Shannon Paulsen-Thompson Joins Red Clay as Vice President of Advisory Services

ATLANTA, GA – February 3, 2023 – Red Clay Consulting, a leading Oracle solutions implementer and Gold Level Member of the Oracle Partner Network, is proud to welcome Shannon Paulsen-Thompson as Vice President of Advisory Services. With over 20 years of experience in utility transformations, Shannon brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to Red Clay’s advisory offerings.

Shannon is recognized as a senior leader in the utility industry and has a proven track record of leading complex transformational projects to successful execution. Prior to joining Red Clay, she spent five years as a Program Director at Madison Gas and Electric, where she was responsible for executing the company’s five-year transformation roadmap. Shannon also held various high-level management positions at Kansas City Power and Light (Evergy).

At Red Clay, Shannon will bring her valuable utility leadership perspective to help clients extract the most from their existing technology investments and future-proof their organizations. With her experience in both business and IT leadership roles, Shannon will provide valuable guidance to Red Clay’s clients as they plan their business and IT roadmaps.

“We are thrilled to have Shannon join our team as Vice President of Advisory Services,” said Leeanna Gonzalez, Red Clay’s Managing Director. “Her expertise in leading complex transformational projects, combined with her strategic thinking, bold vision, and deep understanding of utility business processes and business drivers will be invaluable to our clients.”

Shannon holds a master’s degree in project management from the Keller Graduate School of Management and a Bachelor of Science degree in Geographic Information Systems and Economic Development from Northwest Missouri State University. Red Clay is confident that Shannon’s experience, knowledge, and leadership skills will make a significant impact on the company and its clients.

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About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers, and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients with innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com.

Media Contact
Saurabh Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
Saurabh.Parashar@redclay.com

 

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Pasadena Water and Power and Red Clay Improve Productivity and Customer Satisfaction with Oracle Field Service

Providing total visibility for the business, field, and customer.

ATLANTA, GA – August 31, 2022 – Red Clay Consulting, a Gold Level Member of the Oracle Partner Network, and a top tier Oracle solutions implementer, today announces Pasadena Water and Power’s successful go-live of Oracle Field Service (OFS) as part of their Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter (C2M) system hosted on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Oracle Field Service is a modern, fully featured, customer-centric field services solution that provides total visibility for the business, field, and customer.

Pasadena Water and Power (PWP) is a municipally owned utility providing electricity, water, sewer, refuse, and utility related account billing for customers within Pasadena and adjacent communities. In addition to local accountability, PWP is subject to requirements established by numerous state and federal regulatory bodies.

In 2020 PWP partnered with Red Clay Consulting to implement Oracle Field Service, a cloud-based field service management solution, Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter (C2M) and Oracle Field Service (OFS) with bill printing, bill payment, and a customer portal.

Oracle Field Service is part of Oracle Customer Experience (CX) which offers a connected suite of applications that goes beyond traditional CRM. The PWP go-live marks another successful CX and C2M utility implementation. Red Clay leveraged Oracle Utilities Cloud solutions to automate and support critical meter-to-cash business processes.

OFS is a customer-centric mobile application that connects a utility’s back and front office with the mobile workforce, offering total visibility for the business, field, and the customer. Collaborative tools, sharing, and alerts keep everyone in the know at every step. OFS leverages AI and IoT to proactively manage field service assets and schedule service calls.

“Oracle Field Service will fundamentally change the field service experience for PWP’s staff and customers alike,” said Paul Marnell, CEO of Red Clay Consulting. “OFS’s artificial intelligence and machine learning will help PWP optimize schedules and connect in real-time with customers.”

OFS is helping PWP understand at a glance what is happening in the field at any time. It enables PWP’s field workers to instantly communicate and collaborate, connecting them seamlessly to assets and back-office logistics.

 

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About Pasadena Water and Power

As a community-owned utility, Pasadena Water and Power is a not-for-profit public service owned and operated by the City of Pasadena for the benefit of its customers and the community. Their priorities are reliability, responsiveness to customers, reasonable rates, and environmental stewardship. Pasadena Water and Power provides electricity to more than 65,000 customers within Pasadena and delivers water to almost 38,000 households and businesses in Pasadena and adjacent communities in the San Gabriel Valley.

