By Jon T. Brock, President, Desert Sky Group, LLC

Reprinted with permission of EUCI

February 14, 2011

Fifty-six percent utility attendance.  How many times have you heard that at an industry conference?  Of the fifty attendees at the EUCI 9^th Annual Utility Billing Conference in Las Vegas, fifty-six percent were from a utility in North America.  I could not pass up the opportunity to gather updated information from the utilities when it comes to “smart” functionality surrounding the customer information and billing systems (more commonly referred to as the CIS) in today’s changing marketplace.

The attendees (utility and vendor) broke into four groups and “brain-stormed” new functionality that will impact the CIS as a result of the “smart utility” trend.  I use the term “smart utility” because electric, gas, and water utilities were represented in this exercise.  After brainstorming, each group presented to the larger conference the results of their efforts.

Functionality Prioritization

CIS functionality has been an interesting element to track over the years.  Approximately four years ago, it was becoming virtually pointless to do a functionality checklist when selecting a new CIS because most bidding vendors would come in with the same score.  Recently with “smart” functionality beginning to creep into the check-lists, utilities must be cautious of separating required functionality from preferred functionality.  Observations from last year’s conference in San Antonio included:

·         Listen to your customers and be prepared to follow through with what they are asking for

·         Monitor new “smart” functionalities and be prepared to offer what will become required

·         Possible new “smart” functionality could include distributed generation, net metering, and dynamic pricing

·         Pre-pay electricity is becoming a requirement (and multiple ways to pay via kiosk, online, text messaging, and phone)

After the four groups in Las Vegas presented back to the larger conference, new “smart” functionality could be summarized as the following:

Hearing from the utilities themselves and not the vendor community is a welcome change periodically.  Sometimes we lose track of what the true functionalities are within the utility.  I recall all the new gizmos and gadgets we were going to deploy as an industry with deregulation.  In the end, the retailers that were successful were the ones that could get a commodity bill out first and then work on the gizmos and gadgets later.  I would advise vendors in the utility billing space to listen to the utilities and deliver on the required high priorities while toning down some of the hype around the preferred future requirements. 

Jon Brock is President of utility and energy advisor Desert Sky Group, LLC.  He can be reached at jbrock@desertskygroup.com