CRM Software Comparison Blog

A successful CRM budget should come in on-budget, but most fail to achieve that elusive goal. Meeting budget targets is especially important for small businesses, which usually will have reserve capacity.

Meeting CRM project budgets requires careful in-depth analysis before starting the project. Every effort must be made to begin on the right food. There are four areas considered crucial to the successful planning and implementation of a CRM budget.

• ROI - Make an honest assessment of your project’s capacity for generating a return on investment for your business. Try to be as objective as possible in estimating ROI.

• Risk Reduction — Think of anything that can go wrong and then calculate as much as possible the likelihood of such risks. Risk often equates to cost, so take all measures necessary to minimize CRM project risk.

• CRM Service requirements - Try to account for all future services that your CRM project will require and budget accordingly. A failure to accurately predict needed services in your CRM budget will result in surprise expenses that can mount up very quickly. Replay in your mind past project experiences and note the time spent on providing various services.

• Technology requirements - Technology often makes tremendous difference in the time and cost involved with any project. You need to make sure you have the right tools for the job at hand. Make sure your consultants have adequate knowledge to recommend the right tools - the hardware and software — for your project.

After analyzing these four areas, you can start to develop a working CRM budget. If you have little or no experience with CRM software, you may have to rely on sales representatives who may conjure up a non-realistic budget to help promote their product.

Try to avoid overly optimistic projections, and usually it will be better to err on the safe side when considering risks and similar factors. With a realistic budget, you will be better able to make sound decisions on how to proceed with your project.

If after making a realistic assessment, you find your project exceeds your budget, here are some tips on how to proceed:

• Postpone the project and save resources. In the future the situation may change so that you will be able to afford what is currently too expensive. In the meantime, make preparations for that time when your project becomes viable.

• Proceed with your project despite the budget concerns. There is still a possibility of coming in on budget and you are optimistic about the CRM system’s ROI. In this case, you follow your gut instinct.

• Scale down. Try starting off small and then working up as you go along. Select a low resource task from your CRM budget that brings a big payoff, and then use the capital earned to fund future work in the project. By working from smaller, higher-payoff projects in your budget upward you have a greater chance of success.

• Uncover more ways to increase your return on investment. Carefully go through every item of your CRM budget and try to discover ways to increase your ROI. Use your creativity and imagination, but remember to be realistic.

• Double check to assure you have created the correct CRM budget for your business. There are many types of CRM software available and the quality of the results can vary significantly. Higher quality CRM software may produce a more affordable solution.

Remember that developing a successful CRM budget means that you have realistically forecasted your project’s needs, and that often means choosing the right CRM system.

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Quick-to-deploy offering allows mobile service providers to capitalize on a range of financial services which cross borders and networks, delivered over the mobile phone

BARCELONA — June 24, 2009 — Amdocs (NYSE: DOX), the leading provider of customer experience systems, announced today the availability of the Amdocs Mobile Money Hub, a SaaS (Software as a Service)-based solution for enabling service providers to support any payment or banking process over the mobile phone in real time. Partnering with leading enabler of mobile money services - Trivnet, the Amdocs Mobile Money Hub combines technology from Trivnet with Amdocs’ implementation and integration expertise and data center facilities around the world.
“In today’s digital lifestyle, it’s a natural extension to utilize the mobile handset for financial transactions. The key is to ensure the user experience is positive and the underlying infrastructure supports such transactions in a totally secured fashion,” said Michael Couture, head of Global Marketing at Amdocs. “With the Amdocs Mobile Money Hub, service providers can now differentiate their offering and capitalize on the mobile money services market potential, at a low risk and at a low initial upfront investment.”

The Amdocs Mobile Money Hub is powered by Trivnet’s TRIV Platform™. The Trivnet technology allows service providers to offer their customers the ability to perform various financial transactions, such as money transfers, mobile commerce, and mobile banking, from all types of mobile phones, as well as over the Web, IVR (interactive voice response) or any other access method available to customers. Services are conducted in a fully secured environment, allowing service providers to adhere to the strictest financial and security standards and regulations, including ISO 8583, Know-Your-Customer (KYC), and Anti-Money-Laundering (AML).