About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers, and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

Media Contact
Saurabh Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
publicrelations@redclay.com

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Red Clay Consulting Selected as SI for World’s First Implementation of Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Cloud Service

Modernizing customer and billing support.

ATLANTA, GA – August 24, 2022 – Red Clay Consulting, a Gold Level Member of the Oracle Partner Network and a solutions implementer that helps utilities modernize through technology solutions, today announces its selection as the Solutions Implementer for the first ever implementation of Oracle Utilities Customer Care and Billing Cloud Service (CCBCS) at the Region of Peel.

The Region of Peel (the Region) is a municipality in the Greater Toronto Area. It consists of three municipalities to the west and northwest of the city of Toronto: the cities of Mississauga and Brampton, and the town of Caledon. The Region provides safe, high-quality drinking water to over 500,000 utility customers throughout Peel every day.

The Region has been using a self-hosted version of Oracle Utilities Customer Care & Billing (CC&B) since 2015 to manage customer information for billing and meter information and reads. With its current version (CC&B v2.4) having reached its end-of-life support, the Region selected CCBCS, a cloud instance of CC&B, as their future-state CIS to ensure business continuity, modernize, integrate, and enhance business functionality.

The Region chose Red Clay as their Oracle CCBCS Solution Integrator after a competitive solicitation process. Among all proposers, the Region scored Red Clay the highest across its criteria of bidder experience, team members’ qualifications, proposed implementation plan, ability to meet the solution requirements, and proposed price.

“We are excited to work with the Region of Peel as they begin this upgrade to a modernized cloud version of CC&B,” said Paul Marnell, Red Clay Consulting CEO. “This CCBCS implementation will support their vision to create a Community for Life by sustaining their current functions and future needs.”

The Region’s Oracle CCBCS implementation will be integrated with their current implementation of IBM’s Maximo Asset Management and Neptune metering solutions.

This project is scheduled to begin in September 2022 and go live in the fourth quarter of 2023.

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About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

 

Media Contact
Saurabh Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
Saurabh.Parashar@redclay.com

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Pasadena Water and Power and Red Clay Consulting Build a Smart Utility with Oracle’s Secure Cloud

Driving technology toward a digitally engaged customer.

ATLANTA, GA – August 4, 2022 – Red Clay Consulting, a Gold Level Member of the Oracle Partner Network and a top-tier Oracle solutions implementer, today announces Pasadena Water and Power’s successful go-live of their Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter (C2M) system hosted on Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. Oracle C2M hosted on Oracle’s secure cloud connects data and devices across customer-facing operations to deliver services that meet the evolving expectations of digitally minded customers.

Pasadena Water and Power (PWP) is a municipally owned utility providing electricity, water, sewer, refuse, and utility-related account billing for customers within Pasadena and adjacent communities. In addition to local accountability, PWP is subject to requirements established by numerous state and federal regulatory bodies.

In 2019 PWP was operating on a legacy Customer Information System (CIS) that was no longer equipped to support its connected customers and their devices. To engage with the modern utility customer PWP sought to strategically lay a modern meter-to-cash technology foundation – rooted in a legacy CIS replacement and AMI rollout.

PWP’s vision for their CIS replacement included:

  • Improve system agility and access to provide greater financial control, security, and auditing
  • Support the needs of today’s engaged customer with real-time actionable consumption and account data
  • Support business initiatives

To achieve this vision, in 2020 PWP partnered with Red Clay Consulting to implement Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter (C2M) and Oracle Field Service in the Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, integrated with bill printing, bill payment, and a customer portal. The team led by Red Clay included InfoSend – the bill print vendor, Paymentus – the bill payment vendor, and Accelerated Innovations.

This implementation marked the first installation of PortalOne, Red Clay’s and Accelerated Innovations’ fully integrated, pre-built customer experience solution to enable the seamless flow of utility data. PortalOne is a SaaS software platform that delivers digital customer engagement functionality.

