December 11, 2006-Centrica PLC, an international supplier of essential services best known in the U.K. for consumer brand British Gas, has rebuilt its existing corporate wide intranet on a new Microsoft platform, as well as refreshed the usability of the entire site based on an efficient software environment, supported by Microsoft SharePoint 2003 Centrica's previous platform was built on a mix of Plumtree, Oracle, Interwoven, BEA and Webtrends technologies.
Centrica has proven that the new SharePoint platform is less costly to support, the yearly license costs for software are down by £11,000 per annum and 25 servers will be made available for re-use in other parts of the business. In addition, password resets which previously accounted for 70% of calls to the helpdesk are no longer needed, and disaster recovery time has been reduced to minutes rather than the previous 18 hours. In total all these benefits have created more than £2.5m of net profit expected to be achieved over the next five years.
The intranet supports 32,000 employees and more than 20 sites operating across the UK, North America and Europe. On the initial day of launch the intranet saw 17,500 unique visitors from various sectors including human resources, power station workers; field force local offices, call centres and finance, and supported 50-100% more users then on the previous platform. The intranet also provides call centre staff with information required to process incoming calls.
Hetti Barkworth-Nanton, Global e-Working Director, Centrica PLC, commented on the recent changes to the intranet, "Having been involved with the first intranet Centrica created almost five years ago, I have witnessed its substantial growth over the years. Hand in hand with that growth comes massive complexity which impacts the usefulness to Centrica's employees and cuts down their ability to collaborate and work productively."
Kirk Downey, CTO, Centrica PLC, commented, "Companies are looking for things that have immediate, measurable results and we are no different. We've invested in a fantastic system where we have gained good, hard benefits from integrating with Microsoft, such as reduced technology and maintenance costs and increased usability and customer benefit. An intranet that is used by a large number of people and spans various regions needs a managed business approach and having models in place like SharePoint allows for balanced governance of that system. The end result is better resources for employees, improved service for customers and a reduction in costs. "
Alastair Bain, Chief Architect, Centrica PLC, commented "The Sharepoint platform we have delivered is the foundation for delivery of services to our employees and partners. Over time we will expand this to provide access to more facilities and information to enhance our employee and customer service."
By leveraging their relationship with Microsoft, Centrica was able to reduce technology costs and maintenance offering an efficient platform to deliver applications on. With stronger search capabilities Centrica's call centre agents can now find information quicker for customers, thereby effectively delivering results while reducing costs. This means customers seeking help are no longer trapped on lengthy calls as call centre staff can access the required information far more quickly.
Simon Kelly, Head of service industries, Microsoft UK, commented, "Microsoft has very strong experience working with leading utility companies and we are continuously deepening our understanding and knowledge of the issues and priorities that drive the sector. At Microsoft we strive to deliver multiple benefits to our customers such as reducing utilities cost to serve at the same time as delivering a better customer service. In the case of Centrica, we've not only helped them deliver cost benefits but also provide its employees with some of the tools to better achieve business success."