The Amdocs Mobile Money Hub is connected to global banking partners that provide the necessary foreign exchanges and inter-bank settlement services for cross-border money transfers. “Together with Amdocs we are offerings one of the leading mobile money solutions available on the market today to allow mobile service providers a quick and easy entry into the lucrative field of mobile financial services,” said Amit Mattatia, president and chief executive officer at Trivnet. “The direct connection to cross-border and cross-network sources and destinations for money transfers will play a major role in driving service uptake and subsequent growth in the mobile money ecosystem.”

The Amdocs Mobile Money Hub can be rapidly deployed. The underlying scalability of the solution allows service providers to readily add subscribers, services, and cross-border affiliations serving as cash in/cash out points, and support growing transaction volumes under an attractive, pay-as-you-grow, SaaS pricing structure. All services carry the service provider’s brand, are configured to the provider’s requirements and are localized to the finest details.

The announcement was made at the GSMA Mobile Money Summit 2009 taking place today in Barcelona (Amdocs Booth D3, Hall 5).

About Trivnet
Trivnet is a leading participant in the emerging world of mobile money services. Established in 1997 and privately owned, Trivnet was one of the first companies in this domain and has already deployed its TRIV Platform™ with many service providers and mobile network operators around the world.

Trivnet’s solutions enable the development of effective and profitable mobile financial services based on the participation of telecom operators, financial institutions, merchants, distributors and retailers – locally and globally. For more information, visit Trivnet at www.trivnet.com

About Amdocs
Amdocs is the market leader in customer experience systems innovation, enabling world-leading service providers to deliver an integrated, innovative and intentional customer experienceTM at every point of service. Amdocs provides solutions that deliver customer experience excellence, combining the software, service and expertise to help its customers execute their strategies and achieve service, operational and financial excellence. A global company with revenue of $2.84 billion in fiscal 2007, Amdocs has more than 17,000 employees and serves customers in more than 50 countries around the world. For more information, visit Amdocs at www.amdocs.com.

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Redwood Shores, Calif., 15 May 2009 -

•  
  • Reduced operational costs while continuing to grow market share• Improved quality of customer care and service delivery • Increased efficiency of gas and electricity billing systems• Automated appliance service systems ensuring effective maintenance and scheduling

  • Unrestricted message exchange with other business, gas and electricity suppliers

• Bord Gáis Energy, the retail arm of the Irish energy company, Bord Gáis Éireann, announced today it has successfully implemented Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing to streamline management of its mission-critical business operations in supplying gas and electricity to more than 700,000 customers located throughout Ireland.

• Since replacing its legacy Customer Information System with Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing, Bord Gáis Energy has increased functionality across a number of its business operations through:

• Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing has allowed Bord Gáis Energy to introduce Market Messaging for the first time to its business operations with no restrictions, streamlining message exchange with other market operators.

• Bord Gáis Energy required a scalable and flexible system that could enable them to cater to the needs of the dynamic and rapidly growing energy market.

• Bord Gáis Energy is looking forward to seeing further benefits and improvements to its business operations over the coming months and continuing to further compete for market share in the supply of other emerging alternative energies.

• The initial rollout in December 2008 catered for the 700,000 natural gas customer base. Following the successful rollout, Bord Gáis Energy extended the product to support its residential electricity launch in February 2009.

Supporting Quotes:

• “The principal business driver for replacing our Customer Information System (CIS) system was clearly to comply with the directions of the energy regulator. However, the changed business environment of the competitive market means that we also had to adapt our business model to take full advantage of the new opportunities it brings. We had to place a greater emphasis on the quality of service we provide to our customers and, at the same time, focus on reducing our operational costs and growing our market share if we wanted to remain competitive,” said David Bunworth, head of energy supply at Bord Gais Energy.• “After a comprehensive and thorough supplier evaluation, Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing stood out as the only solution available that was capable of meeting our ambitious business needs. Not only did Oracle Utilities present a functionally robust and highly flexible integrated solution, but they also impressed us with their ability to listen and understand our business processes and objectives, and in all instances demonstrate how their solutionaddresses our concerns. Throughout the project, Oracle Utilities have worked with us tirelessly to help us achieve our objectives,” said Tony Bridgeman, business transformation manager at Bord Gais Energy.• “We are very proud that Bord Gáis Energy, one of Ireland’s largest utility companies, has implemented our products. Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing provides a flexible, scalable customer information solution that will help Bord Gáis Energy to both collect and analyse data in near real time. Monitoring their key performance indicators in this way will help Bord Gáis Energy to easily bridge the gap between customer information and other corporate strategic initiatives,” said Quentin Grady, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.