“We’re proud to have been PWP’s partner on this journey,” said Paul Marnell, CEO of Red Clay Consulting. “This Oracle cloud deployment will help PWP continue to provide their customers the service they expect in this modern, digital world.”

The integrated Oracle C2M system implemented by Red Clay is already paying dividends. It has enabled PWP to improve the customer experience, provide customers with real-time usage information, reduce power outages and restoration time, and support real-time customer billing.

 

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About Pasadena Water and Power

As a community-owned utility, Pasadena Water and Power is a not-for-profit public service owned and operated by the City of Pasadena for the benefit of its customers and the community. Their priorities are reliability, responsiveness to customers, reasonable rates, and environmental stewardship. Pasadena Water and Power provides electricity to more than 65,000 customers within Pasadena and delivers water to almost 38,000 households and businesses in Pasadena and adjacent communities in the San Gabriel Valley.

About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry, Red Clay advises, delivers, and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

Media Contact
Saurabh Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
publicrelations@redclay.com

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Red Clay Consulting Recognized For Delivering Customer Success with Oracle Cloud

Red Clay Consulting Achieves Service Expertise in Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service in North America

ATLANTA, GA – July 13, 2022 – Red Clay Consulting, a member of Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN), today announced that it has achieved Service Expertise in Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service. To achieve this certification, Red Clay staff had to obtain multiple individual credentials across a range of disciplines and demonstrate company-wide excellence with a successful CCS implementation.

Expertise is a core tenet of the modernized Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) program and allows Oracle partners to highlight their capabilities in a focused area. Ultimately, Expertise is designed to make it easy for customers to identify partners that can deliver quality results and minimize risk for their specific needs as they adopt Oracle Cloud.

In order to achieve a Service Expertise, partners like Red Clay must meet a series of qualifiers that demonstrate their experience and success in implementing, deploying and/or managing a specific Oracle Cloud product/service area within a defined geographic region. Requirements may include having certified individuals across diverse roles and demonstrating successful go-lives within the same region. Learn more about Expertise, including viewing the complete Expertise Catalog, at www.oracle.com/partnernetwork/expertise.

This achievement marks another milestone for Red Clay and continues its history of being “one of the first” in the Oracle community including achievements in Oracle Smart Grid Gateway certification, and implementations of Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter and Oracle Utlities Customer Cloud Service.

“We are proud of our delivery professionals who have completed Oracle Utilities’ rigorous training and for successfully implementing Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service,” said Paul Marnell, CEO of Red Clay Consulting. “Our team members are committed to the success of our clients and are energized by working on projects that leverage the latest technologies to move our clients forward.”

Red Clay adds the Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service Expertise to a long list of accolades, including Oracle Utilities User Group’s “Project of the Year” in 2020 and “Partner of the Year” in 2019. This Expertise achievement further solidifies Red Clay’s position as a valued technology partner to the utility industry – with the expertise to implement Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service, a system that includes a market-leading Oracle Energy and Water Customer Care and Billing and Meter Data Management.

“Oracle PartnerNetwork’s Expertise is a gold standard for recognizing partners with exemplary skills and a successful track record, and in Red Clay this achievement is well deserved,” said Matt Gleeson, Oracle Vice President of Global Alliances. “We actively promote to our customers that engaging Oracle partners with Expertise is the right way to secure proven results. Red Clay’s accomplishment of this Expertise speaks to the dedication and excellence of the entire Red Clay team.”

About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers, and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

About Oracle PartnerNetwork

Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN) is Oracle’s partner program designed to enable partners to accelerate the transition to cloud and drive superior customer business outcomes. The OPN program allows partners to engage with Oracle through track(s) aligned to how they go to market: Cloud Build for partners that provide products or services built on or integrated with Oracle Cloud; Cloud Sell for partners that resell Oracle Cloud technology; Cloud Service for partners that implement, deploy and manage Oracle Cloud Services; and License & Hardware for partners that build, service or sell Oracle software licenses or hardware products. Customers can expedite their business objectives with OPN partners who have achieved Expertise in a product family or cloud service.  To learn more visit: http://www.oracle.com/partnernetwork

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Oracle, Java and MySQL are registered trademarks of Oracle Corporation.

