for North American Power Marketers
Study Indicates IT spending in Wholesale and Retail set to Rise by 10-15%
Houston, TX—November 3, 2004—UtiliPoint® International, Inc.’s (UtiliPoint®) Trading & Risk Management practice has completed the first benchmarking of Information Technology (IT) at North American power marketers. The study of forty power marketers, investor-owned and municipal utilities, and generators across North America examined IT in both the wholesale and retail marketing functions. The final report is now available from UtiliPoint®.
This study breaks new ground,” reports Gary M. Vasey, Ph.D., Vice President, Trading & Risk Management practice for UtiliPoint®. “Never before has such a comprehensive analysis of power marketing IT been performed and we have now established industry benchmark data with which to work.
UtiliPoint® found a high use of internally-developed software solutions for the retail billing function among respondents,” said Jon Brock, COO for UtiliPoint®. “These solutions tend to be highly customized for a particular situation and respondents reported a requirement in their IT staffs to be agile when working with frequently changing requirements.
The study found high on-going and historical replacement rates for power trading, transaction and risk management software applications with just less than one-third of all applications being marked for replacement over the next two years. The research also found that IT expenditures on wholesale and retail power marketing is set to rise between 10-15% to support the investment required to ensure that applications meet current business requirements and to increase integration levels.
Given the volatility experienced in the industry over the last decade, it is probably not surprising to learn that many IT staffs are operating un-integrated software applications supported with multiple spreadsheets,” said Vasey. “That industry volatility is almost certainly set to continue in the future and many are finding that government legislation, such as Sarbanes-Oxley, is requiring auditable transaction trails, which means change for the shops relying heavily on spreadsheets.
The study also identified benchmark data including IT costs/MWh traded and other measures noting a significant difference in average IT costs between pure marketers and non-marketers.
For more information on obtaining the report, please visit http://www.utilipoint.com/rci/details.asp?ProductID=1093 or contact Gary M. Vasey, Ph.D. at 281-681-8020 or gvasey@utilipoint.com.
About UtiliPoint® International, Inc.
With origins dating to 1933, UtiliPoint® International, Inc. is a leader in providing research-based consulting to the utility industry. UtiliPoint analysts have provided strategic business plans and studies on information technology, and its impact on utility operations. Direct experiences include work in trading/risk management, outsourcing, CIS, billing, CRM, metering, AMR, demand response, work/outage management, supply chain, ERP, call centers, rates/pricing products, and IT architectural design. The firm is also the publisher of IssueAlert®, an analysis of the utility and energy industry's hot topics sent to over 33,000 utility and energy executives daily.