Billing Solutions for the Water Industry

Fujitsu’s experience in supplying specialist utility billing development and support services will help you to drive down the total cost of service delivery without compromising control.

The Challenge

Many water utilities are struggling with the right timing to embark on billing enhancement or replacement programmes that are designed to deliver flexible, modern, functionally rich and easy to integrate billing applications. The drivers for such a significant change programme are typically:

• Application integration requirements for improving customer contact and income management;
• Changes in regulation;
• A climate of cost reduction;
• Concerns around legacy skills retention;
• A regulatory environment driving comparative competition within the industry.

The need to continually challenge existing billing application functionality is very real as water utilities strive to protect and grow their revenue streams. Ideally, they want to operate billing applications that are easy to adapt; where enhancements to product and service offers, tariffs and regulation can be delivered quickly and cost effectively, and readily flow through to associated systems. But the desire to affect a step change in billing systems is often offset by a perception of risk, which is compounded by a financial benefits case that often appears marginal at best.

The Solution

Fujitsu proposes an application and hosting outsourcing service that will significantly enrich the transformational options moving forward. Fujitsu’s capabilities cover the following areas: -

• Development services for application enhancement
• Package implementation and data migration
• Application integration
• Application support
• IT infrastructure and hosting services
• Development of a shared service solution for organisations with common requirements.

In addition, Fujitsu constantly checks that the billing application delivers the expected value to the business.

We work with you to assess the savings potential accruing from outsourcing core billing applications. We provide a build, operate and transfer model to drive down costs. The model provides for billing development and support work, in addition to hosting and TUPE of staff as deemed appropriate.

We determine the best way to ensure the billing applications meets the future requirements of the business including legacy transformation. We can make informed recommendations around taking the billing application portfolio forward including feasibility of a possible replacement programme, package implementation and migration. Billing application services can be delivered as a Managed Service from a Fujitsu data centre or from the location of your choice.

The Benefits

You will be able to transform the overall value of your billing application and secure a lower total cost of service delivery. The use of one organisation to undertake billing application development work and the provision of an ongoing support and managed service provides clear lines of accountability for the total solution.

Our flexible approach to outsourcing enables a number of different business models to be pursued. From the provision of an application outsource contract through to sharing technical resources through to developing a common billing solution for two or more water utilities through a shared service model, Fujitsu will work with you to realise your aspirations and challenges.

We have recently completed a detailed analysis of the current costs associated with running a legacy billing application within a large-scale water utility. These costs have been compared with the capital and ongoing operational costs associated with a billing replacement programme. This analysis indicates a 5-year break-even timeframe in addition to the numerous business benefits around flexibility, use of modern operating systems, common technology platforms to facilitate integration and provision of a functionally rich application. Further cost savings can be achieved in a shared services scenario, where, for example, water-only and integrated companies share the same billing service.

The Expertise

We have successfully developed and enhanced billing solutions for leading utilities. We have extended the life of the billing investment by incorporating new functionality. Projects include web-enabled services for electronic bill presentment and automated tactical CRM solutions to improve call centre agents efficiency. We have worked with leading water utilities and understand the UK water industry. Our services are designed to reduce costs and provide the means for cost effective ongoing application development and support services.