 

Media Contact
Saurabh Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
publicrelations@redclay.com

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Red Clay Consulting to Provide a Large Energy Provider with Continued Oracle Utilities Billing Component Support.

Offering Operations as a Service to support day-to-day billing processes

ATLANTA, GA – June 13, 2022 – Red Clay Consulting, a Gold Level Member of the Oracle Partner Network and a top-tier Oracle solutions implementer, today announces a partnership with a large southern electric and natural gas supplier to provide Oracle Utilities Meter Solutions v1 Operations as a Service (OaaS) support for their Billing Component and Energy Information Platform to support their billing process

The Utility is a Fortune 500 integrated energy company engaged primarily in electric power production and retail distribution operations across several southern states. The Utility supports 3 million electric and over 200,000 natural gas customers in the region.

With Oracle Utilities Meter Solutions v1 reaching end of support from Oracle, the Utility found themselves in need of a partner to support the system. They selected Red Clay as a partner because of their demonstrated commitment to their customers, deep understanding of the utility business, and ability to provide ongoing support to a critical business application.

Another critical factor in their selection of Red Clay was Red Clay’s long history with Lodestar, the predecessor application to Oracle Utilities Billing Component. Red Clay has a long history of supporting Lodestar clients like EnerNOC, Exelon, Georgia System Operations, IESO, Knoxville Utilities Board, North American Energy Solutions, Praxair, San Diego Gas and Electric, and TransAlta Corporation. This history makes Red Clay uniquely qualified to support the Utility’s Oracle Utilities Meter Solutions, including Billing Component, Energy Information Platform, and Load Profile and Settlement.

Red Clay Consulting will provide application support for the Utility’s Oracle Utility Billing Cloud and Oracle Utilities Information Platform. To reduce system risk, Red Clay will provide an assessment of their rules language. Red Clay will also expand the knowledge of the Utility’s internal team through knowledge transfer. Red Clay team members will advise the Utility on what capabilities are available, best practices, and how to achieve the most benefit from their solutions.

The Utility was seeking a long-term partner who would contribute to their organizational success through a deep understanding of their systems while easily blending into their project team. They selected Red Clay to support their teams because of the valuable industry expertise Red Clay brings to the table to tackle transformations that optimize the Utility’s business processes.

Through their OaaS partnership with Red Clay, the Utility will have access to Red Clay’s system experts to ensure continuity for a mission-critical application.

Red Clay’s Operations as a Service offering complements internal IT staff, subject matter experts, business analysts, testing specialists, report writers, and other key team members. The OaaS teams include former utility employees, experienced Oracle-trained consultants, and IT professionals who provide support custom-tailored by unique client needs. The benefits of OaaS include a formalized cost structure, measured accountability through performance reporting, and the freedom for a utility’s most valuable internal resources to focus their energy elsewhere.

“Everyone at Red Clay our customers interact with is an Oracle Utilities expert,” said Jeannie Sargent, Red Clay Director of Shared Services. “There is no first level, second level, and so on. Our customers have true 24/7/365 expert support.”

 

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About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers, and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients with innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

Media Contact
Rob Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
Saurabh.parashar@redclay.com

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Red Clay Achieves Oracle “Customer Cloud Service” Partner Certification: Another Red Clay Oracle Energy and Water First

Demonstrating the ability to take Energy and Water clients to the Oracle Cloud

ATLANTA, GA – June 6, 2022 –

We are thrilled to announce that Red Clay has become the first Oracle Partner to achieve Oracle Customer Cloud Service Certification!

This achievement marks a milestone and continues our long history of “first-to-market” in the Oracle community. Red Clay was the first Oracle Partner to become Smart Grid Gateway certified, the first to implement C2M, and now the first partner to implement Customer Cloud Service (CCS).

To earn this honor, Red Clay staff obtained multiple individual credentials across a range of disciplines and demonstrated company-wide excellence with a successful CCS implementation. This certification further solidifies Red Clay’s position as a trusted technology partner to the utility industry – with the expertise to implement CCS, a system that includes a market-leading Oracle Energy and Water Customer Care and Billing and Meter Data Management.