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Insurer Streamlines Underwriting and Extends Content Publishing Capabilities to Facilitate Growth and Enhance Customer Convenience

News Facts

• CAMICO Mutual Insurance Company, the largest certified public accountant (CPA)-owned mutual insurance company in the United States, is using Oracle® Fusion Middleware Solutions for Insurance, including Oracle WebCenter Suite and Oracle Business Process Management, to help increase the volume and depth of information available to its customers and improve underwriting efficiency.
• The company selected Oracle solutions to expand the capabilities of CAMICO’s custom-built extranet application - improving the cost efficiency of delivering content to its customers and facilitating continued business growth in the competitive insurance industry.
• With Oracle WebCenter Suite, CAMICO provided access to multiple channels for conducting business and locating information, improving the customer experience.
• Within six months of deploying the Oracle-based solution, CAMICO received half of its direct application and renewal submissions via its online channel and increased the total number of submissions received across all channels of communication.
• Using Oracle Business Process Management, CAMICO has automated transaction processing, enabling the company to fine tune underwriting logic and increase the number of users who can complete transactions online. As a result, CAMICO has improved underwriting efficiency and decreased the amount of manual work associated with the insurer’s application process.
• CAMICO also automated renewals of its employment practice’s liability policies and plans to expand its use of Oracle Business Process Management to offer online renewals for professional liability.
• CAMICO improved decision-making capabilities for its management team by enabling rapid online access to enterprise data, including previously disparate sales data. Improved data access and business intelligence enable CAMICO to identify areas for improvement and define strategies to promote business growth across the enterprise and all channels of business.

Supporting Quote

• “As the largest CPA-owned mutual insurance company in the United States, our customers rely on our services and information to help them mitigate their inherent business risks. With Oracle WebCenter Suite and Oracle Business Process Management, we opened up a new channel to provide service to our customers and improved our ability to promote growth through a new channel of customer interaction,” said Scott Webber, vice president of eBusiness, CAMICO Mutual Insurance Company.

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Wind River Uses Oracle Fusion Middleware and Oracle Applications to Power Enterprise 2.0 Customer Support

News Facts

• Wind River, the global leader in Device Software Optimization, is using Oracle® WebCenter Suite, Oracle Universal Content Management, and Oracle E-Business Suite to improve customer service while helping to build valuable long-term relationships with its customers.
• As a result of its Oracle deployment, Wind River has significantly increased satisfaction with its customer support portal and reduced the average number of clicks it takes customers to find information by 50 percent. Wind River anticipates that resolving customer concerns, answering customer questions and empowering customer self-service online will result in considerable savings.
• Using Oracle WebCenter Suite as its customer support portal, Wind River can integrate customer information from Oracle E-Business Suite with content, such as product manuals, FAQs, and product downloads, managed in Oracle Universal Content Management to help ensure customers have access to the latest and most relevant support information for the products they own.
• Wind River enables its customers to personalize their support experience and receive updates regarding patches, application notes, and other relevant content. The company plans to enhance its personalization with WebCenter Suite’s Enterprise 2.0 features and is evaluating the use of RSS feeds, discussion threads and user-driven recommendations.
• In addition to providing a personalized interface for each customer with Oracle WebCenter Suite, Wind River is using Oracle Universal Content Management to accelerate the process of adding new material to the site, standardize the look and feel of documentation across its entire product line, and help ensure only the most up-to-date versions of content are available.
• Oracle Consulting Services worked with Wind River on the successful customer support portal deployment, which is the most recent implementation in Wind River’s ongoing standardization on Oracle software. The company has also implemented Oracle’s Siebel CRM, Oracle Customer Data Hub, Oracle SOA Suite, Oracle’s Hyperion Planning, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, Oracle Business Intelligence Applications, Oracle Single Sign-On and Oracle Database.

