Severn Trent Water STW Launches Transformation Program With IBM

January 27, 2010

Severn Trent Water (STW) which provides services to 8.5 million people across the midlands and mid Wales in the UK, has gone live with phase one of a business transformation program aimed at delivering major cost savings by increasing the efficiency of operational processes. The program has been designed to help STW continue its drive for ever-higher standards by improving the speed of decision making, regulatory reporting and service to its customers.

The transformation program analyzed STW's existing business processes, data models and procedures to create a set of streamlined back and front office processes across finance, procurement, HR and the water and waste businesses.

The new processes have been implemented using SAP enterprise systems which allow each employee to use centralized procedures which they self manage and monitor from their individual work station. STW now has greater visibility of how each business unit is operating, helping to enable it to understand how greater workforce productivity and operational process efficiencies are being generated across the business. This is central to STW's overall vision of being one of the best water utility providers in the UK and achieving its goal of being the most efficient provider of water and waste services in the industry.

"The successful launch of the program is the latest milestone in Severn Trent Water's transformation journey and follows us being chosen as the 'Utility Company of the Year 2009' in the Utility Industry Achievement Awards," said Tony Wray, Chief Executive of Severn Trent Water. "The program is probably the biggest change initiative we have undergone in our recent history and has introduced greater intelligence and control into our processes. We are delighted with the results and believe our partnership with IBM has been central to this success."

Working alongside the STW business, IBM used its Component Business Modelling (CBM) technique tailored to the UK water industry to break down the STW business and analyze the processes and technology being used in different areas. This helped enable STW and IBM to identify areas of improvement, standardize and streamline operational processes and establish self-service techniques and tools for STW employees and managers across the organization. In keeping with the world becoming more interconnected and intelligent, the new program is designed to allow STW to collaborate more closely with its mobile field staff and business partners through supplier portals and self-service procedures.

With a centralized single source of information now in place and real time data available to managers for decision-making, STW is now poised to roll out a workforce scheduling and mobility solution in phase two of the program. This is designed to further enhance STW's operational effectiveness and provide improved customer service.

"This program is a joint success. Severn Trent and IBM worked very effectively together. We were highly focused in our drive towards the end date to deliver a high quality solution and start reaping the business benefits," said Myron Hrycyk, Severn Trent Water CIO and Program Sponsor.

"Improved customer service and cost reduction are major priorities for utilities today and IBM is dedicated to developing smarter ways to make operations more efficient and cost-effective, said John Granger, General Manager, IBM Global Business Services, North East Europe. "This success at STW is significant as it builds on our top most priority - that of delivering on our promises to our clients and unlocking significant business value through timely delivery of business transformation programs."

IBM will continue to work with STW on the second stage of the program which is due to launch in late 2010.