 

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About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

Media Contact
Saurabh Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
Saurabh.Parashar@redclay.com

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Red Clay Consulting and a Large Water Utility Successfully Optimize Meter to Cash Processes

A monumental step in one water utility’s roadmap to improve customer experience and address resource scarcity

ATLANTA, GA – May 18, 2022 –

Red Clay Consulting, a Gold Level Member of the Oracle Partner Network and a top tier Oracle solutions implementer, today announces the successful go-live with a large southwestern water utility of their Oracle Utilities Customer to Meter (C2M) system. Oracle C2M brings together market-leading customer care and metering in one solution, running on one database, accessed through one screen, delivering connected operations and more valuable connections with the Utility’s customers.
The client is a large water utility facing challenges including drought, resource scarcity, and increasing customer expectations.
To address these challenges and improve customer engagement, the Utility is turning to Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI). At the heart of this initiative is a project to upgrade to an integrated Meter Data Management/Customer Information System (MDM/CIS) platform that can help the utility leverage meter data to “connect the dots” across meter-to-cash-to-customer operations. The Utility’s connected-data foundation will address strategic customer and operational objectives, such as:

  • Empowering customers with better visibility into their accounts and usage
  • Intelligent customer engagement, communications, and program promotion
  • More accurate reads and billing through daily/hourly meter reads
  • Reducing field crew deployments and making service calls more efficient
  • Increasing conservation program performance through targeted communications and enforcement via meter data
  • Protecting revenue through data-enabled leak detection

In 2019 the Utility partnered with Red Clay Consulting to upgrade from Oracle Utilities Customer Care & Billing (CC&B) v2.4.3 to Oracle Utilities C2M. C2M enables the Utility to streamline the meter-to-cash-to-customer process, link customer and meter data seamlessly with no middleware, and reduce platform costs.
In addition to supporting functionality within C2M, Red Clay has worked with the Utility to understand their business intelligence requirements and analytics needs and developed KPIs, reports, and dashboards to support business decision making.
“We are proud to support our clients as they further realize the value of their AMI investment, and continue on their transformational customer experience roadmap,” said Paul Marnell, CEO of Red Clay Consulting. “This project go-live marks one of the largest implementations of C2M for an AMI water utility known to date.”
This C2M implementation by Red Clay allows for a significantly smoother transition for the Utility’s current Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) rollout. With this scalable solution, the Utility can now gather real-time, actionable data across the utility to support analytics, field service automation, alerts & events, optimize billing processes, improve customer engagement, and support conservation through leak notifications and service rule education.

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About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers, and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

Media Contact
Saurabh Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
Saurabh.Parashar@redclay.com

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Red Clay Consulting Selected to Support a Public Utility on their Wholesale Billing Solution Upgrade

Generating actionable data to enhance billing processes

ATLANTA, GA – May 6, 2022 –

Red Clay Consulting, a Gold Level Member of the Oracle Partner Network and a solutions implementer that helps utilities modernize through technology solutions, today announces a partnership to support the upgrade of a large public utility’s existing billing system.

The client is a nonprofit public utility that provides wholesale electric, water, and transmission services to cities and electric cooperatives, helping fuel one of the nation’s fastest-growing regions. As the primary wholesale provider of electricity in the region, this utility currently serves more than 30 city utilities and electric cooperatives.

The utility is currently using the Oracle Utilities Billing Component 1.6 (formerly Lodestar) as their rate calculation engine and the Energy Information Platform component as their customer web portal for the presentment of invoices and for access to supporting information. The utility has used their current system to generate and present invoices to their wholesale and transmission customers for more than 20 years. Oracle is ending support for this legacy billing system in 2022, and the utility sought to procure a market-based solution to replace the end-of-life billing system and the customer portal. They are upgrading their existing billing systems to the Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service.