Supporting Quotes

• “While the data pulled from the Oracle E-Business Suite helps ensure that customer-specific content is presented through our online support portal, Oracle WebCenter Suite makes it possible for customers to further personalize their online support experience to get the information they want, when and how they want it,” said Nam Doan-Huy, Senior Manager, Business Applications, Wind River.
• “Using Oracle Universal Content Management enables our content authors to publish directly to the online support center reducing the demand on our Web team to push out new updates and dramatically increasing the speed at which manuals, FAQs and documentation can be updated,” said Carl Orsi, Online Support Manager, Wind River.

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Event to be Webcast Live on salesforce.com’s Investor Relations Website

SAN FRANCISCO, June 22, 2009- Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the enterprise cloud computing company today announced that Parker Harris, Executive Vice President Technology, at salesforce.com, will present at the Wachovia Equity Conference on Wednesday, June 24, 2009 at 10:15 am (EDT) / 7:15am (PDT) in Boston, MA.

An audio webcast of Mr. Harris’ presentation will be available on salesforce.com’s website at www.salesforce.com/investor.

About Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. The company’s portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that companies collaborate and communicate with their customers across sales, marketing and service. The company’s Force.com Platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/) enables customers, partners and developers to quickly build powerful business to run every part of the enterprise in the cloud. Based on salesforce.com <http://salesforce.com> ’s real-time, multi-tenant architecture, Salesforce CRM and Force.com offer the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing.

As of April 30, 2009, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 59,300 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.

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Event to be streamed live from the GigaOM website

SAN FRANCISCO - June 22, 2009 - Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com, will speak at GigaOM’s Structure 09 at the Mission Bay Conference Center, San Francisco on Thursday, June 25th, 2009 at 2:15 pm PDT.

Mr. Benioff’s presentation will be streamed live on the GigaOM website found at http://GigaOM.com.

About Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. The company’s portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that companies collaborate and communicate with their customers across sales, marketing and service. The company’s Force.com Platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/) enables customers, partners and developers to quickly build powerful business to run every part of the enterprise in the cloud. Based on salesforce.com <http://salesforce.com> ’s real-time, multi-tenant architecture, Salesforce CRM and Force.com offer the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing.

As of April 30, 2009, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 59,300 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM”. For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

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Amdocs to consolidate Elisa’s eight legacy wireless, wireline, Internet and cable TV billing systems; Amdocs will also deliver an enterprise-wide master product catalog

HELSINKI, Finland and ST. LOUIS - June 22, 2009 - Elisa Corporation (HEL: Elisa A), Finland’s leading provider of wireless, wireline, broadband Internet and cable TV services, and Amdocs (NYSE: DOX), the leading provider of customer experience systems, today announced that they have signed a six-year managed services and billing consolidation agreement. Under the terms of the agreement, Amdocs will immediately assume responsibility for day-to-day management and maintenance of the Amdocs billing, ordering and customer relationship management (CRM) software that was originally deployed in 2007 to support Elisa’s wireless operations.
In addition, Amdocs will consolidate Elisa’s eight legacy wireless, wireline, Internet and cable billing systems to establish a single, convergent billing system. Amdocs will also deliver the Amdocs Enterprise Product Catalog to serve as a master repository for all product information currently managed in five different billing, ordering and self-service catalogs to enable Elisa to better define, blend, bundle and price its entire offering portfolio.

About Elisa Corporation
Elisa Corporation is a leading Nordic communications services provider and a publicly listed Eurotop-500 company, with operations in the Nordic countries, the Baltics and Russia. We serve some 2 million consumers regionally and around 15,000 enterprises internationally, offering a wide range of subscriptions with services. We provide experiences for people and enhance productivity for organisations online. Elisa focuses on developing consumer and corporate ICT and online services. Our revenues for 2008 were EUR 1.49 billion and we employ approximately 2,900 people. Elisa’s global alliance partners are Vodafone and Telenor. For more information, visit www.elisa.com

About Amdocs
Amdocs is the market leader in customer experience systems innovation, enabling world-leading service providers to deliver an integrated, innovative and intentional customer experienceTM at every point of service. Amdocs provides solutions that deliver customer experience excellence, combining the software, service and expertise to help its customers execute their strategies and achieve service, operational and financial excellence. A global company with revenue of $2.84 billion in fiscal 2007, Amdocs has more than 17,000 employees and serves customers in more than 50 countries around the world. For more information, visit Amdocs at www.amdocs.com.

