DENVER, Colo. — Hydro Ottawa has ended a year-long search for a software solution to consolidate its business processes.
Amid the gamut of product and service hype associated with J.D. Edwards 5, the customer voice also rang out loud and clear at this year’s annual Focus user group conference.
Hydro Ottawa Ltd., the local electricity distribution company for the City of Ottawa, is banking on J.D. Edwards’ collaborative enterprise software to help it integrate business processes into one IT platform. The goal is to also cut costs, said CIO Sergio Dinis, one of the key decision makers of the upcoming implementation.
Hydro Ottawa needed help consolidating business processes, he said, in the wake of the amalgamation. Five Ontario utilities are now rolled into one including Gloucester Hydro, Goulbourn Hydro, Nepean Hydro, Kanata Hydro and Ottawa Hydro.
Hydro Ottawa, which employs 500 people and services a quarter of a million customers, was already running J.D. Edwards software at the Kanata location. And while Hydro Ottawa looked at implementing similar technology from either SAP or PeopleSoft, the utility finally decided on JD, in part, for its scalability, Dinis said. J.D. Edward’s background in the energy industry was another key factor.
Hydro Ottawa plans to use OneWorld Financials and Workforce Management applications by this fall. In 2003, the utility plans to hook up Enterprise Asset
Management in a bid to track performance and cut maintenance costs, he said.
“It’s about bringing product to life — and we gave them a solution that gives them great value,” explains Bob Pozzobon, vice-president and general manager of J.D. Edwards Canada Ltd.
Hydro Ottawa wasn’t alone in making partnership announcements. Other customer wins included aluminum alloy producer Wabash Alloys, which is integrating a CRM module into the its existing OneWorld ERP system, while cookie maker Otis Spunkmeyer said it plans to go after J.D.’s Demand Planning software.
Meanwhile, on the partner front, J.D. Edwards announced alliances with IBM, Deloitte Consulting, Aprimo and webMethods.
With Aprimo, for example, J.D. plans to mix its ERP and CRM applications with Aprimo’s Enterprise Marketing Management solutions.
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