Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), the third largest electric power holding company in the United States, and Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG), a global leader in relationship management, announced today that they have entered into an agreement to provide an innovative next generation billing and customer management solution to support the rapid advance of smart grid technology and enable a richer, more effective customer service experience for utility customers.
Convergys will support Duke Energy’s national leadership role in developing and implementing smart grid technology for approximately four million electric and gas customers in five states through the provisioning of Convergys Rating and Billing, Customer Management, and Collections modules as part of a highly scalable, real time Smart Customer Information System (CIS) solution. These modules are specifically configured by Convergys to meet the needs of 21st century smart grid energy providers and their customers.
Duke Energy, as is evidenced by its 5-year $1 billion plan for smart grid initiatives, is a national leader in developing smarter energy technologies. Duke Energy’s smart grid will incorporate automated equipment, wireless sensing devices, and advanced meters to create a digital, real-time, networked power delivery system that provides two-way communication between Duke Energy and its customers. This will put more information and choice into the hands of Duke Energy’s customers, empowering them to make wiser energy decisions.
Duke Energy’s vision of this revolutionary network could not be fully realized without a fundamental shift in the way they manage data, provide customer options, and bill for energy. To that end, Duke Energy looked “outside the box.” It sought out an innovative solution already proven to provide real time, two-way, scalable transactions.
Duke Energy selected the Convergys Smart CIS Solution to deliver highly scalable real-time rating, dynamic billing, flexible customer and account management, and collections capabilities. The solution enables Duke Energy to address the unprecedented challenges and opportunities facing the energy industry today by not only enabling the energy savings, reduced costs, and increased reliability of the smart grid, but most importantly, enabling the product offers and quicker access to data that help Duke Energy's customers manage and reduce energy consumption.
“We believe smart grid technologies will help us reduce costs, maximize energy efficiency, and empower our customers to make smart decisions about controlling their energy usage,” said Todd Arnold, senior vice president for smart grid and customer systems at Duke Energy. “However, to unlock the potential of the smart grid, we recognized that we needed a different solution to meet the necessary scale and two-way transactional requirements. Convergys’ innovative Smart CIS Solution will meet that need providing Duke Energy with a rapidly deployable solution that modernizes our systems to support the new requirements. And, based on how we are implementing the solution, this will have minimal impact on our legacy CIS infrastructure. The Convergys Smart CIS Solution will help reduce the technology and investment risk traditionally associated with this kind of paradigm-shifting effort.”
“We are privileged to help a nationally recognized utility like Duke Energy deliver on the promise of tomorrow’s smart grid,” said Bob Lento, President of Information Management for Convergys. “Our discussions with energy providers such as Duke Energy invariably lead to the same place: existing legacy technologies were not designed to support a real time network such as the smart grid. Convergys Smart CIS Solution, on the other hand, was designed for just such a network. We have a long and strong history of experience in assisting world-class service providers optimize operations and customer experience through real time networks, convergence of services, and scale. With the Convergys Smart CIS Solution – purpose-built to accommodate smart grid requirements – we are helping Duke Energy transform its business model to better reflect its customers’ expectations for instant information, a higher degree of energy efficiency, and improved energy management.”
Special Note – News Conference
Convergys and Duke Energy will hold a news conference on this announcement at 11:00 A.M., Eastern Daylight Time, today. The news conference is available to the public at https://e-meetings.verizonbusiness.com with conference number 9112270 and passcode: convergys.
About Duke Energy
Duke Energy is the third largest electric power holding company in the United States, based on kilowatt-hour sales. Its regulated utility operations serve approximately 4 million customers located in five states -- North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky -- representing a population of approximately 11 million people. Duke Energy’s commercial power and international business segments operate diverse power generation assets in North America and Latin America, including a growing portfolio of renewable energy assets in the United States.
Headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., Duke Energy is a Fortune 500 company traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol DUK. More information about the company is available on the Internet at: www.duke-energy.com. More information on Duke Energy’s smart grid is available at: http://smartenergynewsroom.com
About Convergys
Convergys Corporation (NYSE: CVG) is a global leader in relationship management. We provide solutions that drive more value from the relationships our clients have with their customers and employees. Convergys turns these everyday interactions into a source of profit and strategic advantage for our clients.
For more than 30 years, our unique combination of domain expertise, operational excellence, and innovative technologies has delivered process improvement and actionable business insight to clients that now span more than 70 countries and 35 languages.
Convergys is a member of the S&P 500 and has been voted a Fortune Most Admired Company for nine consecutive years. We have approximately 70,000 employees in 83 customer contact centers and other facilities in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and our global headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. For more information, visit www.convergys.com.
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