The New Zealand-based software firm, Agility CIS Ltd, says it has been selected by Oman's Electricity Holding Company (EHC) to pilot a new billing system for the whole of the Sultanate.

The state-owned EHC, whose four subsidiaries manage the distribution of power to more than 650,000 homes and businesses in the country, has chosen Agility’s ‘Orion’ system for the large-scale pilot.

With the government deciding to replace its existing outsourced billing and collections services, a modern, flexible and reliable billing system is essential. The pilot project will be used to bill 50,000 customers for six months, before EHC decides whether to roll the system out to the rest of the country. Agility CIS won the tender in the face of fierce global competition, including US and European software giants. With all the world's software to choose from, EHC picked Agility’s Orion system as the best fit to its needs.

Orion is capable of managing multiple services including electricity, gas, water, telephony and Internet. Orion’s architecture offers users extensive flexibility and ease of use, which makes it effective for both regulated and deregulated markets throughout the world. 'A project like this happens only once for a country like the Sultanate of Oman,' says EHC's Michael Lim. 'We looked at the functionality very closely and found Orion's time for implementation was faster than the others. Their readiness to deploy and data migration plan were all key factors in making the decision to choose Orion.

'Agilit'’s local partner in the pilot, Software Systems LLC (SSL) have a proven track record with us, having delivered the CRM project for our four subsidiaries — they know our processes for service requests and know our databases so that was another factor in deciding to work with them. After a long and robust tender process, we concluded that Agility’s Orion was the most flexible and dynamic solution.'

Mike Thorne, CEO for Agility CIS, sees the contract as breaking ground in a new and promising market for the Orion software. The system is used widely in Australia and New Zealand, but the Middle East is new region for them. “The Middle East is a very promising market area, with a number of countries looking to upgrade their outdated billing systems,” Mike Thorne says.

"That's exactly the kind of change that develops opportunities for us. We have a very strong motivation to make sure this project works." If the pilot is successful, he says, Agility CIS will be looking to open a regional office in nearby Dubai. For Agility CIS and most New Zealand companies, providing services to an entire country half way around the world is a major project.

For example, the Orion software needs to be adapted to a completely new operating environment, and translated into Arabic — and all of this with the client located eight timezones away, and with a different working week. That's where Agility's local partner business, Software Systems LLC of Oman, comes in. "We are delighted to be working with Agility to implement the Pilot Billing and Collection System Project.

The Orion System is future ready and we are certain that it will help optimise the business efficiencies of EHC and help them to better serve their customers going forward," says Osama Henein, General Manager, SSL. Agility CIS plans to have the pilot ready for launch in eight months — a timescale that most software companies would find daunting. Agility CIS has a proven track record of adapting Orion to fit the client's needs, within budget, and within tight timescales.