By Will Sturgeon, 3 February 2004 15:55
NEWS UK electricity giant EDF Energy is still struggling to correct problems arising from a botched systems migration, more than two weeks after silicon.com reported the issue and more than three months after the problems first occurred.
In November, a migration of Seeboard customer accounts over to EDF Energy's Siebel-supplied systems locked as many as 45,000 accounts, meaning customers were unable to close accounts, make changes or resolve queries with the energy firm.
Two weeks ago, silicon.com reported the story of one customer whose house move is being held up due the problem as she is unable to close the electricity account at her previous address and satisfy the terms of her contract with previous landlords.
That customer is still in limbo and has yet to receive any notification from EDF as to how long the problem is likely to continue.
An EDF employee, who asked to remain anonymous, told silicon.com: "If there is a conflict on the account with the new system the account will go into a 'locked' status whereby anybody attempting to add meter readings, refund money or do any kind of maintenance to the account such as close it or change details will receive an error message."
EDF Energy today confirmed in a statement to silicon.com that there are around 8,000 customer accounts still locked, three months after the migration took place. A spokesman for the company added that EDF Energy is now "working around the clock to resolve [the problem] as quickly as possible".
But it's not just customers who are despairing at the botched migration - EDF employees are also expressing their displeasure at the problems and an apparent lack of communication within the company. One source within the company told silicon.com the problems have become incredibly frustrating in recent weeks. Staff have reportedly been told these are merely "teething problems" with the Siebel system but after more than three months that would appear to be verging on understatement.
However, a spokesman for Siebel told silicon.com that it is "not a Siebel problem" but was unable to provide further comment at the time of writing on the specifics in this case.
Staff concerns also focus on the fact that the systems are apparently far from user-friendly and a lot of the information is reportedly incorrect, with address details and customer names differing from one section of the program to the other.
Comments
There are 9 comments. Join the discussion
1. Barry L. Barney
Following my replies to the earlier editorial at: http://www.silicon.com/hardware/storage/0,39024649,39117744,00.htm
- I still await the phonecall!!
I have however, recently received a snailmail asking if I would prefer to make a payment - while I wait for them to sort it out!! Two choices are given for making this payment - i) By means of a debit card payment (I do not possess one!) or, ii) A cheque covering '... any amount of your choice.' Guess what my choice was!!
http://www.silicon.com/hardware/storage/0,39024649,39117744,00.htm
2. Jon Phillip Steven Pennycook
The electricity company I used at my former address, Unit-E, had a problem which caused its billing system to fall over last year just as I was moving out. I still have not had my final bill from them, and it has taken much persuasion to get my landlady to repay my Deposit, two and a half months after I moved out.
I'm thinking of putting in a complaint to EnergyWatch.
3. anonymous
That's the thing with Siebel - they only write the software and sell it to you. Its' down to the customer to break it......or actually make it work
"The perfect system is the one without users"
4. Graham Silversides
I like the way Siebel are washing their hands of the problems completely by saying "this is not a Siebel problem". If they had any business sense they would have ensured that a migration to Siebel of a high profile client such as a major utility provider like EDF would have been proerly planned and overseen. This shows Siebel up to be just as incompetent as the IT team involved in the migration, and does not look good from a Marketing perspective!
5. anonymous
Not a comment about the article, but about the banner advert for Microsoft. Because its size changes, the page can't be read until the advert settles down. Excellent advert!
6. anonymous
This is an age old problem, came across similar in 1979 and 1999 working for two different companies. The bosses 'buy the system' from so called IT experts (good sales staff then) and after trialing and going live they suddenly decide it's no good and go back to old system. The bosses want to listen to the staff who actually use these systems more carefully, as they would have known beforehand that it wass a waste of money changing. If it 'aint broke why fix it.
7. Diane Wicks
Everyone who has a complaint because they can't get their accounts dorted out SHOULD complain to EnergyWatch. What are you waiting for, that's what they are there for. Complain to your MP's too. With enough complaints flooding in it will soon be debated in parliament and maybe then the mess will be sorted out (but don't hold your breath).
8. Barbara Dossetter
Without prejudice to this particular migration project (since I don't know the details) I see a lot of positions for Project Managers with under 10 years experience paying about £35,000, which by the reading of the ad will be put into critical positions on projects like this. These are multi million pound projects and its done on the basis of saving a few pounds. I know of excellent Project Managers with 20+ years of experience who would not make basic mistakes and for £20,000 per year more would have prevented this multi million pound loss of revenue, customers, customer good will, staff costs to repair the problem and staff morale. This one is highly public but most of them are brushed under the carpet unless they come to the notice of places like Silicom.com or Computer Weekly. It would be interesting to review the old job adds and figure out what the skill requirements for the key players in this project were. To support other comments here, good Project Managers involve the consumer (user of the system) at all stages of the development and listen to them because they know from bitter experience that to fail to do so will make the project fail. I learned the hard way too many years ago.
9. Martyn
To be fair to Siebel this problem has nothing to do with them. The problem reported was caused with the migration of accounts from the Customer/1 package to the backend billing systems. Siebel is just a front end to the system,has been operational without any problems for over a year and experienced no problems due to the migration. A relatively small number of accounts were affected out of the millions migrated, and the millions now held.