
BILLING OF WATER AND SERVICES Billing for metered and unmetered services
Water utilities bill their residential, commercial, and industrial customers for metered water usage and for unmetered services. They manage tariffs and leverage sample bills.
CUSTOMER FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT Receivables and collection management
Water utilities can process many types of customer-related financial transactions, including posting, payments, and dunning. They have high document volumes in environments where manual processing of receivables is not feasible and where automation is essential. Water utilities can handle collection activities such as lien processing.
. . . TO HEAR YOU
A PARTNER YOU CAN LISTEN TO WITH CONFIDENCE SAP is the world’s leading provider of business software solutions. Today, more than 24,450 customers in over 120 countries run more than 84,000 installations of SAP software – from distinct solutions addressing the needs of small and midsize businesses to enterprise-scale suite solutions for global organizations. By choosing SAP, your utilities business is assured of solutions that are: • Solutions designed for your industry – SAP offers a full range of software that supports the most important business processes and best practices in more than 25 industries, including yours. And SAP’s global organization includes hundreds of professionals who work exclusively with your industry. • Solutions scaled to your business – Although SAP is known for serving the world’s largest corporations – including 80 of the FORTUNE 100 – nearly two-thirds of SAP customers have annual revenues of US$500 million or less. SAP solutions fit your size and budget today – while offering unlimited scalability for tomorrow. • Solutions ready for your future – Because SAP solutions are built on the SAP NetWeaver platform, the open integration and application technology platform from SAP, they integrate with virtually all SAP and non-SAP applications, leveraging your investments – past, present, and future. • Solutions that are affordable – SAP has worked with industry partners in this specific market to develop a focused implementation approach that saves you time and money, resulting in higher returns on your investment dollar.
SAP offers best-in-class solutions and applications for virtually every aspect of your business, including the following: • SAP Service and Asset Management • SAP Billing • SAP Invoicing and Contract Accounting • mySAP™ Customer Relationship Management • mySAP ERP Each solution is backed by the global expertise of SAP Customer Services Network, offering the widest range of
services that organizations require, from consulting, education, and support to custom development and hosting. The best-run companies are ready for anything. Read on for more details about how the SAP for Utilities set of solutions can help you join the bestrun utilities that run SAP: www.sap.com/industries/utilities.
www.sap.com /contactsap
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