‘A stunningly successful project’ – Gentrack Velocity goes live at Horizon Power

By David Frost
Monday, 29 June 2009 13:26

One month ahead of schedule and delivered on-budget, Gentrack Velocity, a leading utility billing and customer information solution, is now live in production at Serviceworks - an outsourced service provider for Horizon Power.

Mr Hayes said: “We needed a solution that enabled Horizon to deliver increasingly responsive services to our diverse customer base. And our goal has been to ensure that our service provision to these customers can be professionally engaged and remains agile. I am thrilled with the go live of our new customer information and billing system and more importantly the commencement of two very key relationships with Gentrack and Serviceworks.”

Horizon Power was established in 2006 with the disaggregation of Western Power Corporation into four separate entities. Becoming an integrated utility, Horizon Power outsourced many of its services to Western Power and Synergy as it continued its generation, procurement, distribution and retail electricity business in Western Australia (WA). This resulted in Horizon Power reaching an agreement with Synergy to pursue its own customer information and billing system and service providers to address its broader needs as a vertically integrated energy company.

An assessment of the market resulted in the subsequent selection and announcement of Gentrack as the solution provider of choice, with its flagship product Gentrack Velocity the software platform to be implemented to manage billing, customer signup, customer care, credit and collections and market messaging for Horizon Power.

The addition of Horizon Power to the Gentrack family further strengthens Gentrack’s position in Australia, in particular the West Australian energy market where Perth Energy and Alinta also use its billing and customer management solutions. Gentrack now has over a dozen utility sites throughout Australia and growth in other energy and water markets abroad continues strongly.

“These projects are never easy,” said Mr Hayes. “We threw a number of curve balls at the team who responded every time. The work put in by the Gentrack team to give us the system that will support our business for years to come has been fantastic.”

The Gentrack Velocity deployment otherwise known as ‘Project Sunrise’, required Gentrack to work alongside Horizon and its Melbourne-based service provider Serviceworks, as well as other market participants in WA including Western Power and Synergy. A close consultative relationship with these organisations resulted in the successful migration of the required legacy data to Horizon Power’s new Gentrack Velocity system.

Gentrack CEO James Docking is delighted with the outcome of the project. “The Gentrack team rose to the occasion and worked extremely well with the Horizon and Serviceworks teams,” he said. “Expectations were high and once again the Gentrack team has delivered a billing and customer information solution that will enable Horizon to work smarter and to achieve its business objectives. We look forward to a long and productive relationship with both Horizon and Serviceworks, and providing the level of support required to get the most out of Gentrack Velocity.”

About Gentrack Ltd
Gentrack is a leading developer of specialist billing, customer management and collections solutions for energy and water utility companies. Privately owned by Landis + Gyr, one of the world’s largest metering companies with over $3 billion in annual revenues, and ANZ Bank, Gentrack takes accountability for all aspects of software delivery including development, implementation and support its flagship products.

Gentrack’s flagship products are delivering exceptional value to over 100 utility customers worldwide, backed by technical and business expertise in New Zealand, Australia, UK, USA and Europe.

Check out www.gentrack.com for more about Gentrack.