Power, Water Expects Cost Savings of $1 M Per Year With Oracle E-Business Suite

Oracle Corp. Australia (Oracle Australia) Pty Limited, a subsidiary of Oracle, an enterprise software company, announced that the Northern Territory's Power and Water Authority, "Power and Water" has implemented Oracle Financials to expedite its move to commercialization. The organization expects to save up to $1 million per year as a direct result.

With assets in excess of $1.2 billion and 680 employees, the Power and Water Authority is the Northern Territory's largest trading enterprise. On July 1, 2002, the Power and Water Authority will become a commercial entity, wholly owned by the Northern Territory Government.

Power and Water was using an off-the-shelf mainframe accounting software package that is used by all government agencies in the Northern Territory. While this solution works effectively for government organizations, it didn't allow Power and Water to easily integrate with the other applications it required to manage a commercial business of high magnitude. Power and Water's Board of Directors recognized the need for a new approach to managing its financial information, and issued a tender for an integrated solution.

According to Andrew Macrides, Power and Water's general manager, Business Services, Power and Water expects numerous benefits from its implementation of Oracle Financials -- the most significant being the projected cost savings. "These savings will come from the elimination of three legacy systems and their associated maintenance costs, as well as improvements in the quality and timeliness of financial data to managers and the board of directors," said Macrides. "Previously, our systems required significant manual intervention, and it was virtually impossible to deliver reports in a timely manner. With the Oracle E-Business Suite, we expect to see broad benefits across the enterprise."

Power and Water chose Oracle Financials over competing vendors such as SAP, PeopleSoft, Mincom and JD Edwards, from a tender submitted by Adelaide-based Igatech Consulting, an Oracle Certified Advantage partner. Macrides said that Oracle, along with partner Igatech, eclipsed its competitors in three key areas: its established presence in the utilities sector, its ability to integrate with a third-party work management system, and the quality of the Oracle E-Business Suite Project Costing module.

"We did extensive site visits and were pleased with the way Oracle Financials performed in the utilities sector," added Macrides. "We were also highly impressed that Oracle could demonstrate a live implementation of an integration between Oracle Financials and EMPAC, a work management system we use. Seeing the successful integration of both platforms working in a live production environment greatly influenced our decision to go with Oracle."

With offices in Darwin, Katherine, Tennant Creek Alice Springs and Yulara, Power and Water's employees and systems are geographically dispersed. The implementation of Oracle Financials will also help deliver an integrated and centralized approach to Power and Water's accounting and administration functions, helping ensure that all offices can easily and quickly access the same information from a central point.

Power and Water has also implemented the Oracle Project Costing module to simplify the management of its capital investments. Power and Water invests over $40 million per year on such investments, and a similar amount in maintaining and repairing its existing assets.

"We needed a solution that could manage all of this expenditure, while integrating seamlessly with Oracle General Ledger," explained Macrides. "As well as delivering a powerful solution, we have received strong support from both Igatech and Oracle."

"Organizations in both the public and private sectors are increasingly relying on new technologies to deliver best-practice accounting and financial management," said Roland Slee, director, Business and Technology Solutions, Oracle Australia. "The Oracle E-Business Suite provides government agencies, such as Power and Water, with the tools to drive enterprise profitability and efficiency, while building smarter businesses practices. Power and Water is a great example of how Oracle is working with the Australian public sector to streamline business processes and deliver tangible business benefits."

Source: Oracle Corp.