Oracle Utilities Improves GasTerra's Operations With a Single Unified System

[ GasTerra ], one of Europe's leading natural gas traders, has implemented four solutions from the Oracle Utilities family to increase speed in aligning its IT systems and to better support its rapidly changing business requirements.
Following GasTerra's separation from sister gas transportation company, Gasunie, in 2005, the company found its legacy platform to be burdened with applications it no longer required. Additionally, the utility's previous infrastructure was poorly integrated, creating difficulties in meeting the demands of Europe's gas market which is increasingly moving toward short-term contracts, requiring utilities to make decisions more quickly.
To overcome these issues, GasTerra chose to implement solutions from Oracle Utilities including [ Oracle Utilities Quotations Management 1.5 ], Oracle Utilities Transaction Management 1.5, [ Oracle Utilities Load Profiling and Settlement 1.5 ] and [ Oracle Utilities Billing Component 1.5 ]. As a result, for the first time, GasTerra is running its entire gas trading operations on a single unified system, enabling the company to benefit from a single, reliable source of business data, and improving business decision making.
GasTerra is able to increase efficiency while lowering costs and minimizing risks by automating its entire market settlement process. Additionally, it is now better positioned to manage price quotes for current and prospective customers. Furthermore, the company is now more flexible and accurate when handling complex billing scenarios in a constantly changing marketplace.
The project will seek to enhance functionalities to include built-in pricing capabilities, supply-and-demand balancing functionalities and support for trading activities.

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"The solutions delivered by Oracle Utilities have enabled us to fulfill our core business need -- to improve business productivity. Our contact management, allocation and billing processes now run smoothly, and we have reduced errors by not having overlapping applications," said Eddie Jonker, IT program manager, GasTerra. "By moving to a single platform and working with Oracle, we have access to a simplified IT infrastructure which means we are able to act quickly and complete deals we could not before."
"Due to the changing nature of the European gas market, it was imperative for GasTerra to replace its legacy system with a fully integrated architecture better placed to meet its business needs," said Bastian Fischer, vice president and general manager, EMEA, Oracle Utilities. "GasTerra now has access to a system that enables it to close deals faster, and following the completion of the second phase of the project, can help in generating more business opportunities."

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About Oracle Utilities
Oracle Utilities delivers proven software applications that help utilities of all types and sizes achieve competitive advantage, business performance excellence and a lower total cost of technology ownership. Oracle Utilities integrates industry-specific customer care and billing, network management, work and asset management, mobile workforce management and meter data management applications with the capabilities of Oracle's industry-leading enterprise applications, business intelligence tools, middleware, database technologies, as well as servers and storage. The software enables customers to adapt more nimbly to market deregulation, meet ever-evolving customer demands and deliver on environmental conservation commitments. Additionally, Oracle Utilities helps utilities prepare for smart metering and smart grid initiatives that enhance efficiency and provide critical intelligence metrics that can help drive more-informed energy and water usage decisions for consumers and businesses. For more information, visit [ www.oracle.com/goto/utilities ].

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Oracle Utilities Improves GasTerra's Operations With a Single Unified System