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Cinergy

Energy Leader Cinergy Corp. Uses Microsoft Technology to Bring a Next-Generation “Digital Utility” to Its Customers

Published: December 2001

Cinergy, one of the largest diversified energy companies in the United States, used Microsoft® technology to create a Web portal that allows customers to go online to update their contact information, request new services, and complete other interactions with the company. The customers benefit from being able to interact with Cinergy around the clock. Cinergy benefits because the self-service Web site provides savings over customers using a call center. Cinergy’s development partner, Atos Origin, was able to use Microsoft technology to create a solution that integrated with legacy systems -- while completing the project on time and on budget.

Situation

Cinergy ( CEO James Rogers kicked off the new millennium by challenging the energy company's employees to create a new e-economy business model to harness the explosion of new technology and integrate the Internet into its business strategy. Rogers has a vision of a Web-enabled 7x24 “digital utility” giving customers seamless interactions with the services they need to work with.

A first step toward creating the digital utility was to create a portal that would allow users to bypass existing call centers and go to the Web any hour of the day to update contact information, request service changes, or even submit their own electrical consumption meter readings. The challenge was how to provide users access to account information stored on legacy systems in an easy to use – and secure – process. Cinergy estimates savings of $5 for each customer that uses the Web portal rather than the company’s call center. With a goal of gaining 400,000 customer contacts per year via the Web, Cinergy looks toward annual savings of $2 million.

Solution

Cinergy worked with technology partner Atos Origin and Microsoft Consulting Services to create a solution based on Microsoft technology integrated with existing middleware and legacy systems.

A customer enters the system via a browser and interacts with the Web site which is hosted on a Web farm of dual-processor Compaq servers running Microsoft Windows® 2000 Advanced Server with Microsoft Internet Information Services 5.0. Microsoft Application Server is used for deployment and management, and Microsoft Site Server is used for authentication. The Atos Origin team used Microsoft Visual Studio® 6.0 to create the ASP pages for the Web site and the COM+ components that interact with MITEM Corporation’s MitemView legacy integration software and third-party middle-tier business logic. Microsoft Message Queueing is used between the COM+ components and MitemView to support synchronous and asynchronous calls, and to guarantee delivery of messages. Microsoft SQL Server™ 2000 is used for caching customer information and SQL Server Data Transformation Services is used to synchronize customer account information from disparate database systems.

Benefits

On Time and On Budget

“We’re on time and on budget, and we’ve met the scope and quality that our stakeholders have laid out for us,” said Cinergy Project Manager of eBusiness Applications Development, Rod Tipton. Roger Carribine of Atos Origin credits Microsoft technology with helping to keep the schedule and budget on track. “Within the software development industry, most projects run over time and over budget,” Carribine said. “We don’t have that issue, and it’s at least in part because we’ve been using Visual Basic® in-house for a number of years now. With the integrated development environment of Visual Studio, we’ve found we are able to get complex applications working and out the door much quicker than using other solutions. Elements of the application developed using other technologies, even though they aren’t substantial, have taken almost as long to develop as the rest of the application. Using Visual Studio means a faster time to market.”

Empowering Customers

“With this Web-based solution we are creating a new channel to support customer service interactions that we didn’t have before,” Tipton said. “We continually run into younger customers who don’t pay bills by mail, and don’t visit customer service offices. They often work with debit and credit cards, and they manage their personal finances over the Internet. We are empowering those customers to do business with us. We’re opening portals to give them the ability to schedule their personal business with us, and to make changes in their accounts. This lets them pay bills and make account changes, but it also lets them schedule service on site, for service activation and shut off, or for outage related issues.”

In Praise of Microsoft Consulting Services

In addition to benefiting from Microsoft technology, Tipton spoke of an important human element – Microsoft Consulting Services.

“As far as the human side goes, I’ll sing the praises of Microsoft Consulting Services,” Tipton said. “They have worked closely with our excellent Atos Origin project team to help identify potential problems, and find the necessary solutions. MCS was able to understand our business needs while helping to mitigate potential risks associated with new technologies. They integrated perfectly with the team and contributed to the success of the project. The MCS resources have helped us complete this project on time.”

For More Information

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