"We want to offer new programs and services to our customers," said Becky Garland, Group Manager, Service Management and Accounting for Hillsborough County Water Resource Services. "The new system will give us the flexibility to respond to customers' changing needs."

"Our customer base has nearly doubled since 1998," Garland says. "The Oracle Utilities system can easily handle that. It will also provide fast and comprehensive customer information to our call centers, where customer service representatives need to respond to a call volume that has increased more than 20 percent as of last year."

Product functionality and flexibility were not the only reasons Water Resource Services chose Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing. "We are in the process of implementing Oracle Utilities Work and Asset Management," Garland said. "And, we are pleased with how the Oracle Utilities team is implementing the project."

Hillsborough County Water Resource Services has a unique opportunity to leverage two of its business-critical systems -- work and asset management and customer care and billing. The addition of customer care and billing will help create the business synergy and operational efficiencies that are essential to managing six percent growth and achieving its goal of "Best County" status. Some of the key points highlighted to the Board of County Commissioners were Oracle's ability to deliver:

* Product Compatibility -- Built-in technological compatibility between multiple software systems from a single software developer, helps ensure the fullest use achievable of these two critical business systems and avoids reliance on third-party interfaces.
* Seamless Upgrades -- A uniform software-upgrade path eliminates conflicts that routinely occur when independently developed software systems are updated and expenses result from re-establishing the interface between those systems.
* Cost Avoidance -- Because the integration between Workforce and Asset Management and Customer Care and Billing and its maintenance are minimized, Water Resource Services is avoiding the expense for developing an interface between the asset and customer care systems.
* Business Intelligence -- Daily extracts of data from both Workforce and Asset Management and Customer Care and Billing will allow Water Resource Services an integrated view of all field-related and customer-related information they need to manage.

"We could not be more pleased to have Hillsborough County Water Resource Services join the growing list of our customers with multiple Oracle applications," said Guerry Waters, Vice President of Industry Strategy and Marketing, Oracle Utilities Global Business Unit. "By using a Services Oriented Architecture to join customer and asset information, Water Resource Services and Oracle Utilities solutions can provide a solid technology foundation that can support flexiblility for the many issues that will confront water utilities and their customers in the future."

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