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Sales Production System Supports Adoption of Best Practice Sales Processes

PITTSBURGH, PA - June 22, 2009 - Landslide Technologies, Inc. (www.landslide.com), provider of industry’s first Sales Production System, today announced that Metro Fire, provider of comprehensive fire protection equipment, has selected Landslide’s Sales P3 (LSP3) System as its corporate sales system.

An experienced provider of fire and safety equipment, Metro Fire has grown as a result of its focus on providing high quality products and prompt service. The need to standardize successful and proven selling practices became important as the size of the sales team grew. The Landslide Sales P3 System’s ability to provide salespeople step by step best-practice process for closing deals not only provided the standardization Metro Fire was looking for, it also provided far greater visibility into the pipeline than traditional CRM solutions.

“We were looking for a system that would be more than just a reporting tool,” said Jon McLaughlin, VP of Sales, Metro Fire. “With Landslide, not only do we provide our team a proven playbook for closing deals, we also give them insight into our customers’ buying behavior. The deep visibility provided by Landslide will help guide our future strategies.”

“Metro Fire’s selection of Landslide as their sales system reflects the fact that Sales Production Systems are becoming a must have sales application to drive higher volume of sales,” said Razi Imam, CEO, Landslide Technologies. “We look forward to supporting Metro Fire in hitting their growth targets.”

About Metro Fire
Metro Fire represents 100+ Fire Rescue and Homeland Security equipment manufacturers throughout the United States. Armed with a wide array of quality products, Metro Fire is uniquely positioned to identify and locate specialty items for fire departments in Minnesota and South Dakota.

About Landslide Technologies
Landslide Technologies is the provider of Landslide Sales P3 System, a Sales Production System that helps BtoB companies increase sales volume. Landslide Sales P3 System is the first system that combines sales process consistency with sales performance technology and outsourced administrative services to turn individual performers into a world-class team of consistent sales producers. Endorsed by leading sales experts and selected by Gartner Group as a ‘Cool Vendor’ and ‘Visionary Quadrant’ company, Landslide Technologies is privately held with headquarters in Pittsburgh, PA. Additional information can be found at www.landslide.com.

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Pragmatic Approach Enables Utilities to Begin to Recognize Smart Grid Benefits Prior to Full Smart Grid Deployment

News Facts

• Oracle Utilities announced the introduction of Oracle’s smart grid software – an end-to-end software offering including mission-critical applications and back-end technology infrastructure. The products are designed to support utilities as they work to optimize the value of their smart grid components today while advancing toward a complete smart grid build out that leverages advances in IT, communications technology and energy technology to improve delivery utilization/resilience and empower consumers to address environmental concerns.
• Oracle offers a pragmatic approach to smart grid deployment, allowing utilities to begin recognizing the benefits of the smart grid now, while supporting a transition to a full smart grid architecture in the future, with lower cost and risk.
• Oracle’s smart grid software is a comprehensive, multi-solution software offering that addresses the two sides of the smart grid paradigm – allowing utilities to choose how to manage their operations and provide information to consumers to enable them to make better energy usage decisions.
• The offering helps to support cross-utility business processes, such as implementation of demand response and energy conservation programs that help utilities control and conserve power, take advantage of renewable energy and deliver information to end consumers to empower decision making. It also helps to accelerate and improve grid maintenance as well as repair and sizing, while enabling compliance with regulatory changes and accommodation of emerging standards.
• In the recent Oracle survey, “Turning Information Into Power: Moving Toward the Smart Grid,” the vast majority of consumers surveyed reported concern about the energy costs at their primary residence and are interested in receiving more detailed information about their energy use. Also, utilities managers surveyed believe it is critical that the United States adopt smart grid technologies. However, only 16 percent of the utilities surveyed have begun the implementation of smart grid technologies.

