Egni (Wales) Ltd is a utility supply and management company with customers across the UK. We have worked with them since 2000 to develop a utility billing and customer management system.
Initially, the set of requirements was fairly straightforward and the number of customers were limited. However, once a system was developed to support the basic needs of the company, Egni was able to grow rapidly. Having a custom developed 
solution meant that the software application was able to grow along with them, to support new initiatives, more complex requirements and a fast growing customer base.
The result is a utility billing and customer management software application with sophisticated capabilities. It has enabled Egni to develop rapidly and launch services that place it in a very competitive position. The billing aspects of the application are flexible, accurate and scalable and independent reviews have identified it as one of the most capable utility billing platforms available in the UK.
Our Involvement
When we first started to work with Egni, they had been operating for a while without the benefit of a software application developed specifically to their needs. They were dependent upon their main supplier to produce bills for their customers and were using off the shelf accounting packages for invoicing and payment collection.
As a result, their business processes were chaotic, overly dependent upon the performance of third parties, labour-intensive and prone to error. We initially went through a highly reactive phase to implement critical improvements, clean up historical records and stabilise the billing and payment collection processes that were highly erratic.
Once a basic solution was in place and core business processes were stabilised and automated, we enhanced the application to extend the abilities of Egni to work with multiple suppliers, improve customer management, support supply types other than electricity (water & gas) and provide CCL and carbon management support.
Egni also established a network of regional offices to support their customers across the UK and we have designed and implemented the communications infrastructure to support these offices, provided the IT management services and improved the application to operate in a distributed manner.
The initial scope of work has been completed and Egni is able to grow rapidly into new markets and is able to win large billing management contracts as a direct consequence of the sophistication, capabilities and accuracy of their billing platform.
We are now working with Egni on the next phase of development for the application. This will involve the redevelopment of the system onto a web based architecture and several substantial improvements that will support Egni in entering new markets, improving the level and scope of services for customers and improve business process efficiency and thereby enhance the scalability of the Egni operation.
System Capabilities
The core customer management and utility billing capabilities have been implemented and development continues to improve the breadth of functionality in the system. At present, key functional areas include:
- Infrastructure for web applications
- Customer Management
- Meter Management
- Tariff & Charge Management
- Statement Production
- Invoicing & Unified Billing
- Payment Collection
- Financial Management
- Supplier Management
- Carbon Analysis & Trading
- Document & Case Management
Conclusion
Throughout our relationship with Egni we have maintained our focus upon quality, value and understanding their business. As a result, we have been able to deliver a solution that we are proud of and that has resulted in substantial benefits to Egni.
We continue to work closely with Egni as we develop the application further and as they continue to enter new markets and launch new services.