East
Africa's largest power distributor, Kenya Power, today announced the selection
of IBM (NYSE: IBM) for an automated system that will provide a real time status
of all business processes.
This will enable the power distributor implement its
strategic expansion plans.
Kenya
Power is counting on technology to expand its client base, currently nearing 3
million, by another one million customers and to push its current electricity
generation capacity from 2025 megawatts to 5000 plus megawatts by 2015. The
company plans to roll out electricity distribution services across more areas
of Kenya as its drives a comprehensive strategy to capture more demand from
under-served regions.
The
new system will consolidate data from ten key operational sources to provide a
single view of enterprise data. This new infrastructure will use advanced IBM
analytics to enable Kenya Power to study and compare real time and historical
data to better monitor business operations and trends, and anticipate future
electrical needs. KP teams can now access data on demand on one dashboard
compared to 10 different dashboards.
The
real-time analytics can be accessed through cloud computing, allowing
executives working remotely to use mobile devices to view data pooled from all
corners of the company. This will provide unparalleled insight into the
electricity company's operations, and allow instant decision making to help
improve business performance.
The
new solution will also provide greater insight into customer needs. Currently,
Kenya Power has a number of different systems for billing, customer
relationships and matching customer information with government census details.
The disparate data sources make it difficult to aggregate and combine data to
produce meaningful customer insights.
The
IBM solution provides a central repository for various data sources and the
analytic capabilities reconcile, correct, and quality-assess the information to
provide a consolidated view of Kenya Power's customers. Based on this view, the
company will be able to improve the call center experience, better identify
customer needs and match new services to meet these needs.
“The
analytics solution gives us the ability to rapidly perform complex queries on
data,” said Ben Chumo, Chief Executive Officer, Kenya Power. “For example, we
can better understand the varying needs of our customers across different
regions in Kenya based on customer buying behavior or manage the power grids
more efficiently in specific areas during certain times of the day.”
A
heavy dependency on often unreliable rainfall patterns to power hydroelectric
generators has prompted Kenya to diversify its energy source, with coal and
geothermal sources emerging as new energy sources. In line with this shift,
Kenya Power is keen to understand how its current customers are using power
with a view to restructuring its network to better serve high value and
essential clients. The new technology implementation is expected to help Kenya
Power understand the dynamics behind its customers' use of power as well as
instrument power distribution monitoring on a real time basis.
"Efficient
energy distribution is a key component to the continued growth of this economy.
Technology has the unique ability to help companies like Kenya Power leverage
big data to gain deeper insights of their customers and power grids," said
Nik Nesbitt, General Manager, IBM East Africa. "IBM is continuously
extending its capabilities to enable businesses in this region and across
Africa, with tools to intelligently instrument and innovate their processes in
order to help them work smarter."
Working
with its Business Partner the Symphony Group, IBM developed a complete solution
for Kenya Power that includes: hardware, (System z BC-12 server, DS8870
storage, PureData for Analytics) software, (zOS, DB2, Tivoli, Cognos,
InfoSphere and SPSS) as well as IBM services and training.
Escalating
Success for IBM in Africa
Africa
is expected to be part of an anticipated $3.47 billion being spent on high
value infrastructure projects this year.* IBM is already working with a number
of private companies, IT partners, public sector heads and academics to better
understand how technology can help transform their processes.
The
new signing is the latest in a series of System z announcements from IBM in
Africa. In May 2014, IBM unveiled two new Mainframe Linux and Cloud labs in
Kenya and South Africa. In February, the Government of Ghana announced that
they were working with Yale University and IBM Research – Africa to help
eliminate mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Ghana using a Mainframe based
solution.
IBM
is also working with industries across Africa on a series of high-value
infrastructure projects. For example, in South Africa, First National Bank
(FNB) has seen significant growth across mobile banking channels with its
mainframe environment. IBM is working with FNB to help the bank deploy mobile
“bank-in-a-box” solutions that deliver financial services over any channel in
near-real time.
*
Gartner, Middle East and African IT Infrastructure Revenue by Technology Report,
February 2014
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