Yorkshire Water Extends Leadership With Solution From Ventyx
Award-Winning UK Utility Adds Licenses, Upgrades to Latest WFM Software
ATLANTA — April 24, 2007 — Ventyx, the leading Service Delivery Management (SDM™) solution provider, today announced that major UK utility Yorkshire Water has signed a significant contract for the extension and upgrade of its Ventyx mobile workforce management solution — an integral component of the utility's award-winning Integrated Customer and Operations Management (ICOM) system.
The leading-edge ICOM system leverages the Ventyx Advantex solution to link Yorkshire Water's contact center with their field operations and has revolutionized the way the utility works and delivers service. The initial deployment enabled the efficient management of approximately 600 mobile workers engaged in clean and waste water management, resulting in major operational efficiencies, and more importantly, enhanced service delivery to customers. The new system will be based on the latest Advantex R8s release and will extend the use of the current system to an additional 400 mobile technicians, as well as dispatchers and subcontracted third-party service providers.
"Our ICOM system has been a tremendous success, helping establish Yorkshire Water as the UK's top water utility for three years running and saving more than £12 million per year through increased operational efficiency," said Duncan Bennett, ICOM Programme Manager, Yorkshire Water. "The latest functionality of the enhanced Advantex scheduling engine will help us achieve even greater end-to-end efficiencies. Furthermore, by combining integrated GPS, the system will dramatically increase our awareness of jobs in progress — even those jobs being performed by other organizations."
"Yorkshire Water has become the de facto standard for how to run an efficient utility, and the Advantex solution has played an important role in this achievement," said Alan Harrison, Director of IT, Yorkshire Water. "In addition, the solution's deployment model and configuration tools will enable a relatively quick deployment with high flexibility and seamless migration to the new release. Therefore, we plan to have the system operational in less than five months with minimal disruption to ongoing operations."
The partnership between Yorkshire Water and Ventyx has produced numerous successes. Specifically, since implementing the Advantex system, Yorkshire Water has been named UK Utility of the Year for 2006, 2005 and 2004. In addition, the utility received the UK National Customer Service award for the best use of technology in customer service for 2003, and the UK Utility Industry Award for Customer Service in 2003. Furthermore, Gartner Inc. awarded the utility with its European Excellence award for Customer Relationship Management . Additionally, the company's most important achievement is being rated at the top of the Office of Water Services (Ofwat) league table of UK Water Companies.
"We are extremely proud to have contributed to the success of Yorkshire Water in achieving the highest levels of operational efficiency and customer service quality," said Mark Comer, VP and Managing Director EMEA, Ventyx. "The decision by this important client to upgrade and extend their implementation is further validation that Ventyx is the leading provider of Service Delivery Management solutions for utilities around the world. No other vendor can offer the depth and breadth of customer, asset and workforce management capabilities that we provide."
About Yorkshire Water
UK-based Yorkshire Water Service Ltd. is the ninth largest water management company in the world, providing clean water to 4.7 million people and 139,000 businesses, and treating waste water to safe environmental standards in the Yorkshire region of the UK. In a market characterized by tight legislation and growing competition, the utility has emphasized customer service, environmental excellence and value for shareholders. As a result, Yorkshire Water has won numerous UK and international awards. For more information, visit http://www.yorkshirewater.com/.
About Ventyx
Ventyx is the leading provider of proven Service Delivery Management solutions which enable utility, communications and other commercial field service organizations to optimize the management of their customers, workforce, spare parts inventory, equipment, tools and documentation — empowering organizations to maximize efficiencies in their customer relationships, facilities, workforce and field service operations. With offices in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, the company has more than 400 clients in select asset-intensive service-based industries. For more information, visit our website at www.ventyx.com.