The utility elected to migrate to a cloud solution to keep their technology current and maintain technical and security currency that is not possible in an on-premises environment. Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service is a fully SaaS solution that enables business agility and innovations, provides security, risk reduction and stability and reduces the burden on Information Technology departments so a utility’s focus can remain on the customer.

“We are excited to work alongside our partners as they embark on this upgrade that will provide their wholesale electric customers with reliable, cost-effective power,” said Paul Marnell, CEO of Red Clay Consulting. “Their upgrade to the cloud reduces both capital and operating costs, powerfully supports data security, and provides the ability to keep pace with technology and improve operational flexibility.”

The Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service provides access to specific billing capabilities and supporting billing-related functions such as managing device information, managing billing-related measurement and device event data, and configuration of rating and billing.

This project began in January 2022 and will go live in the first quarter of 2023.

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About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

Media Contact
Saurabh Parashar
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
Saurabh.Parashar@redclay.com

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Red Clay Consulting and the City of Columbus Department of Public Utilities Are Enabling Enhanced Meter Operations

Elevating customer service and engagement through the Enhanced Meter Project

ATLANTA, GA – April 22, 2022 – Red Clay Consulting, a Gold Level Member of the Oracle Partner Network and a top tier Oracle solutions implementer, announces their support of the City of Columbus Department of Public Utilities’ Enhanced Meter Project to remotely manage meter readings and provide expanded services for customers. As part of this project, Red Clay Consulting implemented Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service (CCS), Oracle’s meter-to-cash SaaS solution.

The City of Columbus Department of Public Utilities (CDPU) provides water to more than 1.3 million customers. CDPU has approximately 300,000 water meters and 16,000+ electric meters across its service area. Utilities today are faced with a myriad of challenges and demands from an increasingly connected customer base. To meet the evolving needs of their customers, CDPU was searching for a metering platform that would empower them with the tools and analytics to provide superior customer service and improve operational efficiencies.

In October 2020, CDPU partnered with Red Clay Consulting and Sensus, a Xylem brand, as part of their Enhanced Meter Project (EMP) to deploy advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) and Meter Data Management (MDM). The technology upgrade will accurately measure water and electricity consumption, improve operational efficiencies, and provide expanded services for customers. Through this project, CDPU is:

  • Enabling informed customer engagement, communications, and program promotion
  • Gaining operational efficiencies from improved data quality
  • Reducing field crew deployments and making service calls more efficient
  • Protecting revenue through data-enabled leak detection and awareness of meter conditions

“The Enhanced Meter Project will empower our water and power customers with better visibility into their account usage, help us to achieve greater operational efficiency as a department, and improve accuracy and transparency of customer communications,” said Kevin Knisley, the EMP project coordinator with the city’s Division of Water. “We selected Red Clay as our partner based on their extensive industry experience and understanding of best practices as we manage our future-state roadmap.”

Red Clay was responsible for a critical piece of EMP, implementing Oracle Utilities Customer Cloud Service (CCS), Oracle’s SaaS meter-to-cash solution, integrated with the Sensus Regional Network InterfaceTM (RNI). With this solution set, deployed in February 2022, CCS provides CDPU’s with accurate AMI water and electric usage data for customer billing and actionable insights based on meter events in CDPU’s service territory.

“The team at the City of Columbus Department of Public Utilities has been quick to innovate and find new ways of gaining value out of their AMI investment,” said Paul Marnell, CEO of Red Clay. “The successful go-live of Customer Cloud Service to support the AMI rollout is a key milestone of the Enhanced Meter Project.”

EMP efforts continue, with efforts to deploy additional CCS capabilities and achieve further benefits realization for CDPU and its customers later this year.

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About Red Clay Consulting

Focused solely on the utility industry Red Clay advises, delivers, and manages technical and business solutions based on their clients’ unique needs. Red Clay works hand in hand with Oracle to offer our clients the industry’s most comprehensive and flexible software platform. Red Clay’s strong partnership with Oracle Utilities provides our clients innovative and proven solutions. For more information, visit https://redclay.com/.

Media Contact
Brian Lassiter
Red Clay Consulting, Inc.
www.redclay.com
brian.lassiter@redclay.com

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