Ventyx™, the world's largest private software provider to the utility industry, has announced that the Cobb County Water System (CCWS) in Georgia has successfully implemented the latest version of its Customer Suite customer information system (CIS)/billing solution in order to deliver superior service to its rapidly expanding customer base while maintaining its industry-leading record of fiscal performance.

Since the 1960s, the Atlanta metropolitan region, which includes Cobb County, has been among the fastest growing areas in the country. Challenged with meeting the demands of a growing service area of more than 670,000 residents, CCWS needed to upgrade its customer management capabilities while avoiding a lengthy and costly implementation process. CCWS accomplished these goals by upgrading from release 3.1 of Customer Suite to Customer Suite 4.0.

"We originally selected the Ventyx CIS solution in 2004 as we were transitioning from our mainframe-based system to a more advanced and flexible customer management suite," said Ed Biggs, Cobb County IT Project Sponsor. "As our customer base continued to grow in numbers and complexity, we realized the need to upgrade our system once again. The previous Ventyx implementation was a success, and we had kept our maintenance contract up-to-date." Cobb County decided to take advantage of a simple and cost-effective upgrade of Customer Suite, knowing they could also easily leverage future releases of the solution as their needs continued to grow.

Cobb County utilized a small, but experienced and focused project team to implement the solution, partnering with Professional Services personnel from Ventyx. After a rapid implementation of only 7.5 short months, CCWS went live on the new release of Customer Suite. The system is fully operational and is being used by a wide cross section of CCWS staff, and it continues to perform up to the county's demanding requirements.

"We have reported good customer service statistics and overall satisfaction with the upgraded version of Customer Suite since going live, despite experiencing high transaction volumes on the first business day caused by being closed on Monday, January 21, for the MLK Holiday," said Biggs. "The customer service area processed approximately 800 calls on the first day. The nightly batch cycle has been running successfully each night since Sunday, January 20, and has been producing approximately 10,500 bills nightly."

In addition to the rapid implementation, the new version of the Ventyx CIS delivers functionality critical to customer satisfaction such as service orders, delinquency, accounts receivables, bad debt, budget billing, refunds and notes. As a result, its users will have more flexible collection strategies to enhance revenue management, an easier-to-use graphical interface for complex billing to improve business-to-business customer management processes and payment arrangement capabilities which support payment installments to increase customer satisfaction.

"We at Ventyx are extremely proud that industry-leading utilities like the Cobb County Water System and Atmos Energy have chosen our Customer Suite solution to enhance their fiscal performance and customer service," said Ventyx President and CEO Vince Burkett. "Furthermore, they have proven that our solution offers the robust tailorable functionality and flexibility to be implemented rapidly and cost-effectively without the need for complex configuration?even for the largest and most complex utilities."

About Cobb County Water System
Cobb County Water System provides water, sewer and stormwater management services to more than 680,000 people in households and businesses across a 348-square-mile service area. Cobb County Water System is an award-winning, self-funded utility that holds the highest bond ratings of any water-sewer system in the nation, as ranked by Wall Street's leading bond companies. Annually, the Water System delivers 24 billion gallons of water through 2,900 miles of water lines to more than 495,000 people in the unincorporated portions of Cobb County and the cities of Acworth and Kennesaw. For more information, visit the Website at http://water.cobbcountyga.gov/.

About Ventyx
Ventyx is a leading business solutions provider, delivering asset management, mobile workforce management, customer care, energy trading and risk management, energy operations, and energy analytics solutions to more than 900 energy, utility and communications customers, as well as to asset-intensive customers in selected commercial markets. With approximately 1,200 employees in more than 20 locations worldwide, Ventyx delivers best-of-breed business solutions that maximize operational and financial performance, backed by the industry's deepest available industry-specific domain expertise. For more information, visit our Website at www.ventyx.com.

Tue Mar 11 15:22:00 CDT 2008