Transforming utilities customer information and billing systems
October 15, 2011
According to a recent report from Pike Research, most utilities will be faced with upgrading or replacing their Customer Information Systems (CIS) and billing systems in the next 10 years. More robust information systems that can handle data feeds from smart meters and demand response (DR) programs are a step toward the combination of smart grid technology with new energy generation technologies and with new regulatory frameworks. The CIS transformation represents a total market opportunity of more than $4 billion, The research forecasts that next-generation CIS solutions will cover 89 million customer meters by 2015.
Utilities are faced with moving forward on CIS transformation at the accelerated pace of smart grid implementations but are slowed by heavy systems and software that, in many cases, are more than two decades old.
In the United States, this large CIS and billing upgrade will lead to heightened competition as the leading system in use today, Customer/1, is phased out of the competitive landscape. Many smart grid utilities will have no choice but to fully replace Customer/1, leaving a vacuum that established enterprise software vendors, such as SAP and Oracle, will move aggressively to fill. By 2015, Pike Research forecasts, SAP and Oracle will control 43% of the market, with telecom service providers accounting for another 17%.