Oracle’s Smart Grid Software Details

Oracle’s smart grid software unifies information from various segments of the Smart Grid network, including service delivery, customer interaction and consumer energy usage. Components of Oracle® Fusion Middleware underlie these applications with processes that help integrate and manage large meter data batch files with Oracle Data Integrator or automate meter and sensor data filtering and front-end processing using Oracle Complex Event Processing. The solution also provides standards-based integration with a technology infrastructure that includes Oracle® Database, as well as software for project management and enterprise analytics. Oracle’s smart grid software includes the following solutions:

• Oracle® Utilities Network Management System – Integrates with advanced metering infrastructure (AMI), allowing utilities to proactively respond to outages and be more precise when providing consumer alerts and notifications – enabling the smart meter to send a “last gasp” message to report a power loss thus eliminating the need for a customer to report the outage. Oracle Utilities Network Management System also supports automated isolation of faulted feeder sections and the re-energizing of un-faulted sections, minimizing sustained outages. Its integrated distribution capability supports the continual assessment of power delivery and available feeder capacity in a distribution network that optimizes operations.
• Oracle® Utilities Customer Care and Billing – Allows utilities to harness the benefits of new smart grid technologies and AMI, such as two-way communications, to better contain operational costs and control consumer energy demand through conservation and time-based pricing programs, as well as improve customer service and environmental awareness. It can provide customers with a clear picture of the relationship between their consumption and environmental impact, then offer service options to help change behavior.
• Oracle® Utilities Load Analysis – Performs peak load analysis, including coincidental peak demand analysis by customer rate class. This solution also balances premise level loads to system loads, incorporating variable,fixed losses and unaccounted for energy.
• Oracle® Utilities Work and Asset Management – Provides complete asset lifecycle management, which can ultimately extend the life of aging assets, enable utilities to manage network renewal projects, and enhance cost control and visibility while improving system reliability and customer service. In addition, by monitoring and performing maintenance on a timely basis, utilities can reduce the environmental impact resulting from equipment failure.
• Oracle® Utilities Mobile Workforce Management – Supports efforts to ensure service availability and automate field operations via dispatch, scheduling and routing. It provides field workers the optimal route with the least mileage and fewest truck rolls, which helps reduce fuel consumption, highway congestion and tailpipe emissions.
• Oracle Utilities Meter Data Management – Provides a centralized, robust system to support smart grid and green initiatives by connecting AMI usage data and presentment tools, so consumers can view their usage – allowing them to make informed conservation decisions. Utilities can also configure the application to support demand response programs including: customer recruitment, event planning, event notification and compliance.
• Oracle® Hyperion Performance Management applications and Oracle® Primavera applications – Leverage comprehensive performance and project management functionality to enable the planning, scheduling and installation of utility-controlled renewable devices – such as solar panels on homes and buildings.
• Oracle Database – Scales to tackle exponential growth in data and enables utilities to more effectively manage network operational data to improve performance.
• Oracle Governance, Risk and Compliance – Simplifies compliance with NERC (North American Electric Reliability Corporation) and FERC (U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) with an enterprise GRC platform for standards and policy documentation; risk-based assessment; and closed-loop remediation, certification, and reporting. Integrated controls monitoring also enforce segregation of duties to reduce the risk of improper access and fraudulent activities.

Supporting Quotes

• “As utilities move toward leveraging the power of the smart grid, Oracle is prepared to support the industry with the tools they need to manage operations agilely and communicate rapidly with consumers for maximum efficiency. The flexibility and scalability of our smart grid software, as well as Oracle’s broad software offering, enable both immediate benefits now and an easier transition to a full smart grid architecture in the future,” said Quentin Grady, senior vice president and general manager, Oracle Utilities.
• “Utilities face many challenges as they make the move toward the smart grid – from providing consumers with actionable information about their energy use, to preparing to accept new renewable energy sources into the grid. Utilities can maximize success by developing detailed transition plans, securing buy-in from stakeholders and implementing integrated, standards-based technology. We have been very impressed by the initial ‘smart grid’ strides made by Oracle’s utility R&D team in its evolving Oracle Utilities Network Management System suite. Oracle’s end-to-end solution – from back-end database to mission-critical applications – can help support both the ‘traditional’ IT computing requirements and the operational computing requirements of electric utilities as they take the first steps,” said Chuck Newton, president, Newton-Evans Research Company.
• “Applications software, along with intelligent devices and communications networks, is one of three critical technology components of the smart grid. It enables utilities to turn large volumes of real-time data into actionable information they can use to implement demand response programs, integrate renewable and distributed energy resources and improve grid operations. The software required for the smart grid includes both new applications such as meter data management and advanced analytics, as well as modifications and updates to existing applications such as customer information systems and distribution management systems,” said Rick Nicholson, vice president, Energy Insights, an IDC company.

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