Industry:
Government

Annual Revenue:
$1M-$100M

Employees:
2000-4999

BD Consultores S.A. San Jose, Costa Rica www.bdconsultores.com At this time BD CONSULTORES® is the business leader in Central America in the sale and implementation of CRM solutions and in strategic consulting in regards to vanguard technologies, achieving a high degree of customer satisfaction.

"Oracle's customer relationship management system changed the way we do business--from the time a problem is reported, to the quality of information entered into our system, to our ability to respond and dispatch resources. We've seen dramatic improvement in our ability to serve our customers." -- Edwin Matarrita, Coordinator, Technological Management Center of Aqueducts and Sewer Systems, Region Metropolitana del Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (Costa Rican Aqueduct and Sewer System Institute)

One of Costa Rica's most essential public companies, Costa Rican Aqueduct and Sewer System Institute (Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados), or AyA, provides the country's drinking water system and manages the sewer system. More than 60% of the population relies on AyA for clean drinking water and hygienic sewage treatment.

Prior to 2001, however, AyA didn't have an information management system up to the job. For starters, the system did not allow for comprehensive control over AyA's various tiered networks, whose responsibilities include financial management, customer payments, system repair, and service issues. Its system repair and service network was overwhelmed trying to route and handle more than 18,500 telephone calls per month regarding service requests. "We needed to have a better way to control our operations, a way to enhance the service we provide our customers. We also needed to expedite the repair any problems in our aqueducts," said Edwin Matarrita, coordinator of the Technological Management Center of Aqueducts and Sewer Systems, Region Metropolitana del Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados.

Cutting Repair Time in Half

All that has changed in the wake of AyA's investment in a customer relationship management solution (CRM) solution from Oracle. With Oracle, AyA has the necessary infrastructure and information system to cut repair times in half. The gains have led to a corresponding reduction in water waste and helped the agency control repair costs. In the past, for example, a damaged pipe could take up to nine days to fix. Now AyA has reduced the average time to three days.

Documenting repairs had also been problematic under the old system. Now Oracle manages the entire documentation process, from the beginning of the repair to its resolution. As a result, AyA can follow the history of every service provided, including all the people and crew who worked on the project from the person who processed the order to the worker who finished the repair. To track and document repairs, AyA constructed a platform called "sistema de gestión de averías" (repair management system), or SGA. The system tracks all the problems within AyA's network--from an inlet treatment plant, pumping station, or tank to its various networks. The system relies heavily on Oracle Field Service, which contains all the information needed to resolve the service request. Because the system identifies and pinpoints problems, more of AyA's employees can tackle repair processes. This has had the dual benefit of making employees more well rounded and efficient in their jobs and making the company more efficient overall.

Customer Participation

Before deploying Oracle solutions, AyA had an obsolete technology system that only integrated part of the aqueduct and couldn't report what happened in pumping stations or drinking water plants. "That's why we had separate reports and information needed to be unified manually. It took a long time for the engineer in charge to perform his monthly management report," Matarrita said.

The slow reporting time was not consistent with the type of customer service AyA set out to achieve. For example, when a customer called to report a water leak, only employees could route the claims. Furthermore, once the damage was reported, the system provided no additional information about the repair status if a customer asked for it. Now AyA gathers the information provided by external customers and can report on the situation of each repair process by phone.

The Oracle CRM solution has helped AyA speed the repairs in the aqueduct, and opened another avenue of communication with customers. Using Oracle TeleService, AyA set up a toll-free number so the public can report problems within the aqueduct system. Employees then enter information about the problem within the SGA system, where the problem can be better assessed and resources deployed to begin the repair process.

Cost and Water Savings

Through work order processing, the engineers responsible for each geographical zone determine the importance of each failure and set up the repair order by priority, location, aging, and the resources or machinery required for the repair. Oracle allows AyA to organize and document the entire repair process, from the origin of the problem to the time of resolution. With access to historical service records, as well as data on all the people and steps deployed to fix the problem, AyA can rapidly create accurate reports.

Having up-to-the-minute information on all repairs promotes better cost control, and can help AyA shift the cost to third parties if those parties caused the problem. It also lets AyA better assess performance and productivity of repair teams.

The Oracle CRM system also has helped AyA refine its procedures for staff involved in failure repairs--avoiding duplication of roles and effort--thereby addressing problems more quickly and efficiently.

As a state-owned institution, AyA must report to the regulatory entities of the industry. Thanks to Oracle, the control, handling, and expenses connected to materials used by the staff are now performed automatically, enhancing the internal audit process.

Why Oracle?

Selecting Oracle as a technological partner for AyA was a natural choice. Oracle met all of AyA's requirements concerning deployment, service, and support, and Oracle's overall functionality, ease of use, and lower cost were also key selling points.

Implementation Process

AyA chose Oracle Certified Partner BD Consultores in Costa Rica to bring its new system live. Initially, the deployment was confined to AyA's metropolitan region, which has the highest number of users. Eventually AyA plans to deploy the system in its other regions in the coming months.

Instituto Costarricense de Acueductos y Alcantarillados (Costa Rican Aqueduct and Sewer System Institute) manages the country's drinking water and sewer system. The company's aqueduct and sewer system is divided into six regions; the largest is made up of approximately 2,000 kilometers of potable water and 44 kilometers of